Homemade Strawberry Oreos...Or Something Like That.

It's almost Valentine's Day. I know I've said it a few times, but I'm not really a Valentine's Day type of girl. Don't get me wrong, any excuse to receive flowers or chocolates I'll take, but I just don't obsess about the Hallmark holiday too much.

As I was doing some research this week for the blog, I came across this post  on ThirtyHandmadeDays for Strawberry Heart Oreo Cookies. What! Strawberry Oreos! Anything that has the word O-R-E-O in it I like! (With the exception of Double Stuff-I know, kind of weird huh?!)
So anyways, I looked past the title and the picture and noticed how simple the recipe was. I knew I had everything in my pantry to make them so to the kitchen I went!
Here's the recipe I used.

Ingredients

• 1 package of strawberry cake mix
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup of shortening
• Frosting:
• 8 oz. cream cheese
• 1/2 stick of butter, softened
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 4 c. powdered sugar

Instructions

Mix cake mix, shortening, and eggs together in a medium mixing bowl.

The dough will be pretty stiff-it's supposed to be that way.

Roll into balls. (Use about 1 tsp of mix per ball)

Place two balls next to each other and pinch the bottom to create a heart.



Please excuse the nail polish, I'm in serious need of a manicure!

 Place on baking sheet lined with parchment paper or Silpat.

Bake at 350 degrees for 8 minutes.

Immediately transfer to a cooling rack.

Allow to cool completely.

Mix frosting ingredients together. Spread onto cool cookies. Sandwich together.

Now when I started this recipe, I had already been standing in my kitchen for about 8 hours doing cupcake orders, so I'm not sure if that's where I went wrong, or what the problem was. The cookies taste great, but as you can see from the picture, they don't look like hearts at all, they basically were pink, strawberry circles. You have to be really careful not to make the balls too big when you're shaping them, and make sure you leave enough space between them, they do spread out a little and you don't want the edges sticking together. My first pan I ended up with a few very large pink cookies!

Now, just a warning...these taste nothing like Oreos. Although they taste amazing and I'd make them again and again, they are soft, chewy cookies with basically a cream cheese buttercream center. Dear hubby liked these cookies plain, with no frosting in the center. I would have to agree. Although they were pretty good with a hot cup of joe for breakfast! Once I iced and sandwiched them, they were very sweet, almost too sweet for my taste. I know for some of you there's no such thing as too sweet, so enjoy them however you'd like.

Onto another item of business. As you can see, my blog has a new look! I want to thank Ashton at http://www.somethingswanky.com/ for fixing up my blog for me. It is still a work in progress, and I hope in the near future to add a few new items to the page to make it more user friendly. I hope that all of you will continue to check back for new creations as well as my old favorites...The Cupcakes! See y'all soon!!