Homemade Oreos!

I wanted to do some baking with my oldest daughter for Easter. Looking around my pantry and deciding what we could make, to my surprise, Serenity asked to bake cookies over cupcakes. She wanted to do some decorating with icing. We've done sugar cookies before and we end up with piles and piles of them. They're good, but I wanted a change. So I thought Oreos! The kids love chocolate and icing, who doesn't?!

This is the first roll of the dough straight out of the fridge. It was pretty fussy. Fortunately, the cookies were easy to lift up and did not crack when I transferred them. So it looks fussy, but it's surprising sturdy.

Serenity is cutting out Easter egg shapes.

The back of a cookie.

Serenity picked this decorating tip

A trick I finally learned! Put a twist tie around the decorating bag for your child so the icing doesn't squeeze out the top. It really works!

Serenity is concentrating on her decorating.

We made enough icing to decorate the tops as well as fill the sandwiches. We thought they needed lots of colour to celebrate Easter.

Ready to eat!

Now, these are NOT the packaged Oreos. The chocolate wafer is crispy and the texture is pretty close to the original. They are a deep chocolate flavour and subtly sweet. The chocolate wafer in store bought Oreos is much, much sweeter, but the icing (even without the extra on top) in the homemade version balances it out. Give these cookies a try, you will not be disappointed!

Homemade Oreos

(Makes approximately 3 dozen sandwich cookies)

For the cookies:

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup dutch process cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

For the filling:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 – 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Combine the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl, and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy.  Add the egg and vanilla, and beat until well incorporated.
Meanwhile, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add the dry mixture to the creamed mixture, beating on the lowest speed. Continue to mix on the lowest setting until the dry ingredients are just incorporated.

Divide the dough in half, and shape into two discs. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.
When the dough is chilled, preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a baking mat. Set aside.

Taking only one portion of dough out of the refrigerator at a time, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Use a cookie cutter (approximately 2 inches in diameter) to cut out cookies and transfer them to the prepared baking sheet. You can ball up the scraps and reroll them a couple times. I was able to reroll 3 times, and then with those scraps, I made small patties in my hand baked those. In the end, I got 31 pretty sandwiches and 6 patty sandwiches.

Bake the cookies for 7 - 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once the cookies are cooled, prepare the filling. Combine the softened butter, milk, and vanilla and beat until combined. The mixture may be a bit lumpy, but will come together. Add the powdered sugar gradually, approximately 1/2 cup at a time, until the filling comes together. It will be slightly stiffer than a cupcake frosting.

Transfer the filling to a piping bag fitted with a large tip. Pipe the filling onto half of the cookies, and top with the remaining cookies to form cookie sandwiches.