That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles

Just in case you have some prepackaged cookies sitting around, here are a couple of nifty recipes to try because what else would you do with a dozen Oreos or a bag of Milanos other than chop them up and use them as an ingredient in a cake, right?

Since I'd picked up Maida Heatter's Cakes book a couple of weeks ago, I'd been carrying it around, reading recipes and feeling inspired. I ended up trying her Oreo Cookie Cake. On its own, this cake would be a lovely, moist white sour-cream pound cake. With chopped up Oreos, it's got a little something extra. The Oreos didn't become soggy as I figured they would; instead, they stayed crunchy. I'm glad I chopped them fairly small.

Then there's the Milano Coffee Cake from Lora Brody's Chocolate American Style. In the intro to this recipe, Lora relates an anecdote about the origin of this recipe, in which an unfortunate bag of Pepperidge Farms Milanos sadly becomes a bag of crumbs. This misfortune led her to use the Milano crumbs as a streusel topping for a marbled chocolate and vanilla coffee cake. When I first read this recipe eons ago, I couldn't get past the idea that someone could possibly allow a bag of Milanos to become crumbs. Then I dropped a can of tomatoes on a bag of mint Milanos a few weeks ago. Sigh. The Milanos make a pretty good topping for the cake, although I suspect I overbaked this cake a bit even though I took it out of the oven five minutes before the recommended baking time. I think this cake would be nifty with a drizzle of chocolate glaze. Maybe I can try that the next time I have a Milano accident.