Homemade Oreos - vegan, or not

You may have heard that there was a bit of a hubbub last month regarding a rainbow Oreo illustration that Oreo posted on their Facebook page in support of Pride. If you missed it, here is their original post, and here and here are some articles. Stephen Colbert even got in on the action.

I've talked a bit here and here about my thoughts, but, honestly, I mostly a) wondered how do people have enough free time+energy in their lives to make a hubbub. over a fake oreo. and b) thought, hmmm that looks delicious.



When I had my Etsy store up and running, I sold homemade, vegan oreos - VeganOs - by the dozen. The hubbub made me realize I hadn't made any in a while, so, challenge accepted, I set out to make my very own PrideOs. Now you can too. Or just make regular ones. They're awesome, and quite frankly, six layers of filling is too much, even for the Sweets household.


Homemade Oreos - vegan, or not
I found them on Sassy Radish, who found them from Smitten Kitchen, who got it from Retro Desserts. Phew. 

I've also made the filling with mint extract instead of vanilla, and that's quite a treat as well. The filling lends itself to holidayification or personalization with some food coloring. But seriously? These are awesome. Share them with friends and they'll ask for them again and again. 

Makes 25 to 30 sandwich cookies

Chocolate Cookie Ingredients:
1 1/4 C flour
1/2 C unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 C sugar
1/2 C plus 2 Tbsp (1 1/4 sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter OR vegan butter
1 large egg OR 1/4 C unsweetened applesauce

Filling Ingredients:
1/4 C (1/2 stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter OR vegan butter
1/4 C vegetable shortening
2 C sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375°F and line a couple of cookie trays with parchment paper. If you want to bake both at the same time, set two racks in the center of the oven.

In a food processor, or bowl of an electric mixer (I always use my food processor and it's super easy), pulse to mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. Add the (vegan) butter, pulse a few more times, then add the egg or applesauce. Turn the food processor "On" and leave it going until the dough comes together into a ball.

Scoop a rounded teaspoon of batter, roll between your hands to make a ball, and place on prepared baking sheet. Continue placing balls of dough about 2 inches apart. Once you've filled the sheet, lightly moisten your fingertips and slightly flatten balls into discs. 

Bake for 9-10 minutes*. If you've got two cookie sheets in the oven at the same time, rotate them halfway through for even baking. Remove baking sheets from oven and place them on a rack to cool. Once completely cool, match up similar sized and shaped cookies so they are ready to fill.

To make the filling, place (vegan) butter and shortening in a mixing bowl. Cream together briefly with an electric mixer.  Using the lowest speed, gradually beat in the sugar and vanilla. Turn the mixer on high and beat for 2-3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy.

To assemble the cookies, place cream filling in a pastry bag with a 1/2 inch round tip (or just cut off the end of a disposable pastry bag or the corner of a zip top bag). Pipe teaspoon-size dollops of cream into the center of one cookie. Place another cookie, equal in size to the first, on top of the cream. Lightly press and work the filling evenly to the outsides of the cookie. Continue this process until all the cookies have been sandwiched with cream.

*I found that when I used applesauce as the egg, the cookies needed the slightly longer bake time to crisp up. Ener-G Egg Replacer also works as a substitute, and the 9 minutes is spot on for that.