Oreos

I am on sugar overload. I can’t take anymore. Give me soup, give me chicken, give me veggies. I have had too much sugar and no longer crave it. At lunch today I was unable to eat a whole vanilla snack pack. It was too sweet. I ate a few bites and tossed it. How have I gotten to this good-for-my-health but rather depressing point? Well, the day after I baked the snickerdoodles, I made home-made oreos. I AM DONE.

After seeing this lovely post on smitten kitchen’s website, I had to try them. They turned out splendidly. As the comments at the bottom of the recipe show, a lot of people got fluffier cookies, myself included. I didn’t care, and neither did the boy nor his room mates nor my coworkers. All devoured them. Tips and changes for next time: try to make these a day before you really want them because the flavor and texture seem to be better after being kept a day in an airtight container. They become less hard (original oreo like) and become like very solid chocolate chip cookies. I would also try to make mine thinner by pressing under a glass or something. Oh, and be sure to stick to the teaspoon size, because they expand dramatically! Other ideas would be to make the filling into other flavors like the oreo company does. I would say peanut butter would be best as it would cut the sweetness a little (my one complaint was that the solid filling required a lot of sugar), but you could also do mint, chocolate or possibly even a strawberry cream!
Conclusion: definitely worth a try! Very good and nostalgic. Needs some tweaking to make the filling less sweet and the cookies the right size, but already good and will only get better with more tries. I got 16 sandwiches out of my dough and had extra filling left over.

Homemade Oreos (from Retro Desserts by Wayne Brachman)

Makes 25 to 30 sandwich cookies (no it doesn't)

For the chocolate wafers:

1¼ cups all-purpose flour

½ cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1 to 1½ cups sugar (I used one cup at the advice of smitten kitchen because I didn’t want both the cookie and the filling to be too sweet. This was definitely the right choice, anything more would be overwhelming. If you do nit make the filling, feel free to add more)

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. (It looks like it won't be possible with this little amount of liquid but it does, in fact, eventually come together)

3. Take rounded teaspoons (not tablespoons) 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 (or a ziploc with an end cut off), pipe teaspoon-size blobs of cream into the center of one cookie (I used way more than 1 tsp per 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.