Homemade Oreos... Sinfully Delicious

My friends are super supportive in my writing and cooking endeavors. Chances are, they get to eat the products I play with in the kitchen, so it’s not like they’re forced to endure my talking about these delicacies in vain. One of my closest friends, Jamie, actually got me a great book for my birthday “The Mac + Cheese Cookbook”, and I’ve been drooling over everything in here since.

It usually takes me forever to come up with the courage to try a recipe from cookbooks, but there was one in Arevalo and Wade’s book that I couldn’t wait to create: the homemade Oreos.

First, I made them for Mothers Day, and gave them as gifts to my mom, aunts and grandmother. My husband was livid – I didn’t have any leftovers for him. The next time I made the Oreos was for our church group. They were inhaled, and Matt was very happy for the leftovers.

Since everyone loved them, I figured I’d share them with all of you. They’re not particularly hard to make, and very easy to enjoy with your friends. (Unless you’re like my husband. Then you’ll wolf them down without sharing.)

Homemade Oreos

Cookie Ingredients

• 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
• ½ cup cocoa powder
• 1 ½ cups white sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon table salt
• ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt, for topping

Frosting Ingredients

• ¼ cup unsalted butter
• ¼ cup shortening (I used lard!)
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Instructions 

• Preheat your oven to 3750F. Prepare your baking tray with parchment paper.

• To make your cookies, start by mixing your flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. I used a fork, and carefully sifted until the mixture looked like sand.

• Add your butter and eggs to the dry mixture, using your hand mixer on a low setting. Now your mixture will look like wet sand.

• Scoop out your dough into small balls, roughly smaller than a tablespoon. Make sure that you don’t make the dough balls too large, otherwise they won’t cook properly, and will be overly large. Sprinkle the topping with sea salt. 

• Bake your cookies until the dough starts to crack and puff up slightly. This will be approximately 6 minutes. These cookies will look underdone, and that’s ok! They are supposed to be soft. Let them cool on the tray. 

Now, for the filling!

(If you have a heavy duty mixer, here’s where you want to pull it out.)

• Blend your butter and shortening (lard).

• Slowly add your powdered sugar and vanilla, half cup at a time. Blend until it’s smooth.
• Place your filling in a pastry bag, or if you’re on a budget, in a heavy duty gallon bag with its tip cut off one corner.
• Once your cookies are cooled, pipe a dollop of filling in the middle, and press the remaining cookie on top.

 

Don't mind my larger cookies. I couldn't help myself.

• Take your shot and try to dip this bad boy in a glass of milk, and enjoy!

Andrea's Easter Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Easter’s coming! It’s a great time for many reasons (one of which being that my birthday is near), and for many, this is a time for gathering with family and reflection of one’s faith.

Afterward, you gather, you celebrate, and you eat. If you’re a kid, there’s a high probability that you’ll get to go on an Easter egg hunt. If you’re an adult, there’s an even higher possibility that you’ll steal all of your kids’ good candy.

I wish that I could make homemade candy, but I’m no confectioner. I wish I could make chocolate covered peanut butter eggs like so many wonderful food bloggers. However, I am terrified of chocolate dipping (mostly because I'd probably eat it all before the dipping commenced).

I am however, a cookie person. So I asked myself: what can I do to marry chocolate peanut butter eggs and cookies? I scoured my go-to recipes, and found a great recipe that was perfect. 

It had everything that I was looking for in a cookie - the crumbliness from peanut butter, with the sweet decadence of chocolate. Enjoy this recipe while your kids are out in the yard. It'll be hard to share them otherwise.

Andrea's Easter Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1/2 cup chunky or smooth peanut butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1 egg

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (If you don't want crumbly cookies, omit 1/4 cup)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Instructions: 

• Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and prepare your pans by lightly greasing them, or by covering them with parchment paper.

• In a medium-sized bowl, blend your butter, peanut butter and sugars until they are smoothly mixed. 

Guess who was annoyed that she didn't get peanut butter?

• Add the egg and mix until fluffy.

The egg adds a great lightness to your batter.

• In another bowl, blend the flour, baking powder, soda and salt together. Once they are well mixed, begin to slowly add them to your butter batter.

Your batter will be crumbly. That's good. 

• Add the chocolate chips, then cover your dough and stick it in your fridge for at least 30 minutes.

• Drop cookie dough onto your baking sheets in rounded teaspoons. Bake for 10-12 minutes. (Note: please don't overcook these cookies. Since they're light, they WILL taste like char.)

• Enjoy!

Salty chocolate chunk cookies - the search for the perfect cookie, Part I

It's hard to find the perfect cookie. Trust me, I've tried. If you think that I'm merely joking, ask my husband, who's watched me scour through cookie recipes, tried and dabbled with many recipes. Even when I find a great recipe, I continue on, hoping for utter bliss in my mouth. As I find recipes that work, I'll share them. 

Now let me tell you about these cookies. Don't mind the salt; this recipe is delicious. Really. It's got an interesting mixture of flavors, and the salt sprinkled atop the cookies adds a new complement to the sweet that you wouldn't expect. I really liked this recipe for the fact that you've got two layers of sugar, and the rich batter is good all on its own. 

Hope you enjoy this with a huge glass of milk. 

Salty chocolate chunk cookies

Makes approximately 18-24 cookies, depending on your size preference

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup (packed) light brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup powdered sugar

2 large egg yolks

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

8 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate 

flaky sea salt for sprinkling

• Preheat your oven to 375°. 

• Mix your flour, baking powder, kosher salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl, and then set the dry mix aside.

• Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the softened butter, brown sugar, sugar, and powdered sugar until light and fluffy. This process will take approximately 3-4 minutes. 

It almost looks like a snowed in home.

Make sure your butter is completely soft, otherwise this won't work. 

• Add egg yolks, egg, and vanilla to the wet mixture. Beat them in, occasionally scraping down the sides of the bowl, until mixture is pale and fluffy. This will take approximately 4-5 minutes. 

My dog really appreciated the egg whites.

• Reduce mixer speed to low and slowly add in your dry ingredients, mixing just to blend. Gently fold in your chocolate. I followed the recipe, and this seemed to ask for less than most recipes. I'd add a smidge more next time. 

• Chill your cookie dough for approximately 30 minutes to an hour. This makes the dough a lot easier to work with, and the cookies keep their shape as they bake.

• Spoon rounded tablespoonfuls of cookie dough onto 2 parchment paper-lined baking sheets, spacing 1-inch apart. Sprinkle cookies with sea salt.

• Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through. This will let your cookies cook more evenly, as there might be some cooler spots in your oven. Cook the cookies until they are golden brown around the edges. This will take 10-12 minutes. (Note: your cookies will be soft, and will firm up as they cool). Let cool slightly on baking sheets, then transfer to wire racks; let cool completely.