I usually do cakes, but have had a special request for my nephew. He's not a "cake person" (go figure?), but loves chocolate chip cookies. (I'm easy--cake, cookies, cupcakes . . . )

Anyway, he moved here from Texas just a year ago. His birthday is coming up Saturday and I would like to do a cookie cake in the Wilton Texas pan. Will this work? How do I adjust the cooking time/temp? Do I need to line the pan with parchment paper? I know these are probably very basic questions I should know, but I've never tried this and will be a little crushed for time (so can't really do it over if I blow it).

Can anyone offer some help or suggestions? I'm also not sure how to decorate it to emphasize the shape, w/out doing all star as shown for the cake. (Would that be too much icing? Is there such a thing as too much icing?)

Thanks for any and all help!

No responses--Does that mean this just isn't done? Is this a sign I should come up with a different idea? My main concerns are getting it done in the center (w/out drying out or burning the edges), and not breaking it getting it out of the pan.

I know I've seen the character pans used to mold chocolate, I just don't remember seeing the pans used for cookies. Maybe I should come up w/ something else . . . .

Line the pan with foil before you put the cookie dough in, and bake 25 degrees lower than you usually do for cookies. Then let it cool completely in the pan and use the foil to lift the cookie out of the pan. Once it's firmed up, you can peel the foil off.

To decorate it, I'd just pipe a border around it and put a star in the approximate area he came from, then write happy birthday on it...but I avoid doing anything that involves a whole cake full of those little stars because they drive me batty. Also, chocolate chip cookies are rich enough without a coating of frosting.

Thank you, TexasRose! I figured I would need to do something to keep it from breaking as I removed it from the pan. I probably would have rushed it--so it's good you mentioned cooling it completely first.

I was thinking it might be too much icing to do the stars--but just didn't want it to be too plain.

Thanks for the ideas!