Day 11: Oreos – Homemade and a Classic Twist

Hi there,

My name is Jenny and I have a blog called Simcoe Street, named after the street I call home in Toronto, Canada. I am excited to be a part of this fun baking series — there have been so many yummy ideas!

I am a very amateur baker. With few skills and a young baby (my sweet little man, Benjamin, is nearly 6 months old!), any baking I take on has to be easy, quick, and of course delicious.

Today I wanted to share an amazing, easy recipe for delicious homemade oreos. I also wanted to show how you could dress up plain old store bought oreos if you weren’t up for making the homemade version. The latter is especially good for little kids who want to help out.

Let’s start with homemade…These are not a recipe I made up, but one that a friend showed me from Smitten Kitchen. That blog has so many great ideas.

Here is Deb’s recipe, just as she explained it.

Makes 25 to 30 sandwich cookies

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 [depending on how sweet you want it]

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter

1 large egg

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter

1/4 cup vegetable shortening

2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Ours looked like this:

Now, here is what I’d do differently for a holiday party — which, of course, I thought of once it was too late to really execute and show you, but oh well. Maybe you can try it and send me a picture? Anyway, adding food colouring into the filling would be a fun way to make this holiday perfect. Whatever your holiday palette – blue, red, green, pink – I think this could work really well.

One other quick idea for you. Although I think a tray of plain old oreos is always a crowd-pleaser, I recently found that a very easy update can kick it up a notch. This is a totally fun and easy project for kiddos, too.

I’ve got two versions to show you, but the possibilities for what you could do with these are endless.

For both, I simple melted baker’s chocolate (I chose white chocolate because of the contrast with the oreo in terms of looks and flavour). I did this in the microwave – mine actually has a melting chocolate setting, which is great. Once melted, drizzle over your oreo. A little goes a long way on such a small surface.

Next, decorate however you please! For a more formal holiday gathering, these would be my pick. Simple white sprinkles on white chocolate. They take about 5 minutes to do a big tray of, and are so popular that I never even got to photograph said tray — they were all eaten! Trust me, they are gorgeous and delicious. Go for the pearlized white sprinkles.

And here is a cutie pie “reindeer” version for kids to try out. Simple stick in pretzel bits and chocolate chips when the chocolate is still hot.

Cool in the fridge on parchment paper.

And voila! Your very own, fancified oreos. Though, as I said, if all else fails, serve ’em up plain on your fanciest platter and you’re still sure to have a crowd-pleaser.

Thank you so much Amy for having me as a part of your cookies series!

Come visit me anytime at Simcoe Street!

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