Giant red velvet cookie cake with white chocolate buttercream

Red Velvet is taking over the world. I mean, you can even buy a red velvet boxed cake mix at Tescos now which is surely a sign that we're knee deep in the midsts of a full on red velvet invasion in the UK...

I love red velvet cake. The flavour is hard to sum up but it's a mix between vanilla and chocolate cake with a tang to it. I'm not sure if it's the food colouring or vinegar but it's not as sweet as most cakes and I find it's especially popular with men. Traditionally it's paired with cream cheese frosting but I think it works well with white chocolate too.

Regular readers of my blog with note my obsession with baking cookies and I had it in my mind that I wanted to make a giant cookie for a la Millies Cookies. But I wanted something a little different so I opted for a suitably festive Valentines red cookie.

Normally when I'm researching recipes my 'go to' is Pinterest but I was shocked to find that *most* of the recipes I came across used boxed red velvet cake as the main ingredient. Now I'm no cake mix snob (I love a good Betty cake!) but I wanted this cookie to be homemade so I set about mixing and matching a few recipes until I found a combination I liked.

This cookie stays chewy in the middle but retains the crunch that I love at the edges. If you like your cookies chewier then whip them out 5mins before the end time I have given.

I used this recipe to make 2 x giant 8" heart cookies but you can also use it to make smaller cookies and I think you'd get at least 36 cookies from this mix.

Red Velvet cookie cake with white chocolate buttercream

• 280g plain flour
• 50g cocoa powder
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 120g unsalted butter, at room temp
• 90g trex, at room temp (I found that the butter/trex combo helped the cookie stay truer to the original red velvet cake recipes that I use which require oil but you can use all butter if you prefer)
• 300g caster sugar
• 1 1/2tsp white wine vinegar
• 1 large egg and 1 egg yolk
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• Red food colouring - I used cake colouring gels and used approx 1/2 tsp

Buttercream

• 200g unsalted butter at room temperature
• 400g icing sugar
• 100g white chocolate (melted and cooled slightly)
• 1tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 375f/180c. Line the bottom of an 8" round tin or an 8" heart tin with greaseproof paper.
2. In a large bowl mix together dry ingredients; flour, cocoa powder, bicarb and salt, set aside.
3. With an stand/electric mixer beat together butter, sugar and vinegar until pale and fluffy. Mix in egg and egg yolk and continue to mix until combined. 
4. Add vanilla extract and red food coloring and mix until combined. With mixer set on low speed, slowly add in dry ingredients and mix until you can no longer see traces of flour.
5. Place half of the mixture into your tin and bake for approx 25mins or until the edges look slightly brown. The cookie might feel soft but will harden once cooled. The cookie does puff up quite a bit whilst baking but sinks again when cooling so you should have a nice edge on your cookie for piping!
6. At this stage it's best to prep your buttercream (which you can make in advance too). Beat butter in your stand/electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add vanilla extract and then slowly add icing sugar until combined. Slowly add cooled (melted) white chocolate and mix until the desired consistency is reached. If the buttercream is too stiff to pipe then add a few drops of milk, if it's too loose then add a few tablespoons of icing sugar. You can also colour it or flavour it in any way!
7. Remove the cookie from the oven and allow to cool in the tin. Remove cookie from tin and cool completely before sandwiching together with buttercream and sprinkles and finishing with a piped rosette flourish at the edges (optional, but advised)
8. This cookie will last for up to a week in an airtight container.