May is over...Whew!

May is a crazy month in the Drewry household.  It's the last month of the school year for a teacher who is more anxious to start her summer "vacation" than the 2 teenagers in our house.  (I say vacation, although we have no plans for an actual vacation, and the summer is often more busy than the school year.)  I tend to let things go in May, knowing...or thinking....I can catch up in June, once school is out.  So, I've just spent the last day and a half cleaning up and putting away various piles of stuff from around the house.  We can actually see and sit on the sofa in the family room now!

May is also a crazy month in our household because we have a lot of celebrations in May...Mother's Day, my Dad's birthday, my Mother-in-law's birthday, my nephew's birthday, and our own children's birthdays are all in May.  Kellen and Kaley were born exactly a week apart in May (and 2 years), which I thought was brilliant at the time...being a teacher, I got to stay home all summer with each baby after they were born.  Now, these two birthdays at the end of the month, add to the chaos!

With the kids getting too old for the traditional birthday party at the park/pizza place/or latest "it" place, we have settled in to a very nice tradition of having a home-cooked family meal of the birthday person's choice, including dessert.  Kaley chose eggplant Parmesan, my special rice, and mini cheesecakes with a hazelnut chocolate ganache.  Kellen chose bbq steaks, cheesy garlic bread, and a cookies and creme cake.  I'm quite good at cheesecakes, have baked a lot of them (and even dropped a huge NY cheesecake fresh from the oven while winning a radio contest...but that's a different blog), so that was easy.  The cookies and cream cake was more of a challenge.  When I say challenge, I mean I had to find a recipe...Pinterest is my friend.  So, what follows is the recipe and results for the cookies and cream cake.  The family loved it, and it may just be the best frosting I've every made...

Cookies & Cream Cake

1 box of white cake mix (with the called for eggs, oil & water)
1 pkg of Oreo cookies

I used my Kitchenaid mixer to mix up the white cake as instructed on the back of the box.  I always use the whole egg option - which means the cake will yellow a little bit, but I like the taste better.  After the cake was mixed, I stirred in 15 crushed oreos into the batter.  I crushed the oreos in a large freezer ziplock bag, with the back of a heavy ice cream scoop.

I poured the batter into 2 prepared round cake pans.  The batter is think and lumpy.

I baked according to the directions, and then cooled the cakes completely before I frosted them.

Cookies & Cream Frosting

1 (8 oz) pkg of cream cheese (softened)
1 (16 oz) box of powdered sugar
1 (8 oz) container of cool whip (thawed)
1/4 tsp. vanilla
15 oreos (crushed)

I used my Kitchenaid stand mixer to mix the cream cheese and sugar until smooth and creamy.  Then I added the whole container of cool whip and continued mixing, adding in the vanilla before complete.  I gotta tell you, at this point the frosting was yummy!  My daughter and I were trying to share the beater, by taking polite finger slide fulls of frosting to taste, but each of us really just wanted to lick that thing clean.  I was hesitant to add the cookies because the frosting was so smooth and creamy.  But, I folded the crushed Oreos in and was not at all disappointed.

It is not the prettiest cake I've ever frosted...

But, it is soooo delicious!  The frosting truly tastes like the middle of the Oreo cookie...there is no sour cream cheese taste that you sometimes get when it is the base of the frosting.  This is what makes this frosting a hit with my kids.  Although they both like cream cheese and cheesecakes, they do not like the taste of a cream cheese frosting as much as they do a butter cream.  I guess it's the cool whip that cuts down on the sourness.

I think this cake will be requested again...