Cookies and Cream Icing

FIRST: I finished a book this week and sent it in to Love Inspired, so that's REASON TO CELEBRATE in author-world!!!!! And I'm working on a delightful novella, but that's not pertinent to today's post!!!! But it will be pertinent to a later post, no doubt!

The irony of the snowman on the soapstone stove is not lost on me. And it's mid-January... we had to let the stove burn out because we were having the old stairway (remember when I ripped up that old carpet last year??????) and a bedroom, and closet and second floor landing refinished....

Here's the old look:

This is from the top of the stairs, looking down.  And this is the bedroom floor:

And then this is after the sanding was complete, without a finish:

The bedroom floor:

 The closet floor:

The stairway. What an amazing difference, right????? Crazy fun!

And then these are the finished product after a coat of sealant and then two coats of polyurethane:

I have been waiting 25 years to unearth these 160-year-old floors. I'm over the moon!!! :)

But BACK TO FROSTING!!!!

This was to-die-for.

I do not use that term lightly.

Okay, that's a lie, I DO use it lightly, but in this case the terminology is not over-the-top! It's just plain, spankin' true!

I started simply by making a Duncan Hines dark chocolate cake. Instead of letting it cool naturally, I stuck it right in the freezer for 45 minutes when it was done baking. This negates that out-of-oven cooking time that tends to dry cake and leaves your cake SUPER MOIST and delicious.

I started out looking online for a cookies and cream icing. I knew what I wanted because I worked in a commercial bakery for several years until I'd sold my third book... by then I figured that if someone was crazy enough to buy my work, they'd probably be crazy enough to buy MORE OF MY WORK!!!!

So then I could go down to two jobs, not three! <<BONUS!!!!>>

Anyway, the first recipes I saw wouldn't fit the bill. They were simply buttercream icings with crushed cookies thrown in.

(Now I know what youse are doin', you're scratchin' your heads and wonderin' why that was WRONG.... but it's all in the consistency. I wanted the taste of buttercream and the consistency of "satin" frosting, the chemically induced, gas-inflated frosting used in commercial bakeries. People that LOVE, LOVE, LOVE satin icing actually like the chemical aftertaste, like the flavorings for some icee drinks/slushy thingies. But I digress (like usual)...

Cookies and Cream Icing  (adapted from recipe here: http://www.makinghomebase.com/cookies-and-cream-frosting)

1 cup butter, softened
3 cups confectioners/powdered sugar
2/3 cup whipping cream
1 tablespoon vanilla

2 dozen crushed Oreo cookies (any flavor, depending on how you want your frosting to taste)

In large mixing bowl, whip butter until very soft and fluffy, several minutes.

Add confectioner's sugar one cup at a time, whipping butter and sugar together until light and fluffy each time. When all three cups have been added, pour in the whipping cream and the vanilla. Mix on low until liquid is incorporated, then beat on high until frosting is whipped smooth and light and holds a peak.

Crush the Oreos (You can use less, but I like a lot of cookie flavor in the frosting, like the commercial frosting makers use) into powdery pieces. Blend into frosting, use to frost cake, cupcakes or as a filling.

I cut the cake in half, then cut each half in half through the middle so I could have two layer cakes. I layerd the frosting between the layers and then topped the second layer with frosting too. A-stinkin'-mazing!!!!

I didn't go for aesthetics this time because kids and parents were coming in and they loved it without the beauty awards! In a perfect world I'd have swirled the frosting on and added an Orea in the center! But I promise, even in our non-perfect world, you will love this frosting!