Homemade peppermint Oreos.

When I was home for Christmas, my mom got these peppermint Oreos. They were wonderful. I brought some back to London with me, and once I unpacked, they lasted about an hour. Maybe even less.

No, I didn't eat them all by myself, thank you very much.

But Lisa wanted to try to make some. So we did. And you know what? They turned out pretty tasty.

(Recipe makes way more than shown. We'd eaten a few...)

Here's the recipe:

Homemade Peppermint Oreos
(adapted from Joy the Baker and Smitten Kitchen)
 

Cookies: Ingredients

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 cup plus 3 tbsp flour

3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp salt

15 tbsp unsalted butter (at room temp. and cut into small pieces)

Directions 
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175ish C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper. 

Combine sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Add the butter a few pieces at a time, mixing with your hands (this could probably done less messily with a food processor, but I don't have one, so...) The mixture will start out very dry. Keep working with it. Once the dough starts to come together and the butter is well incorporated, separate into two blocks. (No need to chill!)

Roll the dough out, one block at a time, between two pieces of parchment paper. You want it pretty thin -- maybe like 1/8 inch? I don't know. I'm not a math person. Slightly thinner than an Oreo, since they'll puff up just a bit. 

Use a cookie cutter (or glass or lid) to cut rounds 1 1/2 to 2 inches in diameter. You can reform and roll out the scraps, but I wouldn't do it more than once -- it gets too soft to work with.  

Then place about an inch apart on the prepared baking sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove and allow to cool on the sheets for another few minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

Filling: Ingredients

1/4 cup (about 55 grams) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
2 cups powdered (icing) sugar
  1/2 tsp vanilla extract 
peppermint extract, to taste (I used about 1/2 tsp) 

Directions

Place butter and shortening in a large bowl, and at low speed, gradually beat in the powdered sugar* and vanilla. Add peppermint. Taste to make sure it's right (a little goes a loooong way). Then turn the mixer on high and beat for 2 to 3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy. Taste it a few more times. You know, to make sure it's edible. Oh, and we added a little red food coloring to make them a pretty soft pink color.

Spread filling between two cookies. Make sure it's a generous amount, because Doublestuffs are the best, and everybody knows it. 

Enjoy! 

*Tip for making icing: The powdered sugar will try to go everywhere. If you slowly mix it in with a spoon a bit before turning on the mixer, you'll have less of mess. Sure, you'll still have this fine coat of white dust all over everything, but it won't be the sugary blizzard it would otherwise have been.