This Biscoff Cake pairs fluffy vanilla cake layers with a sweet cookie butter frosting and crushed speculoos cookies.
Where are my cookie butter fans at? This Biscoff Cake is for YOU. It is pure cookie butter heaven.
I didn’t know cookie butter was a thing until a friend of mine brought me back a jar from Trader Joe’s. We don’t have Trader Joe’s here and I am forever sad about that. I don’t get down to the US that often so I’m unable to partake in all of the amazing goodies they have there.
Thankfully, we can now get our own cookie butter in the stores here in Canada. The brand we have is called Penotti and you can find it wherever you’d find peanut butter or other spreads.
What Is Cookie Butter?
Cookie butter is made from Belgian Speculoos cookies. Speculoos (or Biscoff) cookies have a unique flavor that is hard to describe — spiced, crisp, gingersnap-like cookies.
They are delicious dunked in tea, and even better in the form of a spread!
You can use it just as you’d use something like peanut butter or chocolate hazelnut spread. Cookies, cakes, frostings, ice cream — the delicious possibilities are endless.
The Biscoff Cake I bring you today uses both Smooth snd Crunchy Cookie butter spreads. I used the smooth spread in the buttercream, and the crunchy spread on top of each cake layer.
How to Make this Biscoff Cake
I chose to do a simple vanilla cake so that I could let the cookie butter stand out in the to-die-for Biscoff buttercream.
I made my favorite Swiss meringue buttercream and added some of the smooth cookie butter spread to it. It’s important not to add too much as this can (and will) affect the texture of your buttercream and might make it too soft.
Using the crunchy cookie butter is optional, but I like the extra flavor and texture it gives the cake. You could also just use crushed speculoos cookies between the layers.
I kept the decorating fairly simple. Smooth sides with crushed speculoos cookies along the top and bottom of the cake and finished it off with some rosettes piped with a 6B tip.
If you’re a cookie butter fan, you will LOVE this cake!
And if you’ve never had cookie butter before, run (don’t walk) to your nearest grocery store to get yourself some. And then come make this cake!
Tips for this Biscoff Cake:
- The recipe as-is will also work in two 8″ pans. For three 8″ pans, 1.5x the recipe.
- To make cupcakes, all you need to do is reduce the baking time — start checking at 15mins or so.
- I used both Smooth snd Crunchy Cookie butter spreads in this cake.
- If you don’t have crunchy cookie butter, you can use smooth on each layer or just leave it out.
- Alternatively, you can use crushed cookies on top of the frosting between the layers for some crunch.
- The cooled cake layers can be baked ahead of time, double wrapped in plastic wrap, and frozen for up to 3 months. Take out 2-3 hours before assembly.
- The frosting can be placed in an airtight container and refrigerated for 1 week for frozen for 3 months. Bring to room temp and rewhip before using.
- Be sure to check my Swiss Meringue Buttercream post for tips and troubleshooting.
- Learn how to keep your cakes moist using Simple Syrup.
- To help ensure your cake layers bake up nice and flat, see my Flat Top Cakes post.
Biscoff Cake (Cookie Butter Cake)
Ingredients
Vanilla Cake:
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 1/4 tsps baking powder
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 3 large eggs room temperature
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup milk room temperature
Biscoff Buttercream:
- 5 large egg whites
- 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter room temperature, cubed
- 1/2 cup smooth cookie butter
Assembly:
- crunchy cookie butter
- speculoos cookies crushed (optional)
Instructions
Vanilla Cake:
- Preheat oven to 350F and grease and flour three 6″ cake rounds, line with parchment.
- In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter until smooth. Add sugar and beat on med-high until pale and fluffy (2-3mins).
- Reduce speed and add eggs one at a time, fully incorporating after each addition. Add vanilla.
- Alternate adding flour mixture and milk, beginning and ending with flour (3 additions of flour and 2 of milk). Fully incorporating after each addition. Do not overmix.
- Spread batter evenly into prepared pans. Smooth the tops with a spatula.
- Bake for approx. 25-30mins or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out mostly clean.
- Place cakes on wire rack to cool for 10mins then turn out onto wire rack.
Biscoff Buttercream:
- Place egg whites and sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk until combined.*
- Place bowl over a hot water bath on the stove and whisk constantly until the mixture is hot and no longer grainy to the touch or reaches 160F (about 5mins).
- Place bowl on your stand mixer and whisk on med-high until the meringue is stiff and cooled (the bowl is no longer warm to the touch (approx. 5-10mins)).
- Switch to paddle attachment. Slowly add cubed butter and mix until smooth. Add cookie butter and mix until smooth.**
Assembly:
- Place one layer of cake on a cake stand or serving plate. Spread a thin layer of crunchy cookie butter on the cake. Top with 2/3 cup of frosting and spread evenly. Repeat with remaining layers and apply a thin coat of frosting all over the cake. Chill for 20mins.
- Frost and smooth the sides. Decorate with rosettes and crushed Speculoos cookies if desired.
Notes
** The buttercream may look like it’s curdled at some point. Keep mixing until it is completely smooth.
Originally published December 2016
Louise says
Hi, I haven’t tried this yet but was wondering if a cream cheese frosting would work well with this, given the spice of the biscoff?
Olivia says
Hi Louise! I think that would be delicious. I love CC frosting paired with spice cakes.
Kelly Lake says
I was wondering how many eggs you would recommend for a 1.5x recipe?
Olivia says
Hi Kelly! I would use 4.5 eggs. To do this you can either whisk an egg and measure out half of it, or just separate the egg and use the yolk.
Monica says
Can I sub vegetable oil instead of butter in the cake?
Olivia says
Hi Monika! I haven’t made it with oil myself so I can’t say for sure. Generally swapping one for the other does not cause problems. It will change the texture of the cake though.
Shruti says
Hi Olivia! Love your recipes!!!
Do you have a recipe for the cookie butter/biscoff cake base?
Olivia says
Hi Shruti! I don’t but you can try replacing 1/4 cup of the butter with biscoff and give that a go.
Heather Allton says
I made this and it was delicious! thanks so much. I wanted plenty of biscoff flavor in the frosting so I just left out some of the butter and it came out beautifully – not loose or runny at all. 😁
Olivia says
Hi Heather! So happy to hear you loved it 🙂
Debbie says
Hi,
I’d like to make this with 3x 8″ sponges – what height of cake tins should I buy?
Olivia says
Hi Debbie! For three 8″ cakes I would 1.5x the recipe and make sure the pans are at least 2″ tall.
Kelly Lake says
How many eggs would you recommend using to 1.5x the recipe
Olivia says
Hi Kelly! I would use 4.5 eggs. To do this you can either whisk an egg and measure out half of it, or just separate the egg and use the yolk.
Deirdre LOPEZ says
Don’t have 6 ” cake pans. Will the batter be enough for 2 9″.? Also, can 2 % milk be used?
Olivia says
Hi Deirdre! Yes to the 2% milk. For cake pans, two 9″ would be too big I’m afraid. I would scale the recipe up. Converting pan sizes is always tricky. Here are some sites I use as a guideline:
http://www.joyofbaking.com/PanSizes.html
https://www.cookipedia.co.uk/recipes_wiki/Cake_tin_conversion_charts
Based on that I would 1.25x the recipe for it to work in two 9″ pans. Change the Servings to 15 to get the amounts (or 16 for more round numbers). Baking time may need to be adjusted.
Mollie says
Hi! I’m making this cake soon was thinking about processing some biscoff cookies and using it in place of some of the flour like you do with graham crackers in your s’more cake recipe. Would this work here?
Olivia says
Hi Mollie! I haven’t tested it so I can’t say for “sure” but I think it would work fine. It will affect the texture though and flavour (obviously). I wouldn’t replace too much of the flour though. Maybe do 1 1/2 cups flour and 3/4 cup cookie crumbs (make sure they are very fine). My S’mores cake has slightly different proportions so it would probably take some experimenting to get it perfect but that’s what I’d start with. Let me know how it turns out!
Sébastien says
I am considering baking this cake for an upcoming kid birthday – but I was thinking of maybe adding a layer of fruit compote (mango maybe?) alongside the cookie butter (that I would make myself using the Biscoff cookies).
Thoughts? Any other suggestions regarding fruit jam or compote that could pair well with this cake?
Thanks in advance,
Olivia says
Hi Sébastien! I’ve actually never paired any kind of fruit with biscoff myself so I can’t say for sure what would pair best flavour-wise. That being said, they are basically spice cookies so should go well with a variety of things. I think mango would be delicious. Apple would pair really well too and it’s almost apple season here so that might be a good choice. I have a delicous apple pie filling recipe here: https://livforcake.com/apple-crisp-cake/ Let me know what you end up trying!
Kayla says
Made this for my daughter’s birthday and everyone loved it!! Will definitely make this again.
Olivia says
Hi Kayla! So happy to hear everyone loved it. Thank you!
Rachel says
Do you think if I put some Biscoff cookies in the food processer and turned them into powder that I could flavor the buttercream that way? I really want to be able to pipe and I am concerned that adding the cookie butter to it will make it too soft. Thanks.
Olivia says
Hi Rachel! Yes, that should work fine too. I would sift the cookies after grinding to get as fine a powder as possible.
Rachel says
This looks delicious! Does the Biscoff buttercream pipe well? Thanks.
Olivia says
Hi Rachel! Yes, I found it to pipe great but you could use crushed cookie powder instead.
Gabrielle kalish says
So do you crush the cookies and bake them befor putting in the layers so they don’t get soggy? Or just crush them up?
Olivia says
Hi Gabrielle! I didn’t put crushed cookies between the layers, only on the outside of the cake. You could do that though, I wouldn’t bake them first. They will soften over time.
Maria says
Thank you for your recepies they are really well explained and everyone loved it. Eager to try more. Even the vanilla one i tried and it came incredibly delicious. Thank you 😊
Maria says
Thank you for you recepies they are really well explained and everyone loved it. Eager to try more. Even the vanilla one i tried and it came incredibly delicious. Thank you 😊
Olivia says
Thank you Maria! I’m so happy to hear that.
Natalia says
Hi! If I want to make this in a half sheet cake pan, would I have to double the cake recipe? Thank you in advance 🙂
Olivia says
Hi Natalia! Converting pan sizes is always tricky. Here are some sites I use as a guideline:
http://www.joyofbaking.com/PanSizes.html
https://www.cookipedia.co.uk/recipes_wiki/Cake_tin_conversion_charts
Ali Brown says
I made this last night for a friend’s last night at work. AMAZING! Couldn’t have asked for anything better. Also, thanks for the tip re: baking strips. I’d never tried those before-so much easier than leveling. Keep up the good work!
Olivia says
Hi Ali! So happy you loved it. And those baking strips are a game changer right??
Carol says
How many cookies (in grams) would you need? For in between layers and for decorating outside?
Thanks!!
Olivia says
Hi Carol! I’m not totally sure and it depends on how much you want to add between the layers 🙂 I’d guess anywhere from 200-400g.