Thursday, August 28, 2008

Homemade Oreo Cookies

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I had been wanting to make Oreo cookies for a while now, but remembering my old roommates Oreo recipe, I knew I didn't want soft cakey cookies, and that is how hers always turned out.  I wanted to see if there really is a recipe that is true to Oreos, with crispy, dark chocolate cookies.  All the recipes I have seen always call for a box of Devil's food cake mix.  I could not find any that didn't use the cake mix.  But this one was a bit different than all the others I've seen, so I decided to give it a try.  Let me also say, I knew going in to this that I wasn't going to suddenly clone the Oreo.  I will say though that this is a darn close clone to the cream filling!  I found this recipe here at Best Recipe Source.  Here is the recipe as I made it.

Homemade "Oreo" Cookies

1 box Devil's Food Cake Mix

2 large eggs

2 tablespoons canola oil

2 tablespoons water

1/2 cup chocolate drink powder (like Nesquik), plus a little more for flattening cookies

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  In bowl of mixer, combine cake mix, eggs, oil, and chocolate drink powder.  Mix well.  Batter will be thick.  Let sit 15 minutes.  Form 1/2 inch balls with dough and place on parchment paper lined baking sheets.  The dough is very sticky.  I sprayed my hands with a little cooking spray and rolled the dough into balls.  It worked great.  Flatten each cookie with the bottom of a glass sprayed with cooking spray, then dipped in to some of the chocolate drink powder.  (Otherwise it will stick to the glass.)  Bake for 8 minutes (any longer they will burn).  Remove from baking sheet onto wire rack as soon as they are taken from the oven.  Cool completely.

Cream Filling

1/2 pkg. unflavored gelatin (1/4 cup water)

1/2 cup shortening

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Dissolve gelatin in 1/4 cup cold water in glass measuring cup.  Sit the glass in some simmering water in a pot on the stove.  Stir gelatin until heated enough that gelatin dissolves.  Beat shortening in mixing bowl and gradually add powdered sugar.  Mix in vanilla extract.  This will be grainy until the gelatin is added.  Slowly add gelatin to sugar until it is icing/spreading consistency.  (You may not quite need all of the gelatin liquid.)  You could spread desired amount of filling on each cookie half, but I put it in a piping bag and piped some on to each cookie.  Let set or chill to harden.  This recipe made 35 sandwiches. 

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So, the cookies are okay.  Even if they weren't supposed to be "Oreos", they are just an okay cookie.  Fun to make, but if you REALLY are having a craving for Oreos, there just is nothing like the real thing.  If I added up the amount spent on ingredients, it would be about the same as buying a package of Oreos.  These cookies aren't Oreo chocolatey enough, and are a bit too sweet.  They were soft when I first filled them, but after sitting in an airtight container overnight, they are now kind of soft/chewy.  The filling, in my opinion, is pretty darn close to a real Oreo filling, maybe just a bit softer.  I actually halved the filling recipe and still had enough leftover that I filled a bunch of graham crackers.  I actually preferred the graham crackers to the chocolate cookies.  Maybe it's because I remember coming home from school sometimes while growing up and an afternoon snack of frosted graham crackers would be waiting for us.  Sometimes it was chocolate frosting, sometimes vanilla.  I always liked the vanilla with graham crackers better.  Tasty memory, Mom!  I'll have to dig through my old recipe box and find my roommate's Oreo cookie recipe to compare, but I remember hers were big cakey ones, but they were GOOD.  These that I made are not horrible by any means, in fact, the boys really like them.  I meant to try to add some dark cocoa to the mix to get a more dark flavor like Oreos, but I forgot until it was too late.  They have dark chocolate cake mixes that I would also try over Devil's Food.  The funny thing about all this, I have a new, unopened package of Oreos in the cupboard!  (I actually don't LOVE Oreos, but there IS something about having a few with some milk that just has to happen now and then, I mean, if there's an open package lying around, ya gotta have a few, right!)  Put them in a chocolate chip cookie and I'd just might have a new love for them--like I've seen Jenny do recently here at Picky Palate.  These look GOOD!

 

How about this little cutie!  Sam sees the boys getting crushed ice from the ice dispenser in the fridge and he wants to have some, too.  So I give him little cups with just a few pieces of small ice.  The other day he was having some in the kitchen and I went in to another room for a few minutes and came back to him "cleaning up" some spilled ice.  I just thought it was too cute that he got a towel himself and was attempting to wipe up the spill. 

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What a sweet little helper!  He's got a yucky cold right now, poor guy.  Parker came home from school sick today with a fever of 102.  (It sure doesn't take long for the sickness to start around here once they are back in school!)  He's also had a bit of the barfs.  He laid around the rest of the day sleeping and whining.  I really hate it when I just can't help "make" my kids better when they are sick.  Hope whatever he's got isn't going to make its way around the other three boys (but it most likely will!)  Sigh!

Okay, someday I really will post some of the yummy things I've made for dinner, but now it's too late tonight and I always start with dessert first.  Speaking of dessert, Taylor missed out on this snack tonight-----

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because he would not eat the world's smallest carrot at dinner!  He was not a happy camper, but I just cannot get this kid to eat ANY vegetables.  Am I too hard on him?  Sometimes he won't eat a single bite of dinner.  He did eat some of the spaghetti for dinner tonight, but pretty much never eats ANY vegetables.  Tough love, or am I the meanest mother in the world.  (Will never forget the chicken pot pie dinner/breakfast/lunch/dinner again/breakfast...., Mom!) ;) 

6 comments:

Clumbsy Cookie said...

Can I borrow Sam to help me clean my kitchen? Hope the kids get better soon, so sorry about that.
The cloned oreos look good, I've tried the version from top secret recipes a long time ago, but they didn't turn out very well, so I just kept buying oreos, lol! Just yeasterday I found on a blog a recipe form cookies that were black as oreos and the the person even sayed that they tasted like oreos. They looked more like a chocolate chocolate chip cookie I think. I'll try to find them again later and I'll send you the link.

alexandra's kitchen said...

sorry the cookies didn't work out as you had hoped, but they look precious anyway. what a fun idea!

The Cogswells said...

It's funny that T wouldn't eat that teeny tiny carrot. Zane goes around telling everyone that he loves "Collyflowers" which I think is adorable...when I put it to the test, he ate a big serving!!

RecipeGirl said...

Hmmm. I'm sort of in the middle of making homemade oreos. I have the chocolate wafers done... and they're in the freezer. I just haven't gotten around to making the filling yet. I got mine from KA Cookie Companion (I think). And they're definitely not a soft cookie. I'll let you know how they turn out. I tried to make them darker than chocolate color by adding black food coloring to the batter. It made them darker, but not quite as dark as real oreos.

Kim said...

Don't worry that your baby sometimes won't eat. Ask any pediatrician--kids will eat when they're hungry, and not before. With little kids, it's often a waiting game. They usually come around to the veggie thing too. Just keep offering, and they'll eat eventually.

Shanbanan said...

http://curiouslyravenous.blogspot.com/2007/12/tkos-thomas-keller-oreos.html

Found this recipe. Maybe it'll be more like the real Oreo.

Shan