homemade birthday cake oreos

 

 In the past 3 hours I have:
1. Caught up on the latest episode of Glee
2. Baked a batch of oreos with cake batter frosting for my section tomorrow night
3. Filed both state and federal taxes (for free! love e-file)

I figured I'd continue with the run of productivity and actually update this blog IN REAL TIME. As in, the sharing of eating joy is occurring less than a day after these cookies were made :)

So what's the big deal? Apparently Oreo came out with a limited run special edition "Birthday cake" version to celebrate their 100th anniversary.

I managed to get a box on Amazon (as a surprise for the boy, who loves all things sweet and oreo), and I have to say, they really are worth all the hype. You open the box to the delicious smell of cake batter, crack open the cookie to find smooth white FUNFETTI frosting (you all know how I feel about funfetti :D), bite into the cookie and think, "Oreo, how could you have waited this long to release this cookie?"

 

And feel gross an hour later after somehow downing half the box (which has less cookies than the usual containers! marketing ploy, ahem?).

While they are worth the hype, they are not worth the $14 on Amazon. So, I decided to combine the "homemade oreos" recipe on smitten kitchen with some cake batter frosting experimentation. Surprisingly most of the funfetti frostings I found online used cake batter as part of the frosting-- however, I had my secret weapon from my previous funfetti recipes:

 tack that baby onto your usual buttercream frosting recipe, and you're golden :D

Homemade Birthday Cake Oreos

(makes about 18 2" diameter sandwich cookies)

adapted from Homemade Oreos, Smitten Kitchen

For the chocolate cookies:

1 1/4 c all-purpose flour
1/2 c unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tspn salt
1 c sugar
1 1/4 sticks room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

For the filling:
1 stick room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 c confectioners’ sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/4 c sprinkles*

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. Make a hole in the center, add the butter + egg, then mix together until dough comes together in a mass.**
3. Take rounded teaspoons of batter and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet approximately two inches apart. Flatten dough with the palm of your hand. Bake for 9 minutes, remove from oven, allow cookies to cool for 5 minutes on the sheet before removing cookies.***
4. To make the cream, place butter in a mixing bowl, and gradually mix in sugar and extracts. See this sugar-frosting trick to use less sugar and get a nice whipped frosting.
5. To assemble the cookies, using either a pastry bag, ziplock bag with the corner cut off, or a butter knife, pipe/spread 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.

Eat and enjoy the fact that you won't feel gross and full of artificial flavorings even after the third one ;)


* Although the whole sprinkles still looked nice, I would advise smashing them a little next time into smaller pieces so the color really mixes into the frosting to get that funfetti look.
** I promise this will happen. It may not feel like it right away, but the butter and egg will eventually moisten all of the dry ingredients.
*** These cookies will spread, so do leave some room in between.
Before:

After:

**** Seriously, stick to a teaspoon sized blob. The first time I made these I forgot that a round blob will spread once you smoosh the second cookie on...leading to lots of frosting-oozy cookies. Have faith, one dollop will be enough :)

Oh an extra lone cookie? And some leftover frosting? Don't mind if I do... :D

hamantaschen!

jam, poppy seed, and almond filled hamantaschen

I was introduced to these delightful cookies last year, which are made as part of the celebrations for Purim, a Jewish holiday in which they were saved from slaughter by Haman (a member of King Ahaseurus' council who tried to get all the Jews killed) through the efforts of Esther, the Jewish Queen married to said King. She found out about Haman's plan and asked the King to spare her people-- which he did out of his love for her, and to top it off he also had Haman disposed of as well.

 So, as you can imagine it's a fairly happy holiday, to celebrate "hey! still alive!" and the downfall of Haman. The cookies are said to look like Haman's hat, with their distinctive three corners-- although, it seems an unfair tribute to him to make them taste so delicious.

 

Traditionally they're made with poppy seed filling, but they also taste wonderful with essentially any filling (even savory-- I saw a kale and garlic filling online somewhere) you want. My personal favorite is jam :)

 
I love the gooey sweet stickiness right when they're fresh from the oven, with the jam just bubbling and syrupy and dripping goodness everywhere...plus they look so much prettier too :)

Last year we went all out and made the poppy seed filling ourselves from scratch-- it was amazing and made the kitchen smell sooo good-- but this year we resorted to store-bought filling due to lack of time.  I had these grand ambitions to make an almond-ginger filling from scratch, but ended up having to buy almond paste at the last minute.  Of course, there is nothing wrong with using store-bought pastes and fillings, I just like the extra homey smells in the kitchen and feeling of accomplishment you get when you make something completely from scratch (see funfetti cookies recipe) :).

Hamantaschen cookies
(makes ~2-3 dozen, depending on how big you make your cookies :))

from Jewish cooking, ed. Marlena Spieler, via my friend Shaunna


1/2 c unsalted butter @ RT
1 1/4 c sugar
2 tbsp milk
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla or almond extract
pinch salt
2 1/4 c all-purpose flour

1.  In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.

2.  In a separate bowl, mix together the milk, egg, vanilla/almond extract, and salt.  Sift flour into a third bowl.*

3.  Beat the creamed butter mixture with one third of the flour, then gradually add the remaining flour, in three batches, alternating with the milk mixture.  The dough should be the consistency of a loose shortbread dough.  If it's too stiff, add a little extra milk.  Cover and chill at least 1 hour.

4.  Make your fillings (recipes below; or use a good, thick jam :D)

5.  Preheat oven to 350F.  On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to the thickness of 1/8-1/4 inc, then cut into 3 inch rounds using a cookie cutter.**

6.  Place 1-2 tbsp in the center of each round, then pinch the pastry together to form 3 corners, leaving a little of the filling showing in the middle of the pastry.***

7.  Place the pastries on a baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes or until pale golden.

* In the spirit of laziness, I just made a little hole in the middle of the butter-sugar mixture, added and mixed the wet ingredients in there, and then added all the flour in at once. The dough turned out fine this way, just takes a little more effort to mix everything together (I also don't have a mixer and do this by hand).

** I used a pint glass and a small drinking glass to get 3" rounds and 2" rounds, respectively.

*** In reality, you'll be lucky to get even 1 tbsp in. For the jam ones especially, err on the side of less, not more, because if you have too much filling they will unfold and spread everywhere when you bake them. They look quite sad coming out of the oven, but they still taste delicious :). This is less of an issue for less watery fillings, like the poppy-seed or almond ones.

Fillings:

Poppy seed:
1 c poppy seeds, coarsely ground
1/2 c milk
1/2 c golden raisins, roughly chopped
3-4 tbsp sugar
2 tsp light corn syrup
1-2 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp vanilla extract

Put all ingredients, except vanilla, in a pan and simmer 5-10 minutes or until the mixture has thickened and most of the milk has been absorbed.  Stir in vanilla.

Almond-ginger:
1/4 c butter @ RT
1/2 c almond paste
2 tbsp granulated sugar
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3-4 tbsp chopped candied ginger

Mix until smooth. Can be stored covered in the fridge or frozen for up to 1 month.

Note: you definitely do not have to be Jewish or celebrate Purim to enjoy these cookies :)

Funfetti Cookies from scratch

Remember funfetti cakes when you were a kid (or perhaps just last week..)? There was something remarkably delightful about the fluffy cake-batter taste, the bright colors of the sprinkles, and not to mention the creamy funfetti frosting on top.

The best part of anything funfetti related-- the sprinkles!

 Last weekend I was at Shaw's, looking for something probably more important and healthier than what I ended up seeing-- a box of funfetti cake mix! But instead of cake, I had cookies on the brain; these thoughts combined with some googling resulted in tada! funfetti cookies made from scratch.

Apparently I was not the only one to be astonished at the lack of from-scratch funfetti recipes-- several other bloggers had already commented on this and came up with their own. Thanks to them, I mashed together several recipes to come up with the final product here. enjoy!

 

Funfetti Cookies with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
(makes approximately 2 dozen 2" diameter cookies)

adapted from chewy funfetti cookies (The Teenage Taste) and funfetti cake (Annie's Eats)

1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cups white sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
2 eggs
1/3 cup canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp almond extract
1/2 cup sprinkles

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl. Mix together evenly.
3. Add oil, eggs, vanilla, and almond extracts to the dry ingredients. Mix together slowly-- do not overmix.
4. Fold in sprinkles.
5. Roll into golf-size balls and place ~1" apart on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper*. Using the palm of your hand, flatten each ball down slightly (to desired size**; mine were about 1cm thick).
6. Bake for 9-10m. The center of the cookie should still be slight soft (yield under gentle pressure) when they are removed from the oven. Let cool on the sheet for 5-10m.
7. Frost and decorate as desired. I went with chocolate buttercream and more sprinkles :)

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

1 stick butter, softened
3/4 cup cocoa powder
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp warm milk***

1. Cream butter with cocoa powder and sugar. Add in milk to desired consistency.
2. Store unused buttercream in freezer.

* I didn't do this, and when I took my cookies out I had to scrape them off the sheet because the bottoms burned a bit (even though the tops looked fine).
** These cookies don't spread very much.
*** Warm is important. If the milk is cold, the butter re-hardens when you mix the frosting and you end up with frosting that has little chunks of unmelted butter floating in it. If the milk is hot, the butter melts and you end up with runny frosting.

happy funfetti-ing!