I wish I could invent recipes like this. I would love to be able to take the store-bought foods that I eat and learn how to make them at home to avoid all of the preservatives and whatnot. Maybe someday I will get to that point, but until then I’ll rely on the food blogs that I read - this recipe is from Smitten Kitchen, who has it linked to the book Retro Desserts.

Homemade Oreos

Makes 25 to 30 sandwich cookies

For the chocolate wafers:
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 to 1½ cups sugar*
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons (1¼ sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

For the filling:
¼ cup (½ stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter
¼ 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 degrees.
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 2 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 2-3 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.

* 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. I usually do. If you want to make the cookie by itself go ahead and use the full amount.

I made my cookies with the smaller amount of sugar - rather than using the cup and a half, I used only one cup.  They were still sweet, but not overly sweet.  The chocolate was well-balanced with the filling.
I was a bit worried because my dough was not coming together very well - I thought I didn’t let my butter soften enough or maybe I should have melted it.  Dave said to have faith and let the mixer run for a few minutes and sure enough it came together.

Overall, this was a very easy recipe to make - the cookies only baked for 9 minutes and while they were baking I threw together the filling.  If it were up to Dave, I don’t think the dough would have even made it into the oven, he liked it that much.