Homemade Oreos

I’m in one of those slumps again—the “broke college student that would rather go to the dining hall and eat than cook things for her food blog” slump. You know the one… right? No? Oh, well I need to get out of it and not only cook things, but post some of them too! So here goes nothing:

The semester started up again last Wednesday on the 26^th but thanks to the lovely and wonderful weather in New England we had a snow day on the second day of classes. So of course I took advantage of this wonderful rare occasion and decided to bake something for my residents before our first floor meeting (granted, this was mostly to bribe them into actually showing up to the floor meeting) but at least it worked!

I found this recipe thanks to a habit of mine that I’m trying to break: hungry food blog roaming. That’s right; when I’m hungry the most productive thing I do is look at food blogs. I don’t do work, I don’t read for classes, I don’t fix things that are broken; I just look at food blogs. I found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen a while back and I’ve been dying to use it. I love Smitten Kitchen, it’s one of the first food blogs that I started reading and one that I try to stay as up to date with, and everything that the writer, Deb, posts looks so amazing.

After reading her post on these homemade Oreos I knew I had to try to make them and I figured that there wasn’t a better time than my first floor meeting of the semester! All things considered the recipe is easier than I expected and everyone that tried them really seemed to like them. My friend and fellow RA Erin definitely did.

Here’s what you’ll need:

For the cookies:

• - 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
• - ½ cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa powder*
• - 1 teaspoon baking soda
• - ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• - ¼ teaspoon salt
• - 1 cup sugar
• - 1 ¼ sticks of unsalted butter at room temperature
• - 1 large egg

For the filling:

• - ½ stick of unsalted butter at room temperature
• - ¼ cup vegetable shortening
• - 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• - 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, sugar and salt.

With an electric mixer mix in butter and then the egg.

Continue to mix until the ingredients fully incorporate and become dough.

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Roll into small balls and place onto cookie sheets that are lined with parchment paper. Flatten the balls of dough down with hand.

Place in oven and bake for about nine minutes. Turn the sheets around halfway through so that the cookies will bake evenly.

For the filling, place the butter and shortening in a mixing bowl and mixing on low speed. Slowly mix in the sugar and the vanilla. When all of the ingredients are mixed together turn the mixer to high and beat the filling for 2-3 minutes so that it becomes light and fluffy.

Once the cookies are cooled take the filling and place about a teaspoon’s worth of filling onto one cookie and spread it evenly. Place a second cookie (without the filling) on top of the cookie. Continue this process for the rest of the cookies.

The cookies are a mix between oreos and whoopie pies. They’re delicious, but also incredibly rich. Enjoy!

*For those of you who don’t know what Dutch process cocoa powder is, this will explain it to you so you’re not trying to figure out what it is at the grocery store (it happened to me!)