Name: No Bake Cookie Cake
Prep time: 20 min
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 8
Cuisine: North American
Ingredients: 1 box birthday cake cookies; 1 box instant vanilla pudding, makes 4 cups; 1 tub whipped cream topping; 1 bag of fruity mini marshmallows

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Incredibly delicious and requested again and again, this No Bake Cookie Cake has everything that is good about desserts packed into one bowl. Yummy birthday cake cookies (or your favorite flavor), creamy pudding, soft and squishy fruity marshmallows, and pillowy whipped cream.

Easy to make like a trifle but better, and every kid that’s tried this fun dessert LOVES it!

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No Bake Cookie Cake top layer in a glass dessert bowl. — No Bake Cookie Cake ready to serve!

MARSHMALLOW NO BAKE COOKIE CAKE RECIPE

This unique no-bake cookie cake dessert will bring smiles to all the little faces who see it! (and maybe from the big faces too!). Recipes like this and these other No Bake Desserts are so great because you can still have a sweet treat without all the fuss with a hot stove or oven.

A cake like this a great alternative to the traditional celebratory birthday cake and let’s be honest, way more exciting. It can be used for any celebration actually. Birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, Christmas, cookouts, the turtle’s birthday, .. heck.. did you buy a new lamp? Yaay! Time to celebrate!

A photograph of the cake from above showing half the cake. — The view from the top half of the cake.

INGREDIENTS NEEDED

Birthday Cookies – Now, you can use any sandwich type cookie you’d like, but because I made this dessert for a birthday celebration, I used birthday cookies. Golden Oreos work well, Vanilla Sandwich Cookies or other flavored birthday cookies like these would be perfect.

Marshmallows – I’m going to be a stickler here and say to use only the fruity mini marshmallows. They have some varied taste to them and they’re just so adorable with their pastel colors! But honestly, use the white mini ones if you like, just don’t use the standard sized marshmallows.

Vanilla Pudding – I used instant vanilla pudding for this recipe, but feel free to switch it up. Cooked pudding (as long as it’s cooled), banana pudding, butterscotch, pistachio, etc.

Whipped Cream – You can use cool whip (which I used here) or make homemade whipped cream if you prefer.

SALTY POT TIP: If you use homemade whipped cream, assemble the dessert shortly before serving as the whipped cream may make deflate and make the cookies soggy.

DIRECTIONS

This cookie dessert is pretty much all about layering and assembly.

Lay some cookies at the bottom of the bowl.
Place some pudding on top of the cookies.
Layer on the whipped cream and marshmallow mixture.
Keep layering until you’ve reached the top layer.
Chill until serving time!

Hint: Little hands LOVE to help make this dessert and is a great recipe to introduce them to baking.

Nine cookies line the bottom of a glass trifle bowl. — Line the bowl with cookies.

Pudding is placed on top of the cookies. — Line the bowl with cookies.

Do I Need A Special Bowl To Make This Dessert?

I made this layered cookie dessert in a glass round bowl. You can make this in any vessel you’d like, as long as it can accomodate some height with the layers of cookies, pudding and of course whipped cream and marshmallows.

I prefer to use my glass bowl when I make it so you can see all the pretty layers!

A side view of the layers in the cookie dessert, in the glass trifle bowl. — Look at all the pretty layers of the Cookie Cake!

Variations of this No Bake Dessert Recipe

You can change up the assembly of this cookie cake by crumbling up the cookies for every layer instead of keeping them whole.
Instead of mixing the whipping cream and marshmallows together, you could keep them separate and make even more pretty layers to show in the cake.

As for switching up flavors, different combinations go well togethr like chocolate cookies and chocolate pudding, or chocolate cookies and butterscotch pudding.
Additional nuts would add a wonderful flavor and textural interest to the no bake cake too!

A close up of the top of the cake showing cookie bits, marshmallows and whipped cream. — The top of the cookie cake showing fruity marshmallows, cookie bits and whipped cream.

Making this Dessert Ahead of Time

I know we all live super busy lives and that’s what makes this adorable cookie dessert so nice. You can easily put it together first thing in the morning, and its flavors will combine as it chills. No baking, no frosting. It’s all built-in. The only thing you have to add is the candles, and this marshmallow birthday cookie dessert can handle that too!

Oh, and just so you know, if you’re looking for other easy and delicious dessert ideas, take a peek at my Chocolate Cherry Cake Hack, or I also have an Apple Pecan Croissants with Butterscotch Sauce Dessert that’s more of an adult dessert.

If you make this dessert for a special celebration, I’d love to hear about it below!! Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by The Salty Pot today! I hope you have a wonderful celebration!