My kids have a rule in this house: if there are Oreos in the pantry, they belong in a dessert. And honestly, I agree. But nothing gets Olivia more excited than when those Oreos disappear into an Oreo cake. Not cookies, not a milkshake. A full, real, layered cake absolutely packed with crushed Oreo crumbs, Oreo chunks folded right into the batter, and a thick Oreo buttercream frosting that somehow tastes like cookies and cream in every single bite. This one is special, and if you've never made it before, you are seriously in for a treat.
We make this Oreo cake for birthdays, end-of-school-year celebrations, and honestly any time someone in our house needs a reason to smile. It looks like it came from a bakery, it tastes even better than it looks, and it comes together with ingredients you can grab at any grocery store. The best part? You do not need to be an experienced baker to nail this one. If you can stir a bowl and frost a cake, you've got this.
Jump to:
- Why You'll Love This Oreo Cake
- Ingredients for Oreo Cake
- How to Make Oreo Cake
- My Top Tips for Oreo Cake
- Little Moments in the Kitchen
- Substitutions for Oreo Cake
- Variations on Oreo Cake
- Equipment for Oreo Cake
- Storage Tips for Oreo Cake
- Olivia's Tip for Oreo Cake
- FAQ about Oreo Cake
- Conclusion
- Related
- Pairing
- 📖 Recipe
Why You'll Love This Oreo Cake
- Incredibly moist and soft with real Oreo flavor in every layer. Crushed Oreo crumbs go into the batter, between the layers, and straight into the buttercream frosting. This Oreo cake doesn't just taste like vanilla cake with a cookie on top. Every slice is genuinely packed with that deep, chocolatey cookies and cream flavor.
- Simple ingredients, no fancy techniques. This Oreo cake recipe uses everyday pantry staples and one bowl for the batter. No sifting mountains of specialty flour, no complicated frosting methods. Just real, straightforward baking that anyone can do.
- Kid-approved, crowd-pleasing, and completely customizable. Olivia requests this Oreo cake for every birthday and I've brought it to enough potlucks to know it disappears faster than anything else on the table. It works for kids, adults, parties, and quiet weeknights when you just need something good.
Ingredients for Oreo Cake
Good news: you don't need anything unusual to make this Oreo cake. Everything on this list is easy to find and most of it is probably already in your kitchen. Let me walk you through both parts.
What You'll Need
For the Oreo Cake Layers (makes two 8-inch layers):
- 2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup (170g) unsalted butter, softened
- 1 ½ cups (300g) granulated sugar
- 3 large eggs, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup (240ml) buttermilk, room temperature
- ½ cup (120ml) sour cream, room temperature
- 16 Oreo cookies, roughly crushed (about 1 ½ cups of crumbs)
For the Oreo Buttercream Frosting:
- 1 ½ cups (340g) unsalted butter, softened
- 4 cups (480g) powdered sugar
- ¼ cup (60ml) heavy cream, plus more as needed
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- Pinch of salt
- 16 Oreo cookies, finely crushed (about 1 ½ cups fine crumbs)
For Decoration:
- 6 to 8 whole Oreo cookies
- Extra crushed Oreo crumbs for pressing along the sides
Why These Ingredients Matter
- Sour cream in the batter. This is my secret weapon for an incredibly moist Oreo cake. Sour cream adds fat and a slight tang that keeps the crumb tender and soft without making the batter heavy. It also helps the cake hold its structure even with all those chunky Oreo pieces folded in. Don't skip it.
- Room temperature butter, eggs, and buttermilk. Cold ingredients don't blend together smoothly, and that matters in a cake like this. Room temperature dairy and eggs emulsify into the batter evenly, giving you a consistent, fluffy crumb throughout every layer of your Oreo cake. Pull everything out of the fridge at least 30 minutes before you start.
- Finely crushed Oreos in the frosting. Chunky crumbs in buttercream are gritty and hard to spread cleanly. When you crush the Oreos into a fine, sandy texture for the frosting, they blend into the buttercream smoothly and give you that true cookies and cream flavor without any lumps. A food processor works perfectly for this.
How to Make Oreo Cake
Step-by-Step Directions
1. Preheat your oven and prepare the pans. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease two 8-inch round cake pans, line the bottoms with parchment paper circles, and lightly grease the parchment. Properly prepped pans are the difference between cake layers that release cleanly and layers that tear apart.
2. Mix the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until evenly combined. Set aside.
3. Cream the butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and granulated sugar together on medium-high speed for 3 to 4 minutes until the mixture is pale, fluffy, and noticeably lighter in color. This step builds the base structure of your Oreo cake, so don't rush it.
4. Add the eggs and vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition until fully incorporated. Add the vanilla extract and mix until smooth. The batter should look thick, glossy, and uniform at this point.
5. Alternate the dry ingredients with the buttermilk and sour cream. Add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk and sour cream, starting and ending with the flour. Mix on low speed between each addition until just combined. Do not overmix once the flour goes in or your cake layers will turn out dense and tough instead of soft and tender.
6. Fold in the crushed Oreos. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the roughly crushed Oreo pieces into the batter until evenly distributed throughout. The batter will be thick, creamy, and speckled with dark Oreo crumbs. This is exactly what you want for a true Oreo cake.
7. Bake the layers. Divide the batter evenly between your two prepared pans and smooth the tops gently with your spatula. Bake at 350°F for 30 to 36 minutes, until the tops are set and lightly golden, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs. The edges will have pulled away slightly from the sides of the pan.
8. Cool completely. Let the cake layers cool in their pans for 15 minutes, then turn them out onto wire racks and cool completely, at least 1 to 2 hours. A warm layer will melt your buttercream and cause the whole Oreo cake to slide. Patience here pays off.
9. Make the Oreo buttercream frosting. Beat the softened butter on medium-high speed for 3 minutes until pale and creamy. Add the powdered sugar in two additions, mixing on low after each. Add the heavy cream, vanilla, and salt, then beat on medium-high for 2 minutes until fluffy and smooth. Fold in the finely crushed Oreo crumbs by hand with a spatula until fully combined and the frosting is speckled throughout.
10. Assemble and frost the Oreo cake. Place the first cooled layer on a cake board or serving plate. Spread a generous layer of Oreo buttercream on top, all the way to the edges. Place the second layer on top, press gently to level, and frost the top and sides of the entire Oreo cake. Press extra Oreo crumbs along the bottom edge of the sides if you like, and arrange whole Oreos on top for decoration. Chill for 20 minutes before slicing for the cleanest cuts.
Hint: When folding crushed Oreos into the batter, leave the pieces slightly chunky rather than grinding them to dust. Those bigger Oreo chunks create pockets of cookies and cream flavor inside each slice that make the Oreo cake taste extra indulgent and bakery-worthy.
My Top Tips for Oreo Cake
Twist the Oreo cookies apart and scrape out the filling before crushing them for the frosting. The cream filling makes the crumbs clump together and prevents them from blending into the buttercream smoothly. Crushing just the chocolate wafers gives you a finer, more even Oreo crumb that folds into the frosting perfectly.
If you love cookies and cream flavors, you'll also want to check out my Chocolate Loaf Cake for another deep, chocolatey bake that comes together just as easily.
Little Moments in the Kitchen
The very first time I made this Oreo cake with Olivia, I asked her to crush the Oreos inside a zip-lock bag with a rolling pin. I handed it to her, turned around to measure the flour, and heard the most enormous crunch followed by complete silence. I turned back around and the bag had split straight down the middle. Oreo crumbs were covering the counter, the floor, her shirt, and somehow her hair. She looked at me with the guiltiest smile and said, "I think I used too much force."
We swept up the crumbs, laughed for a solid five minutes, and started a new bag with a gentler approach. When the finished Oreo cake was finally on the table and Olivia had her first slice, she declared it "the best cake I've ever had in my entire life," which she says about every cake I make. But this time I actually believed her, because she asked for a second slice before she finished the first one.
Substitutions for Oreo Cake
No buttermilk: Stir 1 tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice into 1 cup of whole milk. Let it sit for 5 minutes until slightly curdled. Use it as a direct 1:1 swap for buttermilk in this Oreo cake recipe.
No sour cream: Full-fat plain Greek yogurt works as a perfect substitute. Use the same amount and expect the same moist, tender crumb.
Gluten-free: Use a 1:1 gluten-free all-purpose baking flour blend. Also use gluten-free Oreo-style sandwich cookies throughout. The texture may be slightly denser, but the flavor stays just as rich.
Dairy-free: Replace butter with vegan butter, buttermilk with oat milk plus vinegar, sour cream with full-fat coconut yogurt, and heavy cream in the frosting with canned coconut cream. Use dairy-free chocolate sandwich cookies in place of Oreos.
Eggless: Use 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed mixed with 3 tablespoons of water per egg, rested for 5 minutes. My Eggless Brownies have more useful tips on eggless baking with butter-based recipes.
Variations on Oreo Cake
Chocolate Oreo Cake: Swap the vanilla cake layers for chocolate by replacing ¼ cup of flour with ¼ cup of unsweetened cocoa powder and adding ½ cup of hot brewed coffee to the wet ingredients. The result is a rich, deep chocolate Oreo cake that tastes like a triple chocolate cookies and cream dream. My Matilda Chocolate Cake uses a similar technique and is a great reference for the chocolate layer method.
Giant Single-Layer Oreo Cake: Pour all the batter into one 9x13-inch rectangular pan for a giant Oreo cake that feeds a crowd with zero assembly required. Frost the top with a thick layer of Oreo buttercream and press a full grid of whole Oreos on top. It's dramatic, easy, and absolutely perfect for parties and potlucks.
No-Bake Mini Oreo Cake: Press a thick layer of crushed Oreos mixed with melted butter into the bottom of a springform pan, fill with no-bake cheesecake filling, and top with more Oreo crumbs and whole cookies. Chill for 4 hours until set. It captures all the flavors of an Oreo cake with zero oven time. Great for hot summer days when turning on the oven is the last thing you want to do.
Equipment for Oreo Cake
Two 8-inch round cake pans: Standard 8-inch pans give you two tall, even layers that stack beautifully. If you only have 9-inch pans, the layers will be slightly thinner and will bake faster, so check them around the 26-minute mark.
Electric hand mixer or stand mixer: You need the butter and sugar creamed properly for a fluffy, moist Oreo cake. A stand mixer makes this effortless, but a hand mixer works perfectly well. Mixing by hand alone will not get the butter airy enough.
Food processor for crushing Oreos: A food processor gives you fine, even Oreo crumbs for the frosting in about 10 seconds. If you don't have one, use a zip-lock bag and a rolling pin. Just go easy with the rolling pin, unlike Olivia.
Offset spatula: Essential for spreading the Oreo buttercream smoothly and evenly across the top and sides. The angled blade gives you control and helps you get that clean, professional finish.
Wire cooling racks: Always cool your Oreo cake layers fully on a rack before frosting. A rack allows air to circulate under the cake and prevents the bottom from steaming and becoming soggy.
Storage Tips for Oreo Cake
- Room temperature: Store the assembled and frosted Oreo cake under a cake dome or loosely covered at room temperature for up to 2 days. The buttercream frosting keeps the layers sealed and moist.
- Fridge: For longer storage, keep the Oreo cake in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Let slices come to room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes before eating, as cold buttercream can taste dense and muted straight from the fridge.
- Freezing the layers (unfrosted): Wrap each fully cooled cake layer tightly in plastic wrap, then in foil, and freeze for up to 2 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before stacking and frosting.
- Freezing the frosted cake: The Oreo buttercream frosting contains heavy cream and butter, so freezing the fully assembled Oreo cake can change the frosting texture once thawed. I recommend freezing the plain layers and making a fresh batch of frosting when you're ready to serve.
- Storing Oreo crumbs separately: If you're prepping ahead, store your crushed Oreo crumbs in a sealed container at room temperature for up to 1 week so they stay dry and crisp.
Olivia's Tip for Oreo Cake
Olivia says: "Put whole Oreos on every single slice when you serve it, not just on the top of the whole cake. That way everyone gets their own Oreo and it looks really fancy." She is eleven and already understands presentation better than most adults I know.
FAQ about Oreo Cake
What ingredients do you need to make an Oreo cake?
The core ingredients for a homemade Oreo cake are all-purpose flour, butter, sugar, eggs, buttermilk, sour cream, vanilla extract, baking powder, baking soda, and of course, plenty of Oreo cookies. For the Oreo buttercream frosting you need butter, powdered sugar, heavy cream, vanilla, and more finely crushed Oreos. Everything is simple and easy to find at any grocery store.
How to make a 2 ingredient Oreo cake?
The simplest version uses one package of Oreo cookies blended into a fine crumb and mixed with 1 ¼ cups of water until a batter forms, then baked at 350°F for about 25 minutes. It's a fun shortcut Oreo cake and works great for a quick dessert. That said, the from-scratch version in this recipe is significantly more moist, flavorful, and satisfying because real butter, eggs, and buttermilk build a much better texture and crumb.
How many Oreos do you need for an Oreo cake?
For this recipe you'll use about 32 Oreo cookies total: 16 roughly crushed for the batter and 16 finely crushed for the buttercream frosting, plus 6 to 8 whole Oreos for decoration on top. That's roughly one and a half standard packages. I always buy two packs just to have a few extra for snacking while we bake.
What are the 5 main ingredients in cake?
The five foundational ingredients in most cakes are flour, sugar, butter or oil, eggs, and a leavening agent like baking powder or baking soda. In a recipe like this Oreo cake, you build on those five with add-ins like buttermilk, sour cream, and crushed Oreos to create layers of flavor and a moister, richer texture than a basic recipe would give you.
Conclusion
When Olivia asks what we're baking this weekend and I say "Oreo cake," the reaction is always the same: she drops whatever she's doing and sprints to the kitchen. That kind of enthusiasm is exactly what this recipe deserves. It's soft, moist, completely loaded with real Oreo flavor, and topped with a buttercream frosting that will make you want to eat it straight off the spatula.
Make this Oreo cake for the next birthday in your house, bring it to a potluck, or just make it on a weekend because you feel like baking something that everyone will love. If you want to keep the cookie and chocolate theme going, my Chocolate Chip Banana Bread is always a good next bake. And for another fun take on Oreo baking, the Chocolate-Covered Oreo Cookie Cake from Allrecipes is worth a look too. Happy baking, friend. This one is going to become a regular in your house, I just know it.
Related
Looking for other recipes like this? Try these:
Pairing
These are my favorite dishes to serve with Oreo Cake:
📖 Recipe
Easy Oreo Cake with Oreo Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Spread frosting between layers, then frost the top and sides. Decorate with extra Oreos if you like. Olivia insists every slice gets its own Oreo-and she's absolutely right.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. I usually let Olivia do the whisking here-it's a great way to get kids involved without making a mess.
- Beat the butter and granulated sugar together until pale and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes. This step makes all the difference for a soft Oreo cake, so don't rush it. Olivia always sneaks a finger taste at this point.
- Add the eggs one at a time, then mix in the vanilla extract until smooth and glossy. I remind Olivia that patience makes better cake-and she reminds me that licking the spoon is the reward.
- On low speed, alternate adding the dry ingredients with the buttermilk and sour cream, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Mix just until combined to keep the cake tender.
- Gently fold in the crushed Oreo cookies using a spatula. Leave some pieces chunky-those little Oreo pockets are Olivia's favorite surprise in every slice.
- Divide the batter evenly between the pans and bake for 30-36 minutes, until a toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs. The kitchen always smells like cookies and cream at this point, and we all hover near the oven.
- Let cakes cool in the pans for 15 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. This is the hardest waiting part-but frosting a warm cake is a guaranteed disaster.
- Beat the butter until creamy, then add powdered sugar, heavy cream, vanilla, and salt. Fold in the finely crushed Oreo crumbs by hand until smooth and speckled.
- Spread frosting between layers, then frost the top and sides. Decorate with extra Oreos if you like. Olivia insists every slice gets its own Oreo-and she's absolutely right.
Nutrition
Notes
- For extra moisture, don't skip the sour cream, it keeps the crumb soft even with Oreo chunks.
- Use finely crushed Oreo wafers only for the frosting so it stays smooth and easy to spread.
- Store covered at room temperature for 2 days or refrigerate up to 4 days.
- This Oreo cake pairs perfectly with vanilla ice cream or a cold glass of milk.
- For birthdays, let kids decorate, it may not be perfect, but the memories always are 💕
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