My Own Oreos

Homemade Oreo goodness!

Oreos.  The very word brings to mind glasses of cold milk, crunchy-good cookies and splitting the cookies open to lick the cream  .I eat them in spite of the fact that I know I'll be found out, due to the tell-tale black crumbs left on my shirt (not to mention, in my teeth).  They are delicious and if they are in my cupboard, they aren't around for long.  And usually, Baby Girl Sweet Tooth is right there with me, munching away, sneaking them when she thinks I'm not looking! (She still doesn't believe I have eyes on the back of my head!) 


However...I don't like the care for the ingredient list, nor the vagueness of said list:  "High oleic canola oil, and/or palm oil, and/or canola oil, and/or soybean oil."  Really?  AND/OR??!!  Nabisco, do you really not know which kind of oil is going into my Oreo?  You would think that creating Oreos is an exact science and that they could be a little more specific, but no.  So I went a-huntin' for a homemade Oreo recipe and found a delightful one (that I only tweaked slightly) at http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/05/my-kingdom-for-a-glass-of-milk/.  Baby Girl Sweet Tooth and I looked through the recipe, then through our cupboards, confirmed that we had the ingredients, and started in!  What was to follow was nothing short of a miracle for the both of us!  A lot of giggling ensued, as well as a lot of teaching, both of which are a big part of why we are baking our way through the summer...hope you enjoy the Oreos!


Homemade Oreos
Cookies:
1 1/4 C all-purpose flour
1/2 C Hershey's Unsweetend Cocoa
1 t baking soda
1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
*1 C sugar
1/2 C + 2 T butter, room temperature (I used salted, sweet-cream butter)
1 large egg


*original recipe called for 1 1/2 C of sugar, but if you think about the cookie part of an Oreo, you realize that the cookie is not all that sweet.  If you are making these cookies without the sweet filling, feel free to add the extra 1/2 C of sugar

With our package of inspiration...can we replicate?

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees.

2. In a medium-sized bowl, mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt and sugar.

mixing, mixing, mixing...

3. Beat in the butter and egg.  Continue mixing until dough comes together in a mass.

Right side show what the dough will look like as it comes together.

4. Take rounded *teaspoons of batter, roll them into balls and place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet (why parchment?   Cookies slide off without any problems at all and clean up is a cinch!), 2 inches apart.  If the dough gets too sticky, slightly moisten your hands. (*if you want to make them larger or smaller, use larger or smaller portions)

Little brother had a comment about what he thought this looked like,
but this is a food blog, so I will not repeat...

5. Dip the bottom of a glass into flour and flatten each dough ball.  The thinner your cookie, the crispier it should be.  The thicker your cookie, the chewier it will be. (Ours were thicker, therefore chewier...and still yummy...)

This is a very serious process...don't talk to me and stop taking my picture!

6. Bake for 9 minutes; after several minutes, move to a rack to cool.  The cookies will spread and puff a bit during baking.  After they come out of the oven and continue to cool, they will flatten.

Can you smell this goodness?
It doesn't look like a pre-packaged oreo, but it sure smells like one!

The Filling

While the first batch is baking, or while the cookies are cooling, gather the ingredients for the famous, often-licked-without-the-cookie filling.

1/4 C (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

1/4 C vegetable shortening

2 C sifted powdered sugar

3 tsp vanilla extract

1. Blend butter and shortening together.

2. Add powdered sugar (about 1/2 C at a time and be prepared for a powdered sugar dust storm as you mix!)

3.  Blend in vanilla extract and prepare to be transported to your Oreo happy place.

  

I AM NOT KIDDING - YOU MUST TRY THE FILLING, RIGHT NOW!

(At this point, we switched from the hand mixer to a spoon, smearing all the ingredients together.)

"Mom!  It smells just like the filling!
 Hurry up and put the camera down and come smell it!"

Oreo Construction

-Once your cookies have cooled, put a blob of filling on the flat side of a cookie.  I won't say how much, because I don't know what size cookies you made.  Baby Girl Sweet Tooth made little ones because she wanted to eat a bunch.  I made bigger ones, because I wanted to feel full after one and not be tempted to eat all of them in one sitting...I made my goal.  They were gone in only 2 sittings...

Bottoms with blobs, tops ready to go!

-Find a cookie that matches in size and put it on top of your filling blob. Press down until that little dollop of goodness spreads out to the edges of the cookies.  Repeat with all the cookies.  And go ahead and try to do that without eating one first.  Go ahead, try it...bet ya can't!

Daddy Sweet Tooth, sharing the first two cookies with his Baby Girl.

Well, what are you waiting for?  Break out that glass of milk, grab your neighbor (we actually took a plate over to ours and got the big "THUMBS UP") and dunk some Oreos!  The flavors, the smell and the colors are all there but they will be all the sweeter, knowing you made them yourself...maybe even with your own little Sweet Tooth helper!

-the girls of the Sweet Tooth

Grab your neighbor...or grab your brother!