Remember that time I tried to make homemade oreos for a birthday party?

This is what they looked like.

Yikes. I know. And if it is possible, they actually TASTED worse than they looked. Shocking, but true.

After I recovered from the debacle, I called Kathleen. Cause Kathleen knows how to make everything. And after I over-dramatically retold the nightmare that was my baking experience, I begged her to try to make them. I emailed her the recipe and just said, “when you get a chance, will you see if it’s the recipe or…. sniff…. me?”

Because I usually pride myself in my baking skillz, so this was a tough situation.

And late last week a package arrived at my door with this note:

Apparently, it wasn’t the recipe. Because good gracious these are delicious.

So now that I know the recipe is trusty, I will share. Because I don’t exactly remember where it came from [sorry bout it], I’m going to rename them.

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KATHLEEN KNOWS OREOS

Makes 25 to 30 sandwich cookies

For the chocolate wafers:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar [see recipe note]
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

For the filling:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Set two racks in the middle of the oven. Preheat to 375°F.
2. In a food processor, or bowl of an electric mixer, thoroughly mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. While pulsing, or on low speed, add the butter, and then the egg. Continue processing or mixing 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. With moistened hands, slightly flatten the dough. Bake for 9 minutes, rotating once for even baking. Set baking sheets on a rack to cool.
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 to 3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy.
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. 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.

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I still don’t exactly know what I did wrong, but you better believe I’m going to give this recipe another whirl. Probably.

After, of course, I finish eating the ones Kathleen sent me.