Choclate Chip Cookies

Fourth of July Chocolate Chip Cookie Icebox Cake

It’s summertime, and the living is easy. Or it should be, even when you have a backyardful of people coming over and you’re in charge of feeding them. With summer barbecues and Fourth of July festivities coming up, it’s time for cool sweets and icy desserts – frozen cakes are perfect for parties, not only because they cool you down (and don’t heat up the kitchen), but because they can be made in advance. Entertaining should be easy, too. This brilliant icebox cake is actually a stack of chocolate chip cookies, sandwiched with mascarpone cream. The whole thing is stashed in the freezer until you need it, softening the cookies as it sits so that you can slice it into wedges, like a cake.

Martha Stewart’s creation, natch.

This creation is from the July 2011 issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine – one of my favorites, I admit, to take on long car trips or to curl up with in the back yard, with a mojito, as the boys run through the sprinkler.

With no need for frosting or decorating, I’m thinking this cookie-stack-cake would make a perfect summertime birthday cake too. I’d love to experiment with other flavor combinations – ginger crackle cookies? Chewy chocolate cookies? Its potential is limited only by the varieties of cookies out there! Thanks Martha.

Garnish: chocolate shavings

Whisk 3 cups cream and the mascarpone in a chilled bowl until soft peaks form. Add sugar and whiskey. Whisk until medium-stiff peaks form. Refrigerate until ready to use (or up to 3 hours).

Arrange 9 cookies in a circle (with cookies touching) on a cake stand or plate. Place 2 cookies in center. Carefully spread 1 cup cream mixture evenly over cookies, leaving a slight border. Repeat to form 7 more layers, ending with cookies (you’ll have a few cookies left over). Refrigerate, lightly draped with plastic wrap, overnight.

Whisk remaining cup cream until soft peaks form. Spread over top of cake just before serving. Garnish with shavings.

Jacques Torres' Chocolate Chip Cookies

An three weeks really have passed?  My goodness.  I have been busy building a twenty by eight foot hen house and coop in the backyard, walking several hours a day in preparation for the Susan G. Komen 3-day 60 mile walk, and, well, I’ll spare you the rest of the dizzying list.  After I finish painting, hanging window boxes, planting perennials, building and mounting a roof structure, and hauling in another 600 pounds of pea gravel, the hen house will be finished and I will have a lot more time for cooking (and posting).  It has been a labor of love and, aside from moments when I’m aching and an unusually stubborn douglas fir board won’t take a nail for all my strength, it has been a pleasure to plan and build.  In truth, as it’s come together and I’ve moved my growing hens into it, it’s like the biggest outdoor fishbowl I could have imagined: endlessly entertaining and relaxing.  There is now a row of chairs along its front, and in groups of two or three we have taken to wandering out to watch the chickens with morning coffee, afternoon tea, or, recently, one of Jacques Torres ’ beautiful big cookies in hand.  Beatrice, Clementine, Edna, Edith, and Florence seem to be very happy in their new home.  They are grazing and scratching and, with a little coaxing and demonstration, learning to use the ladder up to the coop, and to roost on the bars inside.  Edna and Clementine march down first in the morning, surefooted and confident.  Edith follows next, a little timid but steady.  Then comes Beatrice, careful with each step and rather wobbly.  And last is Florence, who inevitably falls off the ladder as she trembles her way down.  Sweetest of all is that they know me, something I didn’t expect.  They all run over when I enter the house and peep and cluck at my feet, gathering and vying for some time to be petted.  “Hello, chickens,” I call as I approach.  And they perk up and walk over, some scuttering, others dawdling, all heads bobbing.  It’s quite endearing.  Eggs or not, I’m hooked.

Amongst all of the hen house work, I have been making quick suppers with our farm share and the herbs from the new garden box my Dear Husband bought for me this spring.  They are thriving in the cool, damp weather we’ve had, and I am thrilled.  The cornmeal pizzas I made tonight with a quick red sauce, some sausage, and pearls of fresh mozzarella were so much more delicious with handfuls of fresh oregano and basil.

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