Copycat Classic Oreo Cookies Recipe

Oreo cookies are the quintessential American cookie, and they're perfect with a glass of cold milk. Now, you can make them at home! They have the ideal, slightly crumbly, and slightly snappy texture. Their thick and creamy vanilla filling releases when the cookie halves are twisted, just like the real thing. 

You can customize these cookies by changing the flavor (our ideas are below!) or shape. Make little heart shaped cookies for Valentine's Day or little pumpkins for Halloween. You can even stamp on different messages into the tops of the cookies for baby or bridal showers.

Enjoy these cookies on a relaxing afternoon by yourself, or you can gussy them up in a beautiful box with a bow as a special gift. You can even dip the cookies into chocolate and add a pretty drizzle for the ultimate treat. Either way, make sure to store them in an airtight container after they're baked to preserve their perfect texture. 

Homemade Oreos start with vegetable shortening, flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, and both corn syrup and granulated sugar. The two different types of sugars help keep the cookie crunchy and sweet. After the dry ingredients and vegetable shortening are blended, make sure to have some extra cocoa powder on hand for dusting the cutting board and rolling pin. Special dark or Dutch-process cocoa powder is essential for this recipe. These types have the deep color and flavor that you need for this cookie. Do not roll out the cookies in plain flour, as they will have a white film on them when baked. 

For the filling, you'll need more vegetable shortening, granulated sugar, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract. We don't recommend replacing the vegetable shortening with butter, but if you're looking for a more buttery cookie, try it with butter-flavored shortening. 

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Add all of the cookie ingredients to the bowl of a food processor and blend until a soft ball forms.

Place the ball of dough on a clean surface dusted with cocoa powder.

Roll out the dough until it's ⅛-inch thick.

Using a cookie press or round cookie cutter, cut out 2-inch rounds of dough.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Place the cookie rounds onto the parchment paper and bake in the preheated oven for 8 minutes.

Remove from the oven and cool completely before removing from the pan.

Add the vegetable shortening, vanilla extract, powdered sugar, and granulated sugar to a bowl and mix with a hand mixer on high speed until completely smooth. The filling will be very thick.

Place the filling in a piping bag and cut a large hole in the bottom of the bag.

Using scissors, cut a quarter-sized round of frosting from the bag as you squeeze it onto half of the cookies.

Place the other cookies on top and gently press down.

Enjoy immediately or store in an airtight container until you are ready to serve.

Homemade Oreos are a labor of love, but they can be totally worth it if they're executed correctly. A few key steps will help keep your homemade cookies as close to the real thing as possible. First, make sure to roll the dough thin enough. A thick cookie will not snap properly and will end up as a tough mouthful. We purposefully do not add water to the dough, which would also make them tough. The dough should be a similar consistency to a shortbread dough. 

Since the classic Oreos are vegan, we've kept this recipe vegan, as well, so the moisture comes from the corn syrup rather than the addition of milk or eggs. Rolling out the dough in cocoa powder keeps the nice, dark color, but just be careful not to use too much or the cookie will taste bitter. Using a cookie press helps compact the cookie so that it will cook evenly and is less likely to puff in odd places. You can use a regular cookie cutter, but a press works best. 

Making Oreos at home makes them customizable, and you can change up everything from the shape to the filling and what is printed on the cookie! The possibilities for Oreo flavors are endless — just look in your local grocery store cookie aisle and you'll see many different (and often wacky!) flavors of Oreos. Some of our favorites include chocolate peanut Bbtter and birthday cake, and they're both super easy to make. For the chocolate peanut butter, just replace the half of the vegetable shortening in the filling with an equal amount of creamy peanut butter and then blend as directed. For the birthday cake flavor, simply add ⅛ teaspoon artificial vanilla extract (this has that birthday cake flavor) and ½ cup rainbow sprinkles to the filling ingredients. Blend as directed, and then add this to the cookies.

Some of our other favorites include churro and s'mores, but both require you to change the cocoa powder in the cookies for other ingredients. Replace the cocoa powder with an equivalent amount of crushed graham cracker crumbs for the s'mores flavor. For the filling, divide the filling in half and add ¼ cup marshmallow fluff to one bowl and ⅛ cup cocoa powder to the other. Add a dollop of each to each cookie. For the churro flavor, replace the cocoa powder with regular flour that mixed with ½ teaspoon cinnamon, and replace the granulated sugar in the filling with an equal amount of cinnamon sugar.