4-Ingredient Cookie Butter Cake Recipe

Do you want to know how to make a regular old from-the-box cake into something that tastes like it's fresh from the bakery instead? Simply add cookie butter. Lots of cookie butter. And a decent dose of regular butter, too. And eggs. And as it happens, aside from a cup of water, those are all of the ingredients that this wonderfully simple recipe calls for. It's perfect when you're in the mood for a sweet treat that goes beyond the everyday without requiring a ton of extra effort.

"This is my new go-to cake recipe because it is incredibly easy and delicious," says chef, food writer, and registered dietician Kristen Carli of Camelback Nutrition & Wellness. And how, exactly, can you take this cake from a 10 to an 11 when it's already so great by itself? "I highly recommend microwaving a few tablespoons of cookie butter and drizzling it over top," Carli says

Iced and decorated, this is a perfect cake for any and all standard cake occasions, from birthdays to anniversaries to holiday parties and much, much more. On the other hand, it can also be served as-is, without icing or a cookie butter drizzle, to make a sweet and satisfying coffee cake type of treat. However you serve it, rest assured that you'll be doing it right. And even if you're a total novice when it comes to baking, you'll be hard pressed to get this easy recipe wrong. Simply put, this 4-ingredient cookie butter cake couldn't be better.

First, preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Then spray a 9 inch by 13 inch cake pan with a nonstick cooking spray to make sure that your cake will perfectly leave the pan later.

Now using a mixer, combine the softened butter and the cookie butter. A classic KitchenAid stand mixer is ideal in terms of speed, power, and giving your arm muscles a break, but a hand mixer and a bowl is fine, too, as long as you're prepared to add a few extra minutes to this process. Take your time mixing these ingredients together because they need to be well combined to make sure the sweet, buttery goodness will blend evenly into the batter. You'll know it's ready when you see a smooth, homogenous mixture of both regular butter and cookie butter in the bowl. 

Go ahead and reserve a bit of extra cookie butter in a microwave safe container if you plan to drizzle some melted cookie butter over the baked cake as a final flourish.

Once the cake is baked, let it cool for a few minutes. Yes, considering the lovely smell of a freshly baked cake, that may be difficult, but stay strong. You'll want to let the cake cool enough that it can leave the cake pan in one piece. After it's cooled for a few minutes, gently run a butter knife around the sides of the cake and pop it out of the pan by inverting it onto a dish or carefully lifting it out with spatulas.

You can now ice the cake, serve it as-is, or set it aside for later enjoyment. For an easy extra step, microwave a small amount of cookie butter until it's liquid, then drizzle it over the freshly bake cake. Your tastebuds will thank you.

Assuming (and this is a pretty big assumption) that there is any cake left over, you can easily set it aside for later. "This stores great in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days," says Carli. And remember that, when you're enjoying a slice later, you can always enhance it even further with a drizzle of that melted cookie butter.