Thanksgiving Cookie Cake Pie

It’s no cherpumple, but the dessert I made for my office’s annual Thanksgiving potluck was a bit of an undertaking… but a fun one! 😀

After posting about the cherpumple on my blog, blog reader Stephanie commented to tell me about another creation that was much less involved than the three-layer cake pie, but still looked amazingly indulgent and delicious.

The recipe Stephanie mentioned was posted on the blog Cake Spy, and called for a pie crust filled with a layer of chocolate chip cookie dough, topped with funfetti cake and buttercream icing.

It looked amazing.

I immediately had the idea to recreate the cookie cake pie, turning it into a more Thanksgiving-appropriate dessert.

My vision: Pie crust, filled with cinnamon oatmeal cookie dough, topped with spice cake and pumpkin spice buttercream frosting.

Last night I set out to make my Thanksgiving cookie cake pie.

I began by preheating the oven to 300 degrees and thawing two store-bought frozen pie doughs. (You could make you own homemade pie crusts if you wish.)

While the crusts were thawing, I prepared a batch of oatmeal cookie dough.

I slightly altered this recipe from Southern Living to make my cookie dough.

Cinnamon Oatmeal Cookie Dough

Ingredients

• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 2 c. old fashioned oats
• ¾ c.  sugar
• 1 tbsp. cinnamon
• 1 c.  vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 ½ tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

• Mix all dry ingredients together. Mix in wet ingredients until evenly distributed and dough is moist and thick.

I then spread the cookie dough evenly inside the pie crusts.

The dough was about an inch thick, and I had a little dough remaining that I split with Sadie. 😉

Spice Cake

With the cookie dough in the pie crusts, I then began making the spice cake. I used a box of Duncan Hines moist supreme spice cake mix for the batter and followed the directions on the back of the box exactly.

Once my batter was adequately mixed, I divided it between the two cookie pies, pouring it on top of the oatmeal cookie dough. (I had a lot of batter leftover.)

I followed the instructions detailed on Cake Spy and made sure to fill my pie crusts until they were about 2/3 of the way full, allowing for room for the cake to rise in the oven.

Then it was time to bake… and wait.

The Cake Spy instructions call for baking the cookie cake pie for 30-40 minutes in a 350 degree oven. After reading reviews from people who experienced an undercooked cookie cake pie, I decided to drop the oven temperature down to 300 degrees and cook the cookie cake pie for more than an hour. My cookie cake pie probably ended up in the oven for around and hour and 10 minutes. I let it cook until the spice cake passed the touch test (felt firm yet spongey and didn’t sink in when pressed lightly).

While the cookie cake pies cooled, I set out to make my frosting.

Since my love for pumpkin is so strong, I really wanted to incorporate the seasonal squash into this dish somehow and figured adding it into the icing would be a great way to get some pumpkin flavor into the cookie cake pie without it being too pumpkiny (if anything can be too pumpkin, that is 😉 ).

Pumpkin Spice Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients

• 2 sticks of room-temperature butter
• ½ c. canned pumpkin
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
• ½ tsp. ginger
• ½ tsp. cinnamon
• 4 c. powdered sugar

Directions

Cream together butter, pumpkin, vanilla and spices until evenly combined. Slowly mix in powdered sugar, ½ cup at a time until frosting becomes thick and spreadable.

Once the cookie cake pies were completely cool, I spread the pumpkin spice buttercream frosting on top.

Then it was time for eatin’!

It was moist and chock-full of autumn flavor.

Definitely a winner… and a great way to satisfy cookie, cake and pie lovers alike at Thanksgiving.