Cooking with Girl Scout cookies

Ok, I am not much of a baker or sweet treat maker, but this recipe really has me intrigued. It has both Thin Mints and Lemonades in it. Great Googly Moogly my pants may never fit the same again!!




Winning Recipe! Austin Bake-off 2009: Third Place
Lemonade Cake with Thin Mints — By Jessica, Troop 2179
CAKE
½ pound butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
¼ cup grated lemon zest
1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 box Lemonade cookies, ground to consistency of flour (yields 2 cups)
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
5/8 cup buttermilk, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 sleeve Thin Mint cookies, chopped to size of chocolate chips, dusted in flour

SYRUP
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

FROSTING
1 sleeve Thin Mint cookies, ground to consistency of flour
½ cup heavy whipping cream

GARNISH
3-4 cookies crushed Lemonade cookies

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 10-inch Bundt pan. Cream together the butter and sugar in an electric mixer for 5 minutes. Add eggs to mixer, one at a time, then the lemon zest. Sift together ground Lemonade cookies, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. In another bowl, combine lemon juice, buttermilk and vanilla. Add the Lemonade cookie flour and buttermilk mixtures alternately in thirds to the creamed butter, beginning and ending with the Lemonade cookie flour. Toss the chopped Thin Mint pieces with flour and add to the batter. Pour into the pan, smooth on top, and bake for 50 minutes (45 minutes to one hour). Let cake cool on wire rack for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, make the syrup. In a small saucepan, over medium-low heat, cook the sugar and the lemon juice until the sugar dissolves. Remove the cake from the pan, set it on the rack over a tray and spoon the syrup over the cake. For the icing, melt the ground Thin Mint cookies and heavy cream in a saucepan, stirring until the icing is warm and smooth consistency. Take off the heat, let cool slightly until consistency of honey. Drizzle over top of cool cake. Garnish cake with crushed Lemonade cookies on top.