I have to admit that although I don’t often eat store-bought cookies, I have a weakness for Oreos. There’s something so satisfying about that crispy dark chocolate cookie and the creamy filling. But considering that most things are better homemade, I decided to make my very own Oreos from scratch. It took me a couple of attempts to get the recipe just right, but finally got them to turn out just how I wanted. These are just as good (if not better) than the packaged version, AND they’re made with real butter, not vegetable shortening – way more delicious.

INGREDIENTS
makes ~24 sandwich cookies

240 g flour (use T80 in France), plus more for rolling the dough
100 g cocoa powder, sifted
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
200 g unsalted butter, room temperature
175 g sugar

for the filling;
100 g unsalted butter, room temperature
180 g icing sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 175°C (~350°F), and line three baking sheets with parchment paper. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking powder. Set aside.

In a large bowl, stir together the butter and sugar, until very well combined (no butter lumps should remain). Gently incorporate the dry ingredients into the butter mixture in two batches, using either a spoon or spatula.

The dough will be a bit crumbly, but that’s okay. Divide the dough in two, form each half into a rough disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Prep your work surface by laying out a sheet of parchment and generously sprinkling it with flour. Working with one disk at a time, and sprinkling with flour as required, roll the dough out until it is very thin – about 2-3 mm (~1/8″) thick. Use a 5 cm (~2″) circle cutter to cut as many cookies as possible – don’t re-roll the scraps.

I also used a cookie stamp to add a little pattern to the cookies!

The dough is quite fragile, so using an offset spatula will help to transfer the cookies from the work surface to the baking sheets. I placed 16 cookies per sheet, leaving about 3 cm between each one. Bake for 10 minutes, until done.

Remove the sheet from the oven, and allow the cookies to sit for 2 or 3 minutes on the hot sheet before transferring them to a cooling rack. Allow the cookies to cool completely before adding the filling.

To make the filling, combine the butter, icing sugar, and vanilla extract in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Mix on low speed until the ingredients are completely combined, then mix on high speed for 4 to 5 minutes until light and fluffy.

Add the filling to a piping bag fitted with a 1/4″ round tip. Pipe about a teaspoon onto the backs of half the cookies, and use the remain cookies to make a sandwich. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving.

Enjoy with milk :) YUM!