Oatmeal Creme Pies

The Setting: Hoosband's much-anticipated fall break!

The Soundtrack: The League.

Steaming up the Oven: Cookies.

The Scenario: An homage to a childhood favorite.

When I was growing up, I loved to spend time at my grandparents' place. Many of my earliest and fondest food memories took place when I was in their care.

My grandmother always said of my grandfather and herself, "He likes the meats, and I like the sweets."

She was known for her love of dessert, and the sweet tooth didn't fall far from the tree.

One of our all-time-favorite treats to share was the Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pie.

Though my grandmother was an excellent cook and always made an array of homemade desserts for holidays, she'd inevitably have a box of Little Debbies stashed in the pantry for picnics, trips to the farm, or the occasional (okay, frequent) snack.

She was a very proper woman and never would have admitted it, but between the two of us we could easily have taken out an entire box of these moist, chewy treats in one sitting--I know one of us has done it all on her own at least once or twice.

Somewhere along the line I gave up prepackaged convenience foods with complicated, scientific-sounding ingredients and became obsessed with making everything from scratch.

Creating an Oatmeal Creme Pie recipe was at the top of my list from the very beginning. And yet, somehow, it's taken me more than a decade to attack it. I guess I've been intimidated.

I've seen pictures of and eaten other homemade versions of this classic that just didn't measure up to my childhood memories.

Some were made of cookies that were too fat or too dry; some had cream that was too...well...creamy.

(Some had raisins, which was just wrong.)

The challenge was to create a thin, but not too thin, oatmeal cookie that would be soft, moist, and chewy, and a "cream" that would be stable enough to be stored at room temperature and firm enough not to all squish out after the first bite.

Brown sugar, honey, oil, and yogurt in the cookies help create moistness and the right balance of texture and flavor.

A mixture of coconut oil and butter are used in the filling because butter has a higher melting point (it's less likely to melt at a warm room temperature), and coconut oil softens the flavor of the butter so it's not too rich. The melted white chocolate and the powdered sugar also aid with firmness and stability. 

The goal was to be as true in taste, texture, and appearance to the original as could be, while remaining as all-from-scratch as possible. I'd call this a win-win.

Oatmeal Creme Pies
It is important to slightly under-bake the cookies so that they create that familiar, soft, chewy Little Debbie sensation when paired with the filling.

~for the cookies~
3 T butter, room temperature
3 T vegetable oil
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup honey
6oz plain nonfat Greek yogurt (I use Fage)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
2 cups oats
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp fine-grain salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder

~for the filling~
4 T unsalted butter
1/4 fine-grain salt
1 1/2 T refined coconut oil, cool room temperature (solid but soft)
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup white "chocolate" chips, melted and cooled but still pourable (I used Nestle)

Thoroughly beat together the butter, oil, brown sugar, and honey, scraping down the bowl as needed. Beat in the yogurt, egg, and vanilla.

In another bowl, whisk together the remaining cookie ingredients. Add the oat mixture to the butter mixture, mixing on low speed to begin, and finishing on medium speed.

Cover the dough bowl with plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

Position a rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Using a medium-sized cookie scoop, place cookies at least 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet. Bake one sheet at a time on the center rack of the oven at 350 degrees F for 9 minutes. Cookies should look a little underdone. Allow to cool for 3-5 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Repeat with remaining cookies.

To prepare the filling, beat the cold butter along with a very small pinch of salt until smooth. Add the coconut oil and vanilla, beating just to combine. Add the powdered sugar and beat till well-mixed. Beat in the melted white chocolate. The mixture should be thick, white, and almost dough-like.

Transfer the filling to a pastry bag fitted with just a coupler or to a disposable pastry bag with a 3/4-inch hole cut at the bottom. Squeeze out 4-6 disks-blobs (yes, that's a technical term) on half of the cookies, using your fingers to flatten the blobs out slightly if necessary. Gently press one of the remaining cookies on each topped cookie. Resist the urge to press too hard, or the cookie might tear.

I like to wrap each creme pie separately in plastic wrap and then store them all in a couple of zip-top gallon bags at room temperature. Stored this way, they'll last up to a week...that is, if the chef everyone in your house doesn't eat them all first!

Makes about 12 sandwich cookies.

Thanks for reading! Here's to Being the Secret Ingredient in your life.

Milestones and Memories

The Setting: A slightly overcast but much appreciated day off, spent reading, writing, exercising, and tending to (some of) the needs of the apartment.

The Soundtrack: The dishwasher...sexy, yes?

Steaming up the Oven: Cowboy Cookies.

The Scenario: Reflecting on recent milestones and memories; wondering what the future will hold.

For Hoosband's recent spring break, the Bifecta traded the heat of sunny South Florida for the crisp, cool beauty (and intense concentration of SEC spring-break-ers) of North Florida's Gulf Coast, driving 10 hours to meet my mom and step-dad at our family's condo in Destin.

Peering out over the glistening, green golf course and distant ocean view from the condo's rickety porchswing, we nestled up to each other and sighed contentedly, amazed that more than two years had gone by since our feet last grazed the splintery deck, perhaps more amazed by all that had transpired since then.

It was January 1, 2009. The view was the same from the porchswing, altered only by the dim glow of dusk, as Hoosband waited for me to emerge for our dinner date.

When I approached him on the deck and asked if I looked okay, he told me I was missing one thing.

I left for dinner with a shimmering engagement ring and a smile that has gotten very little rest since then.

Never ones to delay a good thing, we made it official with a party and a preacher in May.

Hoosband had been accepted into a prestigious program that places high-performing individuals as teachers in low-performing schools. Immediately after the honeymoon, it was off to a married-housing arrangement in Atlanta for "institute," an intense, summer-long training session, prep for a two-year teaching commitment in Miami.

"Married housing"  translated to a two-bedroom dorm at Georgia Tech with a twin bed in each room and a fountainously leaky air-conditioning unit...but we made it home.

After institute we drove to Miami and stayed in a hostel for a week, paying by the day, while we desperately sought a place to live.

It took us a while to find our new home, and much, much, longer for me to find a new job, but by the grit in our nails and the grace of God, we made it work.

November 2010 we found out we were having a baby.

February 14, 2011, while Hoosband and I feasted on conch fritters and fried seafood on our second consecutive Valentine's-Day date at the divey Southport Raw Bar, I felt the first fluttering kicks.

March 17, 2011, Hoosband and I felt the luck of the Irish on St. Patrick's Day in the Destin condo when Hoosband felt his baby kick for the first time. The look of surprise and joy on his face made me as happy as the night he proposed.

We're both still full of joy, but nervous, too, as we consider what's coming.

Hoosband's two-year commitment is almost up, and WE'RE ABOUT TO BE PARENTS.

It still sounds surreal.

PARENTS.

I can't think about it too much.

But I can think about the things I enjoyed the most with my own parents, which brings me to Cowboy Cookies.

My mom was (and is) a decent cook--aside from the occasional carrot loaf, of course (I grew up thinking meatloaf was supposed to be orange and despised it for most of my childhood, thank you, Weight Watchers)--so we spent a lot of time in the kitchen together in my formative years before she went back to work.

For Christmas we made sugar cookies from Pillsbury dough, but sometimes, for occasions like "just because," we made Cowboy Cookies from scratch.

My grandmother would always tell me, "Oh, your mother just loved to make those Cowboy Cookies. She'd drive all the way home from school (University of Tennessee, Knoxville), throw her bags on the floor, and have a batch in the oven before she'd done anything else. She sure loved those cookies!"

So when I was included in the process, I felt like I was part of a long tradition of something special.

I asked my mom where she got the recipe, and she couldn't remember. She said she had it written down someplace, but I couldn't wait.

I Googled "cowboy cookies," and even though most people I have encountered over the years have never heard of them, the Internet is lousy with recipes. Everyone from Martha Stewart to Laura Bush has their version. This one is mine.

It's hard to say what the future will hold, but it will most certainly be full of love and cookies.

Cowboy Cookies
Most of the recipes I perused online included coconut; mine does not. When my mom and I made them, they were essentially oatmeal-chocolate-chip. I'm adding walnuts 'cause I've got 'em.

8 oz unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
6 oz light brown sugar
6 oz granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
6 oz bread flour
4 oz whole wheat flour
4 oz quick-cooking (not instant) rolled oats
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp coarse sea salt
dash (about 1/8 tsp) cinnamon
12 oz semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips or chunks
6 oz walnuts, coarsely chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Lightly butter your baking sheets.
3. Using the paddle attachment of an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugars on medium speed till light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla, and beat on med-low speed just until well-blended.
4. In another bowl, whisk together the flours, oats, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, beating on low speed till just blended. Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts (if you want puffier cookies that don't spread as much, chill the dough for at least 30 minutes before proceeding).
5. Drop rounded spoonfuls (about 2 T) of the dough onto the baking sheet, leaving about two inches between each mound.
6. Bake at 350 for 12-14 minutes or until just golden brown. Cool up to 5 minutes on baking sheet before using a spatula to transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Enjoy!

Makes about 36 cookies.

Store cooled cookies in an airtight container at room temperature. Extra dough can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week, or up to two months in the freezer.

Note: This dough makes excellent sheet cookies as well. Just make sure you under-cook the dough slightly so that it is golden-brown around the edges but light golden and not-quite set in the center. This translates to about 20 minutes for a 7"x11" pan with about an inch-depth of dough (this would use about half the recipe). Cool completely in pan, placed on a wire rack to increase air-circulation, before cutting into bars.