Oreo

A super-easy and quick recipe for homemade Oreos. Customize with different frosting flavors to suit your taste.

Yield: about 4 dozen unfrosted, or 2 dozen small sandwiched cookies.

Source: as with so many of my best recipes, this one came from my Grandmother.

What a dilemma I found myself in this week. After my last post, Peanut Butter Sandwich cookies, I was left with a fair amount of peanut butter frosting in my fridge. What to do? What to do? I just couldn't bring myself to let all that sweet, peanuty loveliness go to waste. The solution? Oreos, of course!!

This is honestly the easiest cookie recipe I have ever seen. That is because it is made with a boxed cake mix. All the good stuff is already in there, and you just have to add in the wet ingredients. So here is the recipe:

1 box cake mix, any chocolate flavor

1/2 cup shortening

2 eggs

Yep, that's it. I used a Devil's food mix, which is all dark and rich and wonderful. I did have to mix a little more than usual, to get everything moistened, but that is not a problem.

I do like to make these cookies quite small, because they get sandwiched together with another cookie and lots of frosting, which is a serious overkill of calories. (Not that I'm counting!) I learned from my experience with the Peanut Butter Sandwich cookies, and rolled the dough into neat little balls. If you have one of those nice cookie dough scoops, that would certainly work nicely, but I don't, so I am reduced to using my hands.

I used a glass to smash the dough down flat, though this step is certainly not necessary. It's just a preference of mine. They stack nicer if they are flat. Is that a silly reason? Perhaps. I baked them at 350 degrees for about 9-10 minutes. By the way, let me apologize for the poor quality of the picture. All my pics turned out bad today. I didn't realize it until I was done baking, and as much as I love you all, I just wasn't willing to make another batch of cookies so I could take better photos. Sorry.

Normally, these babies get frosted with this wonderful cream cheese frosting:

8 oz. cream cheese

3 cups powdered sugar

2 T. milk

A word about quantities, here. I usually double this cookie recipe. That is, 2 cake mixes worth of cookies. Then, this frosting recipe is closer to the right amount. If you are not doubling the cookies, then you will certainly want to halve the frosting recipe. I hate to see cream cheese go to waste!

My personal choice for customizing this frosting:

First, I like to add a little mint extract and green food coloring to the cream cheese frosting for mint Oreos. I'm fond of mint, especially when coupled with chocolate, so it's a natural choice.

Second, the peanut butter frosting in this post is the best I have ever had. It is seriously delicious in the Oreos as well.

Third, is there such a thing as too much chocolate? Doubtful. Add a couple tablespoons of cocoa powder to the frosting for double chocolate Oreos. I can feel the Chocolate coma coming on!

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No Bake Cookies

Yield: about 2 dozen cookies

Source: I have no idea. I've been making these since I was a kid, and so has everyone else I know.

I asked my kids what kind of dessert they wanted, and two of them voted for no-bake cookies. I was surprised. They always seem so, I don't know, mundane or something. It's like they're not a real cookie. But, sometimes quick and easy is a nice change, so I went for it.

The truly nice thing about this cookie is that you can make it very quickly on the stove, and it never goes in the oven at all. Hence the name, no-bake. Frankly, I feel a little silly making this post at all, since I'm sure all of you made this cookie at some point in time, and it was probably back when you were 10 years old.

Usually, I opt for the no-bake chocolate cookie, but since I recently shopped the case lot sales, I went for the no-bake peanut butter cookies. (I have 12 small jars of peanut butter in my storage room. Well, 11 1/2.) I'll include both recipes here, though, since they are almost identical.

PEANUT BUTTER:

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup butter

2 cups sugar

2/3 cup peanut butter

1 cup coconut

3 cups quick oats

CHOCOLATE:

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup butter

2 cups sugar

3 T. cocoa

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup chopped nuts

1 cup coconut

3 cups quick oats

You start by melting the butter. Add in the milk and sugar, and the cocoa if you are making the chocolate variety, and bring it to a boil. Let it boil for a minute or so, and then remove it from the heat. If you are making the peanut butter kind, this is the point where you add it. Stir it in and let it melt. If you are making the chocolate kind, add the vanilla now.

Have I mentioned that I love this Pampered Chef measuring cup for this job? It is perfect for messy jobs like peanut butter or shortening. You choose how much to put in, and then just push it right out into your bowl, or pot, as the case may be. I don't use it much, but for peanut butter, nothing else will do.

Next, just mix in the rest of the ingredients, which is nuts, coconut, and oats. A word about that. We're big coconut fans here. I love it. I also think walnuts are great in the chocolate cookies, although I wouldn't put them in the peanut butter kind. However, I know that some people are really opposed to coconut and some opposed to nuts. It's fine to leave them out, but you do have to make up the difference by adding more oats. It's not an exact ratio, either, meaning that 1 cup of coconut does not necessarily equal 1 cup of oats. Just add more oats until the consistency is right. Not enough oats, and the cookie will be gooey and stick to the pan, your fingers, and everything else it touches. Too many oats, and the cookie will fall apart and be very dry. I am intimately acquainted with both of these situations, having messed up in both directions in the past.

When we made these as kids, we always lined a cookie sheet with wax paper and dropped them onto it. Now, I prefer to put them into my mini-muffin pan. I always spray it pretty generously first with some kind of non-stick spray. Either way you do it, drop them in little globs and put the pan in the freezer for a little while. They'll be ready to eat before you can finish creating a blog post!