homemade oatmeal cream pies - Grits in the City

I had sinus surgery last week (fun times!) so I’ve been enjoying a pretty low-key several of days. Yesterday my sister and her boyfriend came over along with my boyfriend and my mom made the basic meatball from The Meatball Shop’s cookbook. Really, it was like the restaurant inside your own home – amazing. So good. We ate meatballs and polenta and watched the Alabama football game (Roll Tide!) and relaxed. I decided it was a good time to pick something and put my new KitchenAid mixer to work. Isn’t she pretty?

I was looking at cakes and cupcakes, but wasn’t feeling inspired. I then decided what I really wanted was oatmeal cream pies! Like the Little Debbie variety, but homemade (of course). I started looking through recipes online. There weren’t too many varieties. Some were gluten free. Some were making odd substitutions to make it super healthy (and I didn’t want to have to buy all of those additional ingredients that one required – too much money and hassle). Several also used marshmallow cream, which I need to look at the Little Debbie box, but that just didn’t sound right to me.

I ended up going with Martha Stewart’s recipe, because Martha usually knows best. The recipe was quite simple, although I always know going in that even though Martha says it’ll only take 30 minutes, that’s never the case for me.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup packed dark-brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon unsulfured molasses
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups rolled oats (not the quick-cooking variety)
1/2 cup golden raisins (I omitted this)
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
6 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. In a separate large bowl, beat butter, brown and granulated sugars, and molasses on high with an electric mixer, scraping down bowl, until light and fluffy (about 4 minutes). Then add the vanilla and beat until combined. Beat in eggs, one at a time. You’ll need to scrape down the bowl after each addition.

Next with mixer on low, add the flour mixture and beat just until combined. Using a rubber spatula, stir in oats (and raisins, if you chose to add them). Drop dough in 2-tablespoonful mounds, 2 inches apart, onto two baking sheets. I actually had to do in two batches since it ended up being too many for two baking sheets. Crowding them will squish your cookies a bit, and may make them take longer to bake. Bake until cookies are just set at edges and slightly soft in middle, about 11 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Let cookies cool on sheets for around 5 minutes. Transfer to wire racks and let cool completely.

In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese and confectioners’ sugar with a mixer until light for around 2 minutes, scraping down bowl as needed. Use a small spatula to spread the filling on the flat (bottom) side of half the cookies. Sandwich with remaining cookies.

I thought these came out quite good! Recipe claimed it would yield 13 and I ended up with 12, so quite close to what I was expecting. These were close to the Little Debbie originals. The cookies were nice and fluffy. The filling is slightly different from the originals though (but tasty in its own way). I’d be curious to try out some of the other fillings to use with these cookies, but I think this cookie recipe is just about perfect!