homemade oreos

Well, right now it is a snowy Sunday, but yesterday morning was when it started snowing, and I had pretty much the perfect Saturday. The Ministry of Education announced that all schools would be closed to students, but staff would still have to report and work full time for the week. In addition to just being irritating anyway, next week was scheduled to be finals, so now we have time off, little to grade, anticipation of a pain for finals rescheduling, and fears of future vacation days being cut.

So Saturday morning, to use the term loosely for 11:00 am, I squinted through my blinds at the trees. Since we got back from winter break, campus has been warm enough that all the snow has melted. But when I peeked through my window blinds, I saw white on the branches. I pulled the blinds open on the window nearest to me (and I still cannot express how much I love having two windows in my room that look out on trees; I missed trees and windows so much in Morocco) and saw that the forest behind our house was transformed into a winter wonderland again. I still feel the childlike glee at the thought of snow, even though I usually have no intention of actively engaging with it. I just love to look at it, to walk through it a bit, and to be inside, warm, while it graces the landscape around me.

I went downstairs to find my roommates collected under blankets in the living room. I settled into our lazy boy chair, and might I add that I certainly respect them for their comfort although I still have qualms about their appearance. We decided to invite people over for board games, and then the fun began. Kate came over and ordered me into the kitchen to make her cookies. At first, I wasn't too enthusiastic, but I found a recipe for homemade oreos and ended up really enjoying trying out a new recipe. Meanwhile, my roommates and the teachers that came over played a few rounds of Settlers. Settlers of Catan is a board game that one of my roommates got for Christmas. It is so much fun, and we have played it 85% of the nights since we got back from Christmas break. So I made oreos, and then I played a round of settlers. Then we switched gears to Dixit, a game that another teacher got that is really neat. It is a French game and each card is a unique picture done by an artist. On your turn, you pick a card and make up a story or title for it, and place it face down on the table. Then everyone else chooses a card/image from their hand that they think matches it. Then they are shuffled and laid out, and everyone selects which they think was the original one, and points ensue. It is pretty fun and interesting, and the cards are pretty beautiful and have a lovely surrealist strangeness that I love.

Of course, I found the recipe on SK. The cookies were good, and all were gone within a few hours of being baked, but I wasn't so wildly crazy about them that I would necessarily make them again. But for a group of people as a nice treat, it was fun to make and yummy. I mean, it has chocolate and frosting, so where can you go wrong. And the ones that I was able to put together and serve/eat while the cookies were still warm were quite delicious.

For the chocolate wafers:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar [SK suggested 1 cup and that is what I did, so the cookie isn't too sweet]
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 [of course I don't have shortening here, so I just used more butter]
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat to 375°F.

I used my handheld mixer to 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. SK didn't mention that this would take a while or that the mix would not look like it even had the potential of coming together for a while, but I persisted and eventually it did. So when you see the picture of dusty batter above and then the moist clump, know that it was just time, and your batter will also eventually arrive to that state as well.

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 [SK's instructions. I tried and it just demolished my little cookie, so I gave up on flipping]. I alternate two parchments with cookies, so that one is cooling on a rack and then getting replaced with new cookies while the other bakes.

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 [this also took a while and didn't look like the butter sugar pellets would become icing, but they did].

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 [I didn't have  a pastry bag, so I just wiped some icing onto a 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.