What To Read

Food writer and chef Alison Roman, known for her viral “Internet famous” recipes for chickpea stew and chocolate shortbread cookies, has just come out with a new cookbook. Sweet Enough promises a recipe for the perfect pie, which is not a surprise given that Roman was once a restaurant pastry chef. The book also includes recipes for Raspberries and Sour Cream, Toasted Rice Pudding and a Caramelized Maple Tart — all of which are supposed to be easy to make without fancy equipment or specialty ingredients. With the chef’s permission, we’re sharing a recipe from Sweet Enough for birthday cookie cake — because why have cookies or cake when you can have both? Bon appétit!

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Ingredients

6 large egg yolks

¾ cup/150g sugar

1 teaspoon/5g vanilla extract

1½ sticks/6 ounces/170g unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch pieces, at room temperature

1½ cups/220g all-purpose flour

⅓ cup/75g sprinkles, plus 4 tablespoons, for the top

1 tablespoon/12g baking powder

1 teaspoon/4g kosher salt

Flaky sea salt

Do ahead: The dough can be made 5 days ahead, tightly wrapped, and refrigerated (or 1 month ahead, tightly wrapped and frozen). The cookies can be baked 3 days ahead and stored airtight at room temperature.

Birthday cake isn’t in everyone’s baking wheelhouse, which I get. Or maybe it’s not in the realm of possibilities because there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to measure, mix, bake, cool, and frost something. Or maybe you need to bring a birthday dessert somewhere and you need something you’re confident won’t smush, squash, or melt. Well, the allow me to introduce you to these cookies. They taste like birthday cake, only take 30-ish minutes to make, and look cute sliced into triangles with a candle stuck inside. Bake them, birthday or not.

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8- or 9-inch cake pan with a round of parchment paper (or, if baking two, line two pans).

2. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle (or in a medium bowl with an electric hand mixer), beat the yolks, sugar, and vanilla together on medium speed until extremely pale and fluffy, looking almost like hollandaise or aioli, 4–5 minutes.

3. With the mixer running, add the butter a few pieces at a time, waiting until the little pieces fully incorporate into the yolk mixture before adding more. Continue adding until all the butter is incorporated and your mixture is pale and smooth, another 4–5 minutes.

4. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, ⅓ cup/75g sprinkles, the baking powder, and kosher salt. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture to the buttery yolks, beating just to blend.

5. Divide the dough in half, refrigerate whatever you aren’t planning on baking. Pat one disc of the dough into the lined cake pan and sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of sprinkles and a bit of flaky salt.

6. Bake until shiny, golden brown, and slightly puffed on top (it will look like a very flat birthday cake), 20–25 minutes (if you like yours on the softer, chewier side, bake closer to 20 minutes).

7. Remove the cookie from the oven and let it cool slightly before flipping it out onto a cutting board and slicing it into little wedges (you can do this in the pan as well, but I try to avoid doing that lest I scratch the surface of my cake pan). Repeat with the other disc of dough, now or later.