Easter Egg Cake Cookies

One of the very first recipes I EVER created all on my own were cake cookies.

I was about 9 or 10 and just getting into experimenting in the kitchen. I wanted to make some homemade cookies, and ended up mixing up a bunch of things in a bowl--flour, eggs, sugar, milk, vanilla, baking powder. I scooped piles of the resulting dough onto a baking sheet and stuck it in the oven, sitting down in front to peek in every few minutes.

What came out was, miraculously, delicious!

They weren't like any cookies I'd ever tasted--these were more like little round cakes--soft and plump in the middle, with a bit of crisp around the edges.

My brother and I ate these along with one of his friends, who I remember suggested putting butter on it (a genius idea that at the time we thought was weird, but which now I love--cake or cookies spread with salty butter is delicious!).

The problem was that since I had literally just winged the whole thing, I had no idea how to recreate it.

Years passed and I forgot about those childhood cake cookies. But then one day I tasted a black & white cookie--the New York City favorite of a soft cake-like cookie iced with chocolate and vanilla frosting.

They tasted like MY cake cookies!

I've since made black & white cookies a few time, though I've never written about them here. But while wondering what to do for Easter, I thought it would be fun to make egg-shaped cake cookies iced with a mix of white and pastel vanilla icing.

So that's exactly what I did. These are a fun recipe to make with kids--the cookies bake up quickly and then you can have a messy, drippy blast icing the cookies with colors of your choosing.

I love the Jackson Pollack-like mess that results.

These keep well for about 1-2 days, but being cake, they tend to get a little stale any longer than that.

Note that you'll also need an egg-shaped cookie cutter. I actually bent a round biscuit cutter into an egg shape (much to Eugene's horror: "But it'll never be a perfect circle again!!!"), but you can easily find egg cookie cutters all over the place these days.

And check this out from The Latin Kitchen, if you're looking for some other Easter dessert ideas for kids.

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Easter Egg Cake Cookies
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen's Black & White Cookie Recipe
Makes about 12-14 Cookies

Ingredients

1 1/3 cups granulated white sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
4-5 cups confectioner's sugar
1/2 cup water
Food coloring in a few different colors

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheets with parchment paper or grease with baking spray and set aside. You'll need an egg-shaped cookie cutter for this recipe.

In the base of a mixer, beat together sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs for 5 minutes until very light. Mix in the milk and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet, mixing just until everything is combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared baking sheet. Spreading it out so that it's even and about 3/4" to 1" thick (it may not reach the edges completely). Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the edges have browned and the center of the cake springs up to the touch. Let cool in the baking sheet about 10 minutes.

Spritz the cookie cutter with a bit of baking spray and use to cut out egg shapes in the cake. (Feel free to snack on the edges!)

Set the eggs on a cooling rack to cool completely.

For the icing: Divide the sugar into 3 bowls (or more depending how many colors you are using), and add 1 to 2 teaspoons of water per bowl, whisking until very smooth. You want to go slow with this as if you add too much water it will be too thin to stick to the bowl. Leave one bowl white and then color the other to your desired shade. Use a spoon or small spatula to ice half of all the cookies white. Then color in the other half with the shade of your choice.

The icing is too thin and won't stick? Add more confectioners sugar. 

Too thick or has hardened? Add a bit more water.

Let the icing set before serving.