Gluten-Free Oreo Recipe

There are few foods that I truely miss after going gluten-free. Oreos is on the list though.

Come on, it's a classic. That chocolatey wafter with the yummy cream filling. Who doesn't love oreos?

So I was really excited when I found a recipe for homemade Oreo cookies one day on Smitten Kitchen's blog. Even though it wasn't gluten-free I copied it down thinking I could maybe alter it.

Yesterday I sat down at the computer and did a search for "gluten-free Oreo recipe". Zilch. Zip. Nada.

So I pulled the one on my computer and studied it a minute. The gluten free flour mix I use says that it can be substituted cup for cup for regular flour. What have I got to lose? I really want some Oreos and it's not like I can just waltz down to the store and get some.

So I started baking. This is what I ended up with.

Yep, that is a plate of homemade, gluten free, Oreo cookies. Yum!

They were easy and oh so yummy!

I will give you the recipe, but there are a couple of things I'd do differently next time so I'm going to make some notes on it too. Now don't freak out on me when you read the recipe. They really are not hard at all to make. And the only kind of cooking I like is easy and good. Okay, ready? Here it is!

For the chocolate wafers:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (if you are making this gluten free, I used this flour mix)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

For the filling:
1/4 cup room-temperature, unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
2 cups sifted powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

As always, if you are baking these gluten-free please verify each of your ingredients is gluten-free before starting.

1. Preheat oven to 375F.

2. In a medium sized bowl, mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar, then beat in the butter, and the egg. Continue mixing until dough comes together in a mass. This is where I made my first mistake. Maybe you all know this, but if you put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and then add the butter and egg when you start to beat it the cookie mix will explode out of the bowl and all over the counters. Very messy. (Don't ask me how I know this, I just know.) Next time I will cream the butter and egg and then slowly add the dry ingredients.

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 on a rack to cool. If you read my other recipes you know I don't follow directions very well. So I had to experiment. For about 2/3 of my cookies I rolled out the dough and used a round cookie cutter. I put the dough between 2 sheets of waxed paper and rolled it out thick 1/4-1/2 inch). The cutter is about the size of a regular Oreo. If you do this, be aware that your cookies will still spread and leave room on the pan for this. Otherwise you will end up with one giant cookie. These took about 7 minutes to cook. The rest of the cookies I used a cookie scoop and then flattened them slightly.

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. I used butter flavored Crisco as my shortening and it turned my cream yellow although it came out white in the pictures. Just a note in case that kind of thing would bother you.

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. Remember when I said not to freak out? Okay good, keep reading. 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. I don't have a pastry bag and I don't know how to pipe. That would be in direct opposition of my love for easy cooking. I tried just spooning the icing on the cookies, but it was kind of messy and didn't work well. So I loaded the icing in a ziplock bag and smooshed out all the air I could. Then I sealed the bag and cut off one of the lower corners. I squeezed the icing out of the hole into blobs on top of half of the wafters. Much easier than the spooning method. I got all the icing on in less time than it took me to load up the baggie.

The Verdict

Oh-my-goodness-these-cookies-are-awesome! Someone pass the milk.

I love them. The ones that I made with the cookie cutters were much thinner and more Oreo-like. The ones that I scooped and flattened ended up about an inch thick in the end (with filling and all). Now initially that sounds like a good thing, but ends up being a little much. If I try that method again I will have to flatten them out more. And maybe try a smaller scoop.

They do not taste like they are gluten free. I gave one to a friend who stopped by this morning (who is not gluten-free) and she declared them to be "better than Oreos!"



Oh, and because this is how my life works.... As the cookies were cooling I found a gluten-free adaptation on the web. It's very similar to the one I used and if the gluten free flour blend you are using does not already contain xantham gum, I would follow her suggestion to add 1/2 t of Xantham gum.