Baking a Cookie Cake!

We celebrated my sister's 15th birthday this week and as I had bought her concert tickets as her main gift, I wanted to find a creative way to give them to her. I think giving someone an envelope as a gift usually means money, vouchers, tickets etc. so I wanted to do something that would take her completely by surprise! I remembered a few years ago that she asked for a Cookie Cake and after realising how expensive it was to buy one (I had already spent way too much than I intended on her birthday), I decided to have a go at making one myself. I was extremely nervous that it was going to backfire but I was so pleased with the finish result!

It took very little ingredients to bake as I only used a standard cookie mix, some strawberry icing and a bag of M & M's! I started off by moulding the cookie mix (milk and white chocolate chips) into the shape of a circular baking tray to achieve the standard Cookie Cake size and shape. I then built the edges up a little to form as much of a circular outline as possible to make it look even.

I literally made this with without  a recipe so I baked it in the oven at 155 degrees until it looked baked (professional or what?). It was probably in the oven about 15-20 minutes, I can't really remember. It didn't bake aswell on the bottom as I had hoped but it was too much of a risk in burning the whole cake in order to achieve this as the top was very golden.

Whilst it was still warm from the oven, I arranged a bunch of a M & M's to spell out '15' in the middle. It looked very simple but effective I thought!

To finish it off, I piped small rosettes around the edge using a tub of strawberry flavoured icing that I pre bought from the supermarket. I didn't have much time as the only time I was able to bake the cake was early in the morning when my sister was asleep! I was kinda on edge that she would appear and catch me!

I presented my finished Cookie Cake in a white box with a huge pink bow on the top! I loved how it turned out and I was so chuffed with it. I put the concert tickets in an envelope and stuck them on the inside of the box which she didn't actually notice straight away like I had hoped! She actually didn't believe I had made it myself and thought I bought it from Millie's Cookies! So mission accomplished right? 

I hope you enjoyed this post. I have a good few ideas for new content over the next week so I'll be back soon! Hope you enjoy the rest of your day wherever you are :)