Homemade Oreos

Homemade Oreos

These are the perfect chocolate sandwich cookie: nice rich flavor from the cocoa powder, perfectly crisp cookies, and fluffy filling.  I use Valrhona cocoa powder and  don’t get caught up with whether one or another is dutch-process or not: just use the darkest, highest quality cocoa powder you can find/afford.  For the cookies themselves, I adapted the recipe from Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It and experimented with a filling that I was happy with: not too firm and not too sweet. Just right.

Ingredients

For the cookies:

1 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoon unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), chopped into cubes
2 egg yolks
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chips or chunks, melted and cooled
2 -4 tablespoons water

For the filling:

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1/4 cup lard or vegetable shortening
1 1/4 cup sifted confectioners sugar (feel free to use more to make an even thicker filling, but check the sweetness as you go)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Pour the sugar into a food processor and process for 30 seconds. Then add the flour, baking powder, salt, and cocoa and quickly pulse to combine. Add the butter and process very quickly just until coarse crumbs form. Blend in the egg yolks and vanilla and scrape the melted chocolate into the batter. Mix to combine.

Preheat the oven to 400 F and grease 2 baking sheets. Make sure the oven rack is in the center of the oven. Gather the dough together on top of a piece of parchment paper or wax paper and divide it in half. Shape each piece into a flattened rectangle. Set one disk aside and roll out the first one by covering it with a sheet of parchment or wax paper and rolling it into about a 13 by 15 inch rectangle. The dough will be 1/4 inch thick.

Cut out as many cookies as you can using a 2-3 inch round cookie cutter (or the bottom of a glass). Gather any remaining scraps and cut out more cookies. Bake for 7-9 minutes, or until the edges are very slightly darkened. The cookies may rise a little during baking, but flatten out again once cool.  Since these cookies are naturally dark, it’s easy to over bake them, so be careful. Cool on the baking sheet for 2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Repeat with the second half of the dough. If it gets too soft, put it in the fridge for five minutes. Cool all the cookies on a rack for at least 30 minutes before frosting.

To make the frosting, place the butter and lard/shortening in a mixing bowl and gradually beat at a low speed, pouring in the sugar and vanilla as you go. Turn the mixer on high and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

To assemble the cookies, fill a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2 inch tip with the frosting. Pipe teaspoon-size circles of filling onto the center of one cookie, and gently place another on top. Work all the filling evenly inbetween both cookies by pressing them lightly together. Can store at room temperature, in an air-tight container, up to 1 week.