Homemade Oreos

Every Christmas eve, my family has a traditional holiday dinner where all of my cousins, aunts, and uncles share laughter, smiles, and hugs. For the past three years (ever since I've been perfecting my baking skills), I have made up some kind of dessert to have around for guests to try. One year I made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and Oreo crumbs on top. Another year I made Grayves and brownies with crushed candy cane and Hershey's cookies and cream. This year, I decided to bake Chilenas de Dulce de Leche (Alfajores) and Homemade Oreos. I saw this recipe on Cupcakes and Cashmere, but I will never achieve Emily Schuman's perfection.

Homemade Oreos

(Makes about 40 one teaspoon size sandwich cookies)

Ingredients: 

For the chocolate wafers:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa (I used Hershey's)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

 

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.