Homemade Oreos

I was going to blog about the Rum Ginger Cake I made the other night and totally loved, but I made these homemade oreos (from Smitten Kitchen) tonight and they were so good, and so easy I just couldn't resist blogging about them instead. The dry cookie ingredients went into the food processor for some mixing, then I added the butter and pulsed a few times, then the egg and mixed until the whole thing came together in a clump.

Seriously, the hardest thing about these cookies was dividing them up onto the cookie sheet. I happened to have some buttercream frosting sitting around the house, which is why I made these cookies tonight in the first place, but buttercream is really easy to make too -- so even if you have to make the buttercream from scratch, these are totally easy cookies.

I don't even like buttercream that much, and I thought they were perfect in these cookies. That's how good the whole thing was. I will admit though, oreo cookies are one of my few weaknesses when it comes to commercially produced sweets -- most other things I can walk right by without blinking an eye, but show me a plate of oreos and a glass of milk and I have a problem.

Therefore, these cookies are totally dangerous for me. Totally easy to make and just as good, if not better, than store-bought oreos... uh oh... I'm going to have a problem....

Homemade Oreos
Retro Desserts, Wayne Brachman

Makes 25 to 30 sandwich cookies

For the chocolate wafers:
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons (1¼ sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

For the filling:
¼ cup (½ stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter
¼ cup vegetable shortening
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Set two racks in the middle of the oven. Preheat to 375 degrees.
2. In a food processor, or bowl of an electric mixer, thoroughly mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. While pulsing, or on low speed, add the butter, and then the egg. Continue processing or mixing until dough comes together in a mass.
3. Take rounded teaspoons of batter and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet approximately 2 inches apart. With moistened hands, slightly flatten the dough. Bake for 9 minutes, rotating once for even baking. Set baking sheets on a rack to cool.
4. To make the cream, place butter and shortening in a mixing bowl, and at low speed, gradually beat in the sugar and vanilla. Turn the mixer on high and beat for 2-3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy.
5. To assemble the cookies, in a pastry bag with a 1/2 inch, round tip, pipe teaspoon-size blobs of cream into the center of one cookie. Place another cookie, equal in size to the first, on top of the cream. Lightly press, to work the filling evenly to the outsides of the cookie. Continue this process until all the cookies have been sandwiched with cream. Dunk generously in a large glass of milk.