Santa’s Milk and Cookies Cake – vanilla cake layers with vanilla buttercream, sugar cookies and boiled milk frosting.
I’ve been having so much fun revisiting some of my old holiday cakes, but it’s time for a brand new flavor today! Let me introduce you to my Santa’s Milk and Cookies Cake!
Family Tradition
Like many of you, Christmastime is my favorite time of year. I love the music, the decorations, the shopping, the treats, but most of all, I love the time with my family and our traditions. More than any other holiday, Christmas brings with it my favorite family memories that have been built upon traditions we started when I was a kid. And while my family has changed a lot over the years, which means many of our traditions have changed, the one tradition that stays the same year after year is that of decorating sugar cookies for Santa.
Cookie Love
Cookies have always held a special place in my heart because they were the first baked good I felt like I mastered. At a young age, I loved being in the kitchen with my mom making a batch of chocolate chip cookies or rolled sugar cookies. Sugar cookies especially were so fun to make because we could create something different each time. Hearts for Valentine’s Day, shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day, pumpkins for Halloween, and of course, trees, stars, bells, and snowmen for Christmas.
Our Christmas sugar cookies always became part of a plate of cookies we’d gift to our neighbors. We also always saved our favorite decorated cookies for Santa, which we left out with milk and a note. Sometimes we even remembered the reindeer and left carrots alongside the treats.
Santa’s Milk and Cookies Cake
As I was thinking about Christmas-inspired cakes this year, I couldn’t help but wonder how I could turn this beloved Christmas cookie into a cake. The obvious idea might be to simply combine a vanilla cake with vanilla frosting, but I never like to go with the obvious 😉 Nope. Not me! My first thought, actually, was, “I have to include my favorite Sugar Cookie Recipe!”. These cookies are hands down my favorite sugar cookies. They’re soft and tender, and hold their shape nicely. I decided to bake up two 8-inch round sugar cookies and include them as layers in the cake. You’ll see I noted this in the recipe, but it’s important you don’t over cook the cookies. We want them to be nice and soft when you cut into the cake.
I also chose to use two frostings in this cake. The first is my traditional vanilla buttercream – just like the one you’d want to eat on a sugar cookie. There’s plenty in the recipe for the inside of the cake, as well as for frosting your extra sugar cookies. I also included a boiled milk frosting to represent the milk. I love that this frosting is far less sweet than a typical American Buttercream, actually has a milk flavor, and turns out so white. Isn’t it gorgeous?!
I think you’ll love the subtle flavor difference between the two frostings, as well as the texture combinations of the cake and sugar cookie. I really have a feeling a slice of this cake might end up on a plate next to your fireplace. Pretty sure Santa will approve!
Enjoy!
Hi. I’m very excited to try this cake recipe. Would you happen to know what changes I should make for high altitude? I’m at about 5500 ft. here in Colorado.
All of my cakes are already ready for high altitude so you should be good!
I’m going to be printing this and giving it a try, nervous to try it but excited at the same time. I don’t have the equipment you have, so it won’t look as good, but might as well give it a try!
I’ve become a tad obsessed with baking myself so I feel like I have found a kindred spirit with you. Love your blog/instagram/story. Keep being awesome!
Allison
https://clementschronicles.com
Can I freeze the sugar cookie layers? If so, how should I do it? I’m planning on making the cakes tomorrow and assembling on Thursday.
Yes you can! Just double wrap them in saran!
Had issues with lumpy butter…is it supposed to be lumpy and melt in when baked? Why not cream the butter and sugar first? Cakes are cooling now and seem to have turned out!
This cake does beat butter and sugar first. If it’s too lumpy your ingredients might have been too cold.
Where did you find that beautiful cake stand?
Target
This looks amazing ! How would you make this into cupcakes ? Fill with the boiled milk frosting and maybe a sugar cookie bottom ?
Yeah I think that would be perfect!
How would you do a sugar cookie bottom for cupcakes? Do you bake the cookie dough before adding the batter? Or just add the cookie dough and batter on top and bake it that way?
This took all day but it was great! It wasn’t too hard, just time consuming!
My boyfriends favorite thing that I bake is sugar cookies, so this was the perfect recipe for his birthday cake. The cake was light and perfect and the sugar cookie in the middle was a nice surprise, with a slight change of texture, but still really cohesive. Now the ermine frosting is a game changer. I didn’t think it would actually taste like milk, I’ve only heard that it’s less sweet than American buttercream, but I might be making this frosting more often. Now I slightly messed up by freezing the ermine frosting because when I whipped it back at room temperature, it came out too thin and runny. I ended up putting this frosting in the middle like a filling and then the American vanilla around the cake. But my ermine frosting had a texture similar to cream cheese and a taste of deliciousness. I can’t really describe it, but everyone loved it only complaint that I have is the recipe says it has enough sugar cookie dough to make extra cookies but mine did not. Not a big deal to me because I was making extra sugar cookies on the side anyways. Everyone loved this recipe and said that it was not as sweet as my other cakes. 10/10!