Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake

I've always loved those pizza-shaped chocolate chip cookie cakes...they're forever tempting me as I walk through the supermarket bakery section. For this year's Super Bowl I decided to make one myself, slightly adapting a recipe from Melissa on Tasty Kitchen. I'm not exactly the most talented decorator, but the cookie cake was quite good!

Ingredients:

• ⅓ cups Shortening
• ⅓ cups Butter (softened)
• ½ cups Brown Sugar
• ½ cups Granulated Sugar
• 1 whole Egg
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 1-½ cup Flour
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 1 cups Chocolate Chips

For Decorating:

• Vanilla Icing
• Food Coloring
• Chocolate Chips (about 1/4 cup)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350ºF and grease a round cake pan with shortening.

Beat together shortening, butter and sugars until creamy. Add in egg and vanilla. Mix well.

Stir in flour, baking soda and salt. Mix until flour is totally incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips until evenly distributed.

Pour mixture into a cake pan and spread evenly. Bake for 20 minutes, or until top is golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean when stuck in the middle. Remove from the oven and cool completely before decorating.

I used a store-bought container of icing, some food coloring and some melted chocolate chips to decorate the cookie. I started by spreading a ring of icing around the outside edge. Then I mixed some yellow food coloring into the icing and piped a decorative border and the center design, using a floral tip. I melted the chocolate chips and piped on a chocolate border and the lettering using a plain tip.