Where there is a will there is a OREO !

It's been so long since I posted, more than a month and half, but I am not to blame, it is the oven god as I would like to refer to him/her LOL ! In the end of March the oven god showed its displeasure by shutting down in the midst of me baking a fantastic savory pumpkin feta pie ! Then there were problems finding a new oven that would fit in the place of the old, finally followed by some heavy carpentering and installation of a brand new state of the art cooking range. But the problem did not end there, the cooking range was an exhibition piece and had some programs installed in it to make it ''safe'' so that it would not start and heat the oven accidentally in the shop as a consequence no baking for a few more days till the technician came by and reprogrammed the oven. So by the first week of April the oven was again in operation, but then I had so other things keeping me busy. First was my fantastic trip to Dresden, for the International Orchid Show, where I had the opportunity to be a steward (trainee judge). And then work as usual.
From the savory palette I managed to bake the Pumpkin feta pie that I had to abandon earlier followed by a spring vegetable pie and then a Zucchini Mushroom frittata. From the sweet department I managed a Mango cheese cake to welcome the mango season and today I baked Oreo cookies
 To everyone who has grown up in the 90s in India the biscuit Pure Magic from Britannia should be no alien. I myself enjoyed prying the dark chocolate biscuits apart and then licking the vanilla cream filling. Suddenly this biscuit vanished from the market, don't know why. It is still available in the US and in Europe under the brand name Oreo and is termed to be the most famous and most sold cookie ever. I wanted to make these cookies based on a principle I term reverse recipe i.e try and formulate the recipe from the nutrition info and ingredients listed on the packaging. By analyzing the carbohydrate, fat, protein contents of the product and the ingredients I formulated a recipe and it sure worked out well and here are the results.

The cookies according to me lack the more intense dark almost black colour of the original Oreos, this can be attributed to the different Cocoa brands used, but nonetheless they tasted identical to the originals, something I will be baking quite often now LOL.

The recipe is very easy, for 20 cookies you need

For cookies

• 70 g all purpose flour
• 60 g Dark Dutch processed Cocoa powder
• 60 g brown sugar
• 2 g salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 25 ml sunflower oil
• 100 ml skimmed milk

For cream filling

• 70 g fine Castor sugar
• 35 g butter/coco fat
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/2 tbsp warm water

Procedure

1. Mix all the dry ingredients thoroughly and sieve to remove any clumps etc.
2. Slowly add in the oil and milk and mix gently until a firm dough is formed.
3. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
4. Roll out the dough on a baking parchment to a thin 0.5 cm thickness. Using a suitable mold like a lid cut out small circles of the rolled dough, remove the adjacent dough and use it later.
5. If you want to add any decorations like designs or patterns add them on the cookies, I just made criss cross marks with a knife.
6. Bake the cookies for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, be observant and careful as the thin cookies will easily burn and it is difficult to tell when the cookies are baked due to their already dark colour.
7. Remove from the oven and let them cool on a rack.
8. Now for the filling, add the warm water to the coco fat or butter and mix gently till the butter melts, add the vanilla essence and mix followed by the castor sugar. Mix thoroughly.
9. Now take one cooled cookie, place half a teaspoon of the vanilla cream on it and gently press another cookie on it until the cream distributes evenly. Your delicious homemade Oreos are ready.