4 Deliciously Clever Dessert Hacks Using A… Coke Bottle?!

There’s been a major focus on plastic consumption and being sure you recycle all of your plastic products appropriately. But it’s so hard to cut down on our use of plastic when literally all of our favorite snacks and drinks come in it. So how about recycling that empty coke bottle and use it the next time you bake some cookies? Drinking a coke and making cookies? Seems like a pretty sweet deal.

All you’ll need for these adorable cookies is a two-liter Coca-Cola bottle, a sharp knife or box cutter, and obviously cookie dough. Flip the bottle on its side and cut off the bottom. Ta-da! You’ve got yourself two perfect cookie cutters.

The cookie design options are endless. Combine the two cutters to make super cool fidget spinner cookies, or even an adorable frog and fish cookie! These cookies will make for the perfect addition to your child’s lunchbox. But let’s be honest, we’ll be bringing these cookies into the office with us every day this week.

Here are the utensils you’ll need for each cookie recipe. Note: some recipes may call for additional items or ingredients; they will be listed with the individual recipe.

• 2-Liter Plastic Soda Bottle
• Sharp Kitchen Knife
• Icing Spatula
• Baking Sheet
• Parchment Paper
• Cooling Rack
• Piping Bags
• Rolling Pin
• Food Dye for the frosting (colors dependant on the specific recipe)
• Canned Vanilla Frosting

Spinning Flower Cookies

Servings: 8

Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:

• Sugar Cookie Dough

Tools:

• Boba or Smoothie Straw

Preparation:

1. Slice off the bottom of a coke bottle, starting at the edge where it starts separating from the rest of the bottle. Once it’s separated, go in with a paring knife or scissors and snip off any sharp parts of plastic. You’ll notice it’s now a perfect flower-shaped cookie cutter!
2. Use the cookie cutter to punch out cookies, and with the bottle cap, cut out small circles around the remaining dough. There should be two small circles for every flower.
3. Next, take a straw and punch out a hole in the middle of each flower. We recommend boba straws. Then, squeeze the dough out of the straw, cutting it off every inch. These are the plugs that will help the cookies spin.
4. Transfer the flowers, circles, and plugs to a baking sheet and bake at  350° F for about 25 minutes, but keep an eye on them! Also, in order to keep their shape better, we recommend chilling the cookies for 30 minutes before baking, and also baking on one of the lower racks.
5. Once the cookies are baked and cooled, take a can of frosting and add in your preferred colors. Microwave for thirty seconds and mix. Then, pour over the cookie flowers and let set. Use a different color for the circles, and no frosting for the plugs, unless you’re a straight-up crazy person.
6. As soon as all of the frostings are set, take a circle cookie, dollop a little frosting in the middle, and stick the plugin. Let set. Then, drop the flower over the plug and use the frosting to glue the other circle on top of the plug.
7. Let set completely (to be honest, ideally overnight!) and then spin!

Fish Cookies

Servings: 3

Ingredients:

• Sugar Cookie Dough
• Orange Frosting
• Black Icing

Preparation:

1. Roll out your cookie dough and cut out some circles. Then, reroll the scraps and cut with the coke bottle cookie cutter. Use a knife to cut the flowers in half.
2. Line up one flower half (the one that has 3 petals) with a circle and use your finger to press the seams together. Pull off to bake.
3. Once they’re cool, pour on your frosting of choice and let them set.
4. As soon as they’re set, grab some black frosting and pipe on some eyes and a smiley face!

Frog Cookies

Servings: 3

Ingredients:

• Sugar Cookie Dough
• Green Frosting
• Black Icing
• White Frosting
• Pink Frosting

Preparation:

1. Repeat steps from the fish cookies, except this time, take the flower half with two petals and place it on top of a circle cookies. Press the seams and bake.
2. Pour over frosting, set. Then dot the petals with white and black frosting for the eyes, and place two additional dots for the nose, draw a smile, and dot with pink to make the tongue.

Coca-Cola Cake

Servings: 6

Difficulty: Medium

Ingredients:

• 1 bag of white chocolate, melted
• 2 bags of milk chocolate, melted
• 1 chocolate sheet cake
• 4 cups vanilla buttercream

Preparation:

1. Slice a coke bottle in half. Pour white chocolate into the top half of the bottle, swirl it around and let it set. Then pour in half of the chocolate, swirling to cover, and let set. Pour the rest of the chocolate into the other half of the bottle and repeat the process.
2. Remove the chocolate pieces from the plastic bottle and layer in the frosting and cake.
3. Use a little extra melted chocolate to glue the halves together.
4. Decorate with a bottle cap and a bottle label. Slice and enjoy!