homemade oreos with peanut butter filling

I woke up earlier than I needed to this morning. Of course, I tried going back to sleep, but it didn't work. It rarely does for me anyway. So then I figured there were two things I could do:

1) Get on Facebook and waste the extra 40 minutes of morning time I had stalking/creeping on people I don't really care about at all [nor vice-versa].
2) Bake.

I decided to go with the latter. Also as a kind of test to see if I could actually successfully bake something and not miss the bus to grounds.

Bam. AND I DIDN'T MISS THE BUS.
It was quite the successful morning.

Homemade Oreos with peanut butter filling. I baked these for my dear friend Zach, who celebrated his 20th birthday this past Tuesday. Earlier tonight one of his good friends threw him a surprise party, and since he'll be out of town all weekend on some silly XC shenanigans, I figured I'd whip these together to give him today. Though Noosh did sandwich them for me while I was in class, which was a tremendous help.

Since he's a big fan of the chocolate and peanut butter combination [and I mean, come on, who isn't?], I decided to go with the Oreo. [I also recall many a late-night calc II study session in which we devoured (read: emotional eating) packs of Oreos, so it had to be done.]

Homemade Oreos with Peanut Butter Filling

For the Oreos, you'll need:

• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
• 1 1/4 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 egg

For the filling, you'll need:

• 1 cup confectioner's sugar
• 1 cup smooth peanut butter
• 5 tbsp butter, at room temperature
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup whole milk

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, use the paddle attachment on low speed to combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar. Still on low speed, add in butter and eggs. Continue mixing until dough comes together in a mass.

Using your hands, roll up small balls of dough, about 1-inch in diameter, and place them about 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. With the palm of your hand, evenly press down on the dough to form discs. Bake for 11 minutes. Allow cookies to cool on a wire rack.

To make the filling, combine powdered sugar, peanut butter, salt, vanilla, and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer using the paddle attachment. Mix at low speed until creamy. Slowly pour in milk. Increase speed to medium-high and beat until mixture is smooth.

Once cookies have cooled completely, frost the flat side [underside] of one cookie with a generous amount of filling and gently sandwich it with a cookie of roughly the same size. Cookies stay fresh at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Man. These were good. Like, surprisingly good. Especially the filling.

It's good that I had to give them all away.

All but the two that I ate.

But nevertheless. Things would be much worse if I still had the plate sitting in front of me.

Omnomnom.

In other news, ONLY ONE WEEK UNTIL HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART ONE.

It's going to be hard to contain my excitement in the next seven days.