Homemade Oreo Cookies

This recipe has somewhat be haunting me. Growing up there was really few true "junk foods" in our house, my mom always had a soft spot for potato chips and my dad loves his Oreos. Until recently I really didn't care for potato chips (my boyfriends addiction and their ever presence in my home has changed that a little!) but I have always enjoyed an Oreo. My normal eating habits tend to avoid processed food like Oreos now but I do sometimes get samples from my work of the Oreo Cakesters and I couldn't stop thinking of them. I decided that a dinner I was holding was the perfect chance to try them out (and then hand them out!) without totally killing my NYE resolution (its still Jan I have to give it at least a month!).

I took my recipe from smitten kitchen and as always they were delicious! However the cookies were not really like oreos and the batter was very grainy because of the sugar. I don't know if I did something wrong or this is just the way they are suppose to be. I have to admit... I don't remember if I put in 1c or 1.5c that was in the original recipe but I would suggest using less as they were very sweet. These cookies were made after quite a bit of glogg was consumed so I do have an excuse. Also I did not have the vegetable shortening so I used all butter - the frosting worked out perfectly fine.  These cookies were a serious hit at my party and the review on smitten kitchen mention a version with a bit of peppermint and candy cane that sounds divine. As is they were so good that I secretly hid a few of these cookies pre-party because they were flying off the plate so quickly - definitely go for a double batch!

Keep reading for the recipe....

Christma-Channuk-Thanksgiving-mas!

Its seems that it is always hard to find time to get everyone together but during December this is especially true. One of the best parts of the holidays is visiting with friends and family that we might not see often enough during the rest of the year. This year it seemed like we had even more than usual going on and so we decided to combine our usually holiday parties into one big dinner....for 12! Officially our biggest sit down dinner to date.

Last year, we held a Latkes/Christmas Cookie party - everyone really enjoyed dinner and loved decorating cookies so we knew that was definitely part of the evening. Since my Thanksgiving was a little short of leftovers,  I was really itching to cook a turkey so there was another huge part of my menu. With so many holidays to celebrate we certainly didn't have a shortage of traditional foods to choose from! Everything came out really well except for my stuffing... which needed a little more time in the oven to get nice and brown.

I used a Martha Stewart recipe for the sugar cookies and they came out wonderful! Just make sure you watch them because a sheet of mine (or maybe two) ended up in the trash when I got distracted. For the latkes, I used about 7.5 lbs of potato and 2 onions to make about 60 latkes. I didn't have any matzah meal on hand so I went with panko breadcrumbs....it didn't seem to cause any issues.

Girls' Night Out: Red Velvet Whoopie Pie

I don't want to get into how long its been since I was a care free co-ed living the college life but one thing is sure I don't see the girls as often as I use to. While we might not have ended the night by drinking till they kicked us out of the bar, it was still a great night and even better when I woke up feeling clear headed and remembering everything! With the temperature dropping and a pregnant friend to satistfy I decided to bake something fun for an after dinner treat.

As the notes say on the Food Network site - please don't expect this to come out exactly like a red velvet cake, whoopie pies are a bit closer to a cakey cookie. While I really liked them as is, I think that making them even more bite size would have been better as they were quite the mouthful.