Homemade Oreos

 

Oh goodness. I’m not sure anyone could dislike these! My coworker and fellow baker/Martha wannabe Eve gave me this recipe posted on Smitten Kitchen. Make sure you use dutch process cocoa and don’t overcook them. For those playing along at home in Australia I used Copha for the shortening in the filling.

Homemade Oreos
As posted on Smitten Kitchen by Deb
Adapted from Retro Desserts, Wayne Brachman

Let’s talk about the sugar for a minute, shall we? This is a sweet cookie. A good, sweet cookie. Yet, if you think of an actual Oreos, the wafers are fairly un-sweet and actually on the slightly salty side, which contrasts with the super-sweetness of the filling bringing harmony, happiness, yada yada. If you want your cookie closer to that original, you can take out a full half-cup of the sugar. If you want to make the cookie by itself (as I did a while back for ice cream sandwiches), go ahead and use the full amount.

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 [see recipe note]
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

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.

Christmas Cookies

This was a gift for one of my oldest and dearest friends Elise. We have been friends since she was two she will tell you! It’s  a jar with all the dry ingredients for a batch of cookies. She will add butter, 1 egg and vanilla and bake them for about 8 minutes. The idea came from the talented and creative Bakerella. I got the M&Ms in the US, it seems there are no Christmas-themed M&Ms in Australia this year. The jars are from Ikea.

I baked a couple of batches of the cookies myself and they are indeed good. Not quite as good as kitchen sink cookies, but pretty close. Happy baking and Merry Christmas Elise!

Cowboy Cookies in a Jar
From Bakerella

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup & leveled
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup cooking oats
3/4 cup m&ms
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 – 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Stir all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

Add
1 slightly beaten egg
1/2 cup butter (melted slightly in the microwave)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Use the back of a large spoon to work it all together. You may even need to use your hands to get everything incorporated.
Then roll the cookie dough into 1 1/2 inch balls, place on a parchment covered baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven. I got about 26-28 cookies out of these.

Attempt One: Opps, messed up the order of the ingredients.

Attempt two: The jar was still hot from washing and melted the choc chips.

 Attempt three: Didn’t happen as the third jar was missing a seal.

Attempt four: Bingo! Well, not perfect, but looks good.

Finished product.

Instructions and a handwritten tag on the back.

Cookie Dough Truffles

Oh. My. Goodness. “To die for!” is how co-worker Yasmin described them. Hubby says they are “da bomb”. The truffles are basically a cookie mixture with sweetened, condensed milk replacing the usual eggs. Balls of the mixture sit in the freezer for three hours or so, until you take them out and dip them in melted chocolate.

You only need to eat one of these at a time. I promise, one is enough! I ate two to make sure. Or was it three? Either way, sugar overload.

Thanks to Alicia for pointing out this recipe!

Pink Ribbon Day Fundraiser

Coconut cupcakes

Vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting

On November 8th I will be running a 10km fun run to raise money for the Breast Cancer Network Australia. Today is Pink Ribbon Day so at work I organised a fundraiser with proceeds going to the BCNA. I made kitchen sink cookies, coconut cupcakes , vanilla cupcakes and cookie dough truffles. (Info on the truffles coming soon) My co-worker Eve made beautiful orange and almond cupcakes. We sold them for $2 each or 3 for $5 and raised $100. Better yet, my boss is going to match the amount we raised! Thank you to my co-workers for alway supporting my fund-raising efforts.

Kitchen Sink Cookies

Kitchen Sink Cookies
Adapted from recipe by Martha Stewart
Makes about 40

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light-brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cups milk chocolate chips
1 cup coarsely chopped dark cooking chocolate
1 cup mini M&Ms

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Line baking sheets with baking paper.
2. In a large bowl with a wooden spoon or hand mixer, beat butter, sugar and brown sugar together until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until well blended. Stir in vanilla.
3. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Gradually stir into butter mixture until well blended. Add oats, M&Ms and chocolate
4. Drop batter by heaping tablespoons trays about 2 inches apart. Press tops down with the bottom of a glass to flatten cookies evenly. Bake until golden, about 16 to 18 minutes. (Mine needed only 9 minutes) Cool on pan for 2 minutes. Remove from pan, and finish cooling completely on wire rack.

Kitchen Sink Cookies

This is Billy P. Penguin. He likes long walks on the beach, fresh fish, and kitchen sink cookies made with orange-flavoured M&Ms. He says the recipe is a little too oaty, but still quite delicious. He says you can use just about anything in these cookies – nuts, choc chips, raisins, lollies etc but M&Ms are his favourite.

Choc-Chunk Peanut Butter Cookies

Peanut Buttery goodness. Soft. Chocolatey chunks. Or chips, if you prefer. Just out of the oven. More, please?
Find a similar recipe here. My recipe called for self-raising flour and a slightly different method, but I’m sure the result is much the same as the recipe I used. My cookies baked in 8 minutes.

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is one of the best choc chip cookie recipes I’ve made. Perhaps the best? Sweet but no sickly sweet. Soft but not too crumbly. How many choc chips you add is up to you. I used vegan ingredients, except for the choc chips. I used light soy milk instead of water. About 8 minutes cooking time was good for me, anything less and the sugar is still too gritty. I ate a few to test this theory of course. Take your cookies out of the oven while they are still a little soft as they will firm up as they cool.

Here is an interesting article about sugar in relation to a vegan diet.

Edit: Here’s info relating to sugar in Australia.

From www.vnv.org.au

A word about sugar…
- Refined sugar is avoided by some vegetarians/vegans because a filter bed composed of animal bone char may be used in the refining process. The bone char is prepared by incinerating animal bones at an extremely high temperature. This results in a physical change in the bones’ composition, leaving particles of pure carbon scattered throughout the porous calcium orthophosphate structure. The carbon particles remove colourant molecules from the sugar (by a physical process called “adsorption”) and thereby whiten it. No bone char remains within the
finished sugar product and it is therefore kosher suitable.
- While bone char filters are still used by some major sugar companies around the world, it is our understanding that they are no longer used in Australia. There are currently three sugar refineries in Australia and they have stated:
Sugar Australia Pty Ltd (details correct as at March 2007)
“Sugar Australia refines sugar in Melbourne and Mackay and markets the CSR brand of sugar. Both its refineries DO NOT USE bone char. Instead, the decolourising process uses granular activated carbon (made from coal). The use of bone charcoal in Sugar Australia (formerly CSR) refineries ceased in Australia about 1990. There are refineries in America that still use it, but not in Australia. The Sugar Australia refineries do not use any materials of animal origin in the refining process, so its products are suitable for a vegan diet.”
Bundaberg Sugar Ltd (details correct as at March 2007)
“Bundaberg Sugar has not used bone char in the refining process for many years now.”
Manildra Harwood Sugars
(Manildra Harwood Sugars have not responded to our enquiries.)

 The recipe is from VegWeb.com

 Recipe submitted by Denise (unedited)

Happy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients (use vegan versions):

   
2 cups unbleached flour
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp.salt
cinnamon to taste (optional)
vegan chocolate or carob chips – put in as many as you like
1 cup raw sugar (turbinado #1, sucanat works too but sucks up a lot of the moisture)
1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup water

Directions:

VERY IMPORTANT-make sure all ingredients are at room temperature. It will work if they’re not at room temp but it works MUCH better if they are. Also while your oven is pre-heating put the cookie sheets you are going to use on top of the oven so they get preheated as well.  Preheat oven to 350.

In a large bowl mix flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon (if you choose). Add chips. Make a well in the center and set aside.

In a medium size bowl mix vegan sugar and oil. Mix it well.  Add the vanilla and then add the water. Mix it well.  Add the wet to the well in the dry. Mix it well but be careful not to overwork it.  Add more chips if you need to.  Spoon onto ungreased cookie sheets.  Put them in the oven.  Bake for 5 minutes and then flip and rotate the sheets.(top to bottom,and 180 degree rotation) Bake another 4 minutes and check them.

The cookies are done when they seem a little bit softer then you want them to be. They will harden up some as they cool. I usually go in two minute increments from here untill they get to where I like them.

Take them out when they are done and move them to wire cooling racks. If they split or come apart when you try to remove them let them sit on the pan for 2 minutes before transferring them to the racks.

These cookies have come a long way, lots of time and tasting spent on getting them to where they are now. Vegans and non vegans LOVE them. In the words of my 6 year old son-Mom, you’re the greatest because you know how to make the best cookies. Enjoy and let me know if you have questions. Sweet travels.

Serves: almost two dozen

Preparation time: 15 mins?-10 to 12 cooking time

Flourless, Dairy-free, Almost-No-Added-Sugar Ookies

Hubby says these aren’t real cookies, so I’m calling them ookies. He eats them anyway!

The banana is the overriding taste in these ookies, almost a banana bread flavour. They aren’t real crispy on the outside, more soft and moist all over. Find the recipe here on a great blog called 101 Cookbooks. Thanks to my co-worker Eve for showing me the recipe.

Chocolate-Dipped Heart Cookies

Everyone loved these cookies but they didn’t interest me too much. Very cute but not tasty enough for me. I was curious to try them as they have cream cheese in them. Hubby ate them plain with jam and was in love.
The recipe probably made almost 70 biscuits as my heart-shapped cookie cutter isn’t as big as the one specified in the recipe.