I’ve always thought that the best part of any cake or cupcake was the frosting, but today’s cookie dough frosting recipe is taking my love of icings to a whole new level. Not too sweet, this recipe has all of the flavor of traditional cookie dough. It’s thick enough to be perfect for piping, can be thinned enough to spread easily over any cake, has the body/textural feel of real cookie dough, but isn’t so gritty that you feel like you’re eating sand. Right now my cream cheese frosting is the most popular one on my site, and it’s long been my all-time favorite frosting recipe. Today it might have just been replaced.
What You Need
Flour. All standard chocolate chip cookie dough starts with flour. This recipe does, too. However, you must heat treat your flour before using. More on this below. Butter (because, of course). Sugar. I use granulated as well as light and dark brown sugar. I like using a bit of dark brown sugar because it helps give the frosting a golden, authentic cookie dough color, but using all dark brown would make it sweeter than I prefer. Sweetened condensed milk. I took a page out of my cookie dough bites recipe for this one. Essentially, using this condensed milk helps to sweeten the cookie dough frosting without making it as grainy as it would be if you were to use sugar only. Cookie dough is inherently a bit gritty/grainy (that’s one of the things I love about it, its texture) because it’s not yet been baked so the sugars haven’t melted. However, I’ve received complaints in some of my other cookie dough recipes that people don’t like that grit, so I’ve minimized it significantly here, while not eliminating any of the cookie dough flavor. Vanilla extract and salt. For flavor. Heavy cream (or whipping cream, or double cream). Whipping our cookie dough frosting with cream lightens the texture and makes for a creamy, mostly smooth, pipeable frosting. If you intend to spread this frosting over a cake, you may find that you need to use a splash more liquid to make it easier for spreading. Chocolate chips! Because when you think cookie dough, I bet you think chocolate chip cookie dough, don’t you?
The summary above is just an overview of the ingredients that are needed and why I chose them. For the full recipe and amounts please scroll down to the recipe card.
You Must Heat-Treat Your Flour
OK, look, I’m not your mother, and I can’t make you listen to me. But I cannot in good conscience advise you to skip the step of heat treating your flour. Unfortunately, in recent years, raw flour consumption has been linked to E. Coli. To eradicate this risk, cook your flour until it reaches a temperature of 165F (75C). You can do this in the microwave or in the oven (as I do with my edible cookie dough). Just make sure you let the flour then cool completely before stirring it in with your other ingredients
What to Do With Cookie Dough Frosting:
Top off a batch of dark chocolate cupcakes or vanilla cupcakes Use it as a filling in French macarons. Use it as a filling in your favorite cupcake recipe (or instead of sprinkles in my piñata cupcakes) Eat it with a spoon. No judgement here.
Storing
I recommend using your cookie dough frosting, whether piping it on cupcakes or spreading over a cake, right after making. However, this recipe may be made in advance and stored. To store, place in an airtight container and keep at refrigerated for up to 5 days. To use, let the frosting return to room temperature. You will most likely need to briefly re-mix the frosting with an electric mixer to return it to the proper consistency.
More Recipes You Might Like:
Buttercream Frosting Swiss Meringue Buttercream Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting Peanut Butter Frosting Caramel Cake (with caramel frosting)
Enjoy!
