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A rich, moist chocolate sheet cake with a layer of creamy, no-bake Oreo cheesecake in the middle, topped with a luscious milk chocolate ganache, crushed Oreo cookies and some Mighty Machines.

My grandson turned two last week and he wanted a digger cake for his birthday. He’s sort of obsessed with the Mighty Machines show and loves to go outside and watch the backhoes working on the construction site near his new home.

There are quite a few steps to making this cake, but none of them are difficult. We needed a large cake to feed a crowd so I baked two 9×13 sheet cakes and used them as layers. If you want you could divide the recipe in half and just make one 9″ round cake. I bought a new metal 9×13 cake pan that had perfectly square sides.

The Kraft Chocolate-Covered OREO Cookie Cake was our inspiration, but we used the Hershey’s Perfectly Chocolate Cake Recipe that I adapted for high altitude, which is one of my daughter’s favorite cakes. We also changed up the filling to use heavy cream instead of Cool Whip, and topped it with chocolate ganache instead of frosting.

You’ll need to put the cake in the fridge to chill and firm up while you’re make the chocolate ganache. It will take several hours for the ganache to thicken up and come to the right consistency. Once it’s thickened, spread it on top of the cake, pushing it up to the edge in some places so it drips down the sides of the cake. If you wanted, you could cover the entire cake with the ganache, but I thought it was more fun to see the filling.

After you spread the ganache, use crushed Oreo cookies to create the construction zone on top of the cake. My daughter bought the little backhoes at Zurchers. They were filled with candy, but we just emptied it out. She also bought the Birthday Zone decorations at Zurchers. She made the little construction signs in Photoshop.

My grandson had a hard time waiting to play with the diggers on the cake, so you might want to buy an extra for the birthday boy to play with right away.

He was a very happy little boy when it was finally time to eat his digger cake. Of course a digger makes a great spoon too.

Yield: 24-30 servings

Chocolate Cake with a No-Baked Oreo Cheesecake Filling

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Prep Time 30 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 9x13 chocolate sheet cakes

No-Baked Oreo Cheesecake Filling:

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 1/2 packages (12 oz.) Cream Cheese, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 18 Oreo Cookies, Coarsely crushed

Chocolate Ganache

• 24 oz. milk chocolate, finely chopped
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Topping

• 8 Oreo Cookies, filling removed and finely crushed

Instructions

No-Baked Oreo Cheesecake Filling

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream until it forms soft peaks.
2. In another large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar until blended and smooth.
3. Gently stir in whipped cream and crushed cookies.

Chocolate Ganache

1. Place half of the chocolate in a mixing bowl. Heat heavy cream on medium high heat until it comes to a boil.
2. Remove from heat and immediately pour cream over chocolate and stir until chocolate is completely melted. Add remain chocolate and stir until chocolate is completely melted.
3. Cool until ganache is thickened but still thin enough to drip down the sides of the cake. (I cooled mine in the fridge for over an hour.)

Assembling cake

1. When the cake layers are cool, evenly spread filling on bottom layer, carefully stack the second layer on top of filling. Refrigerate while you make the ganache.
2. Spoon chocolate ganache on top of the cake, spreading to edges and letting the ganache drip down the sides. Decorate top with additional crushed Oreos, diggers and signs if desired. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

To achieve the super straight sides on this cake, I used this pan:

More cake recipes you might like:

(Eggless) Smash Cake for a First Birthday, Barbara Bakes
Chocolate Cheesecake Cake, Barbara Bakes
Monkey Cake, Smitten Kitchen
Checkerboard Spider Cake, Munchkin Munchies
Vanilla Layer Cake with Easy Fudge Frosting, Completely Delicious