Homemade Oreos

Today is my little brother's birthday (Happy Birthday Bro!), so I thought it fitting to post the cookie that he chose for his birthday treat this year. Technically, he chose "dipped Oreos" but one first needs Oreos in order to dip. He did mention that the Oreo's didn't have to be homemade, he just wanted different flavors of dipped cookies. The hubby said asking me to send commercial Oreo's was like asking Gordon Ramsey to send a Big Mac. I snorted in derision and told him I was probably more like Guy Fieri sending take-out from a diner, drive-in, or dive he visited. In the end, I opted to make the Oreo's before dipping them. 

The hubby gave the cookies 2 thumbs up. He also said they were better than store-bought Oreos. Big talk from the hubby! 😁

Technically, these cookies are not hard to make. At all. They are, however, time consuming. I find sandwich cookies always take time, though. I mean, you have to put frosting on half of them and I always find frosting laborious. 

To make these, you first make a chocolate shortbread. It's a very simple dough that came together in minutes.

After the dough is made, you divide it into 2 sections and roll them into little, circular logs. Then, they must be chilled. 

I let my dough chill for about 2 hours. On my first go-around with these cookies, I thought the dough might be a little hard after removing it from the fridge, so I set it on the counter for 20 minutes. The dough ended up getting a little too soft, and my circles became oblong. Word to the wise? The dough is easy to cut, so just remove the logs from the fridge, and immediately slice. You'll end up with prettier circles. 

I wasn't too concerned with my non-perfect shapes. They are homemade after all, no? 😜

One of my favorite things about these cookies is they don't spread. I was able to fit all the cookies on 2 cookie sheets and bake them all at the same time. This saved oodles of time as I didn't have to let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, remove them, and allow the baking sheet time to come to room temperature before using it again. Some of the cookies looked like they baked into each other but when I was removing them from the sheet, they came apart with no effort at all. 

Now, with the cookies done, it was time for the cream.

The cream is really just a frosting. A little different from a frosting, as the cream is stabilized with shortening, but very similar. It's creamed butter, sugar, and shortening, sweetened with a little vanilla. It worked perfectly.

Funnily enough, on one of my test runs, a cream recipe called for coconut oil instead of shortening. I didn't hesitate to try it as it sounded much healthier. The only thing I will say is this- if you use coconut oil instead of shortening, you will have Coconut Oreos. 

Nuff' said. 

I wanted mine to look pretty, so I piped the cream in. Feel free to spread the cream with a knife. My tips for the cream include taking the cream to the outer edges of the cookie but make sure you're adding a thin layer. If you glob the cream on in thick chunks, you will have messy sandwiches with cream bursting out. I found a nice, thin layer made the best sandwiches. 

See? Who cares if some of those circles are oblong? I think they look pretty good! 

So, after the cookies were baked, it was time to dip-

I really wasn't sure how I was going to dip the cookies until I got to the craft store. I was either going to buy white melting candy, and then use oil to flavor and gel food coloring to color it, or I was just going to buy colored, flavored melting candy. 

After looking at my options, I decided on the colored, flavored candy with a hefty dose of sprinkles on top. I decided on 4 flavors- Salted Caramel, Cookies & Cream, Mint, and Chocolate Peanut Butter.

Can you tell which cookies are what flavor? I bet you can! 😂

They just turned out so pretty, I had to take a couple of pictures! 

They tasted pretty grand too 😍

I then packaged them in little boxes, and away they went. The little bro got them yesterday, so I got them there just in time! 

In honor of the little bro's birthday, I thought I'd share a photo from back when he was actually the little bro-

That's me and my bro with our aunt on the Oregon Coast 😃

And then, here's one of us today(ish)-

Not so little anymore 😂

That's it for today! Happy Birthday Bro! I miss you, and I hope the cookies are especially awesome! 

Have a great day everyone!

Recipe adapted from: Momables and Sally's Baking Addiction

Ingredients (~30 sandwich cookies):

Cookies-

1 cup unsalted butter, room temp

1 cup granulated sugar

1 egg, room temp

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

Filling-

1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temp

1/4 cup vegetable shortening, room temp

1 1/4- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla paste (sub 1 tsp vanilla extract)

Directions:

1. Prepare the cookies- cream butter and sugar until well incorporated. Mix in egg. Mix in vanilla. In a separate mixing bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Whisk to mix. Add dry ingredients to butter-sugar mixture and mix until well incorporated. Divide dough in half, and roll into two logs. Wraps logs in plastic wrap and chill in fridge for 2 hours.

2. Preheat oven to 350º and line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. Remove 1 log from fridge and slice into thin rounds. Arrange rounds on cookie sheet. Repeat with 2nd log. Bake cookie sheets in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, until set. Remove from oven and cool completely before frosting.

3. Prepare the filling- mix butter and shortening until well-combined, about 1 minute. Add sugar and vanilla and mix for another minute, until sugar is well incorporated. Move filling to a piping bag (or you can spread the filling on cookies with a knife). Pipe filling onto a cookie and sandwich with another cookie. Repeat with all cookies. 

4. Store cookies in an airtight container on the counter for up to 1 week. 

Printable Recipe

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