I try the simple cake hack Jeanette Aw shared and all you need is just 3 ingredients

There's nothing that is able to convey your appreciation more than a handmade gift, or in some instances, a handmade cake. But baking a cake requires a list of items that not of us readily have at home.

Hence, when a colleague told me that there was an easy hack to overcome this, I was all ears, and was presented with Jeanette Aw's IGTV video where she shared how to make a three-ingredient cake.

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And the secret ingredient that makes it so simple: cookies. Simply pick your favourite cookies as this will be the main flavour of the cake.

Jeanette uses chocolate chip cookies to make a chocolate cake in her demonstration but I try taking up the recipe a notch by using three different types of cookies — Chipsmore chocolate chip cookies, Lotus Biscoff caramelised cookies and Oreo cookies — to see if I get three delicious cakes in return. 

Ingredients

Makes a 4-inch cake

• 150g cookies
• 160ml milk
• 1 tsp baking powder

Steps

1. Place cookies in a food processor and grind into a fine powder. 

2. Warm up milk and add it to the ground cookies together with baking powder. Mix well. 

3. Pour the mixture into a lined cake tin. Add roughly crushed up cookies to the top of the cake for additional texture. Place in oven that is preheated to 170 degrees Celcius and bake for 15 minutes or until the centre of the cake is fully cooked. 

The above steps were repeated using the Lotus Biscoff caramelised cookies.

I repeated the same steps with oreo biscuits, doubling the amount of ingredients for a slightly larger cake. 

The verdict: It's a great recipe in a pinch, perfect for the times when you forget that there's an important birthday the next day

If you really think about it, it does make sense that cookies can be used to make cakes, since the base ingredients of cookies are pretty much the same as cakes — flour, butter and eggs. And when you use cookies that you already love the taste of, the resulting cakes are pretty much guaranteed to suit your taste buds. 

And yes, the cakes taste similar to the cookies for all three cakes, just with a cakey texture instead of a crunchy one. And if the crushed cookie look doesn't work for you, refer to Jeanette's video for an alternative way to dress your cake.

If you don't have a food processor at home, crushing the biscuits with a glass jar works just as well, as the warm milk will help break down the cookies into the resulting cake-like batter too.  

I would recommend trying this out with your favourite cookies at home, using chocolate-based ones for possibly the best results. But if your favourite biscuit is chicken in a biscuit, you may want to hold off on using that in this recipe.   

ALSO READ: I try making Jeanette Aw's French butter cookies as shared on Instagram

kailun@asiaone.com