Giant Cup-Cake

By margiekyle

Ingredients

• Unsalted butter, for greasing
• All-purpose flour, for dusting
• 3 recipes Go-To Vanilla Cupcakes batter, recipe follows, or 3 boxes of your favorite flavor cake mix
• 1 1/2 cups crushed vanilla fudge sandwich cookies (about 12 cookies broken into 1/2-inch pieces)
• 2 recipes Milk Chocolate Buttercream, recipe follows
• 1 recipe Champagne Buttercream, recipe follows
• Two 14.1-ounce tins chocolate fudge Pirouette cookies
• Multicolored sprinkles, for decorating
• 1 maraschino cherry
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 4 cups powdered sugar (1-pound box)
• Pinch fine salt
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 to 4 tablespoons milk
• 4 ounces semisweet chocolate
• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 4 cups powdered sugar (1-pound box)
• Pinch fine salt
• 3 to 4 tablespoons Champagne

Details

Servings 15
Preparation time 200mins
Cooking time 255mins
Adapted from foodnetwork.com

Preparation

Step 1

Special equipment: Four 8-inch cake pans, one 9-inch (2-quart) tempered glass mixing bowl and two 8-inch cardboard cake rounds

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and lightly flour four 8-inch cake pans and one 9-inch tempered glass mixing bowl.

Prepare the vanilla cupcake or cake mix batter. Mix the crushed sandwich cookies into the batter.

Fill a 9-inch tempered glass mixing bowl halfway with batter. Divide the remaining batter among the cake pans, filling them about halfway up the sides. Bake the cake layers for 35 to 40 minutes and the cake "dome" in the mixing bowl for 50 to 55 minutes, or until a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove and let cool completely.

Use a serrated knife to level the tops of the cake layers and the flat side of the cake dome (the dome will be inverted so that the rounded side forms the top of the cake). Measure an 8-inch cardboard cake round against the bottom of the dome and trim the round as needed so the cake sits just inside the cardboard.

Stack the cake layers, spreading about 1/2 cup of the milk chocolate buttercream between each layer. Set the stacked cake on an untrimmed 8-inch cardboard cake round. Spread a small amount of milk chocolate buttercream on the top cake layer and top with the trimmed cardboard cake round, pressing down gently to adhere. Add a dab of milk chocolate buttercream on top of the cake round and invert the domed cake, trimmed-side down, onto it. Using the serrated knife, trim the stacked cake layers below the dome at an angle to come to a slightly narrower bottom (this should look like the tapered sides of a cupcake). Spread milk chocolate buttercream evenly around the sides of the trimmed cake where the "cupcake wrapper" would be. Frost the top of the cake with Champagne buttercream, making a swirled and wavy pattern.

Cut the Pirouette cookies to the height of the "cupcake wrapper" and place next to each other around the outside of the cake. Sprinkle with multicolored sprinkles, top with a maraschino and serve!