Homemade Oreos

It never fails that every October, when the kids and I are cruising around the Halloween aisles at Target that we stumble across those alluring packages of Halloween Oreos. You know, the ones with the orange filling? Despite the fact that Oreos are something that we never, ever buy, the kids are instantly filled with longing for them and squeals of "Can we buy some Mom?" fill the air. In the past I have caved, and bought them some (it has got to be that orange filling!!), but not this time. With all I have learned about real food this year, the last thing I want my kids eating is processed, fake food like Oreos. Plus, I am working really hard on teaching them that homemade is always better - better for you and better tasting. So I thought I would lead by example, and search for a suitable replacement. I was surprised to find it in a recipe on the Smitten Kitchen site (which is a wonderful foodie type blog - check it out if you haven't already)!

Homemade Oreos, via Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients for the cookie part:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar [see recipe note]
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

Ingredients for the filling:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Set two racks in the middle of the oven. Preheat to 375°F.
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.
3. Take rounded teaspoons of batter and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet approximately two 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 to 3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy.
5. To assemble the cookies, in a pastry bag with a 1/2 inch, round tip, pipe teaspoon-size blobs of cream into the center of one 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.

A few notes. Since the point of making homemade Oreos was to avoid nasty chemicals, I didn't think it made a whole lot of sense to use Crisco in the recipe. Crisco vegetable shorting is horrible stuff, filled with hydrogenated oils and trans fat (read more about why you shouldn't be consuming them here). There are a lot of alternatives out there, but one of the easiest is to pick up a container of Spectrum shortening. Its non-hydrogenated, and made of palm oil, which is much healthier and safer to consume.

Also, the cookies ended up spreading out quite a bit while baking, I think the normal size cookie scooper that I always use ended up putting a tad too much dough on the cookie sheet. We cut them down to a smaller size using a biscuit cutter, and some other fall shaped cookie cutters but a lot of cookie was wasted in scraps.

Finally, the cookies were good the first night, but tasted a whole lot more like Oreo's the second day. It may be difficult to make them last that long though!