O’ O’ it’s magic: Discovering Homemade Oreos

When I tried my first batch of Homemade Oreos, courtesy of an inspirational baking friend who brought the dessert over for a post college thesis celebration,  I was oblivious to both food blogs and the concept of trying to make food look as good as it tastes.  Throwing ingredients together, plopping cookies down on a tray and adding whatever I had to a stir fry seemed perfectly acceptable as long as my taste buds were happy. I went through a particularly unfortunate vegetable stew period in which I cooked roughly chopped up squash, potatoes, onions and carrots in a massive pot with cumin and curry. While a quite scrumptious fall medley, the brown chunky stew looked absolutely hideous. My “scrunchie” phase of cooking if you will: functional but I needed to develop some style. 

The Homemade Oreo immediately reminded me of the original cookie but I could also tell this lil’ beauty would be so much more. Dark cocoa cookies sandwiching pure white frosting with a flavor more complex than the store bought version. I was in love. My friend pointed me to the blog, smitten kitchen, where she found the cookie recipe and instant obsession ensued. Countless more blogs and recipes later, I now can’t survive without beautiful delicious cooking.  

“If it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” fortunately is not my mantra. And recently I’ve been experimenting with different flavors of the Oreo frosting. For the old “scrunchie” me, such innovation would have produced disaster but the new sophisticated me put a bit more thought into my baking process. I started with safe variations—mint, Nutella and raspberry filling—all of which turned out delish. I could also see a mocha or a peanut butter filling producing tasty results.

Lastly, making homemade Oreos allows you to pretend you’re old-school cool. Invite the gang over, stir together some Kool-Aid,  pop in a VHS of Captain Planet and I’d say you have a ironic-retro party on your hands. 

Homemade Oreos

Adapted from smittenkitchen 

Yields 15-20 cookies

For the chocolate cookies:

1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

½ cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon baking powder

¼  teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar 

½ cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 ¼ sticks) softened, unsalted butter

1 large egg

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.

2. Mix  flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar together in a large bowl.

3. Using an electric mixer on low speed, add butter then the egg. The dough will be granular at first. Continue mixing until dough comes together. About a minute or two.

3. Flour tin foil or wax paper. Shape dough into cylinder on foil/ wax paper. Wrap dough and roll until feels even. Refrigerate for one to two hours. 

4. Remove from fridge. Slice into ¼ inch cookies. Place on cookie sheet. Bake for 8 minutes. Let cookies cool completely before frosting. 

For Original Filling:

¼ cup (½ stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter

¼  cup vegetable shortening

2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar

1 teaspoons vanilla extract 

1. Put butter and shortening in a large bowl.  Using an electric mixer on low speed, gradually mix in sugar and vanilla. Increase speed to medium and beat for another minute or two or until the filling is light and fluffy.

Flavored Filling Directions

The below portions are for an entire batch of flavored filling. So if you want to make half a batch of original frosting and half a batch of raspberry, for example, you would make the original frosting as directed, divide into two bowls and add half the amount of raspberry jam to one. 

For Raspberry filling

Add 2 tbsp raspberry jam or preserves to original filling recipe. Stir to combine. 

For Mint filling

Add 3/4 tsp of peppermint extract to original filling recipe. Stir to combine. 

For Nutella filling

Add 2 tbsp and 2 tsp Nutella to original filling recipe. Stir to combine. 

Enjoy!