Sandwich #50-"Table Dressing" Homemade Oreos - 300 Sandwiches300 Sandwiches

November 20, 2012 / 8,291 Comments

Sandwich #50–“Table Dressing” Homemade Oreos

By 300 Sandwiches

Posted in recipes | Tags : chocolate, dessert, Oreos, recipe

Our Thanksgiving is turning into one expensive holiday. It might have been cheaper to fly home to Michigan than it would have been to buy food and decor for 8…. wait a minute, E just texted me….now 11 people. We have so much to do! So many groceries to buy! How were we going to get it all done? We couldn’t even select NAPKINS!

Breathe, just breathe. And perhaps look for a larger turkey.

After E and I had little success shopping for napkins and place mats together, he set out on his own. Letting go and letting him choose the table decor was a hard thing for ol’ Practical Sally me. But I’d just have to trust him, and accept whatever linens he returned with.

While he was out, I took some time for myself. I watched bad reality television and cleaned the house while he shopped. I didn’t talk to anyone for a good two hours (it felt SO good to be antisocial). I did a practice run of one of our Thanksgiving desserts, homemade Oreos. I then took off and got a pedicure. My feet have not been groomed since before Brazil, and E was teasing me relentlessly about them. “You need a license for those weapons,” he said.

I love E, but I love my me time, too. Especially before having to entertain a baseball team for dinner. I figured E, too, loved shopping without me. This was quite apparent when I got home from the pedicure.

E had a beautiful holiday table set up with new plates, napkins, candle holders and wine glasses set among three beautiful candle holders and real tree branches. I was shocked at his decorating skills–our home looked like a spread in Restoration Hardware. The white dinner plates he picked were stunning, as were the leaf design dessert plates, and they weren’t that expensive. The napkins and table clothes were crafty finds from Chinatown. He got more done shopping alone than with me questioning every decision he made. Now that the table setting was done, I was more relaxed about getting so much of our checklist done today. And my toes looked amazing.

“Now, should we go over our menu?” he asked.

“TABLE DRESSING” HOMEMADE OREOS

Dough:
1 1/3 cups cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1/4 tsp salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Filling:
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
3 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla extract

For the dough: Sift together the cocoa powder, flour and salt in a large bowl.

Cream the butter and sugar by hand or with a mixer. Add the eggs one at a time, then vanilla, and mix each ingredient into dough before adding the next. Add the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated. Scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.

Divide the dough into 2 pieces. place one piece between 2 lightly floured sheets of parchment paper and roll into a 1/4-inch-thick rectangle. Repeat with the other piece of dough. Refrigerate both rectangles, covered with the parchment sheets, until firm, at least 1 hour or up to several days. (I actually cooked just one piece of the dough, and refrigerated the other to make for Thanksgiving. One section can yield about 12 large cookies.)

Using a 2-inch round cutter, cut the dough into circles. Reroll the scraps and repeat. Place the cookies about 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets and chill for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Bake the cookies until they are set and slightly darker around the edges, about 20 minutes. Cool completely.

For the filling: Cream the butter and shortening until fluffy. Beat in the confectioners’ sugar and vanilla.

To make sandwiches–flip a cookie upside down and top with a level tablespoon of filling. Press another cookie on top. Repeat with remaining cookies.

Recipe from this Food Network goodness.