Gumption: Roreo velvet cookies

I hope you had good day yesterday - whatever you did, whomever you were with. :)

I had planned to cook husband's favorite meal and have a wonderful evening at home. It was wonderful, but not quite what I had planned. My back has been hurting all week but yesterday it became unbearable. I could hardly walk and even if I didn't move, I could feel pain in my back. (This has been quite frustrating as I can't figure out what I did; although, I'm often lifting and moving things at work, so perhaps I had just done that one-too-many times without using my knees.) So, rather than coming home and quickly getting started on dinner, I came home, took an anti-inflammatory, and then husband (who has a history of back problems) helped me stretch some of my back muscles. I was in tears by the end but it sure did make a difference! So we got Thai take-out and watched Valentine's Day at home. Luckily, I had made these the day before, so we still had something that I had planned on. :)

So today's feature is Oreo-stuffed red velvet crinkle cookies: a fabulous Pinterest find! (I'm so proud of myself for actually making things I find on Pinterest.) Or as my husband decided to call them: Roreo velvet cookies.

Love from the southern hemisphere,
E

Roreo velvet cookies (Renamed by my husband. Original name: Red Velvet Orea-stuffed crinkle cookies. My comments in italics.)

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 tsp. vanilla
2 tbsp. liquid red food coloring
3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
24 chocolate sandwich cookies (Oreos)
1 cup confectioners' sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F or 190 degrees C. Cover two baking sheets with parchment paper (or spray with cooking spray).
Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time. Beat in buttermilk, vanilla and red food coloring.
Sift together all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa and salt. Add to butter mixture and beat on low until just combined. The dough should be very soft and a little sticky. If it is very sticky then add 1/4 cup more all-purpose flour and stir again (I didn't add more...all seemed good to me). Cover and chill in the freezer until the dough is very cold and easy to handle.
Place confectioners' sugar in a bowl and set aside. (Now, I left mine in the fridge over night to save time in the whole baking progress and this seemed to work really well. I made the dough one night and baked the other. The dough was still quite sticky once I started handling it, even after being in the fridge over night.)
Using buttered fingers (I used cooking spray) (I used buttered fingers, well hands) scoop out a 3-4 tbsp.-sized piece of dough and press the dough around the sandwich cookie. Alternate method: flatten dough between the palms of your hands. Place a cookie on the flattened dough and fold the dough around the cookie. (Butter hands between each dough piece.) (The alternate method is the one I used. I found that the Oreo cookies were not strong enough if I just pressed them into the dough. But I must have used way more than 3-4 tbsp of dough per cookie, because my cookies turned out MASSIVE. See below.)
Roll lightly between the palms of your hands to make the cookie-stuffed dough a little more ball-shaped and roll in powdered sugar. Repeat until all the dough and cookies are used. (I also did this over two days because of the little bits of time I was working with. The dough kept fine in the fridge, even over two days.)
Place dough balls on a cookie sheet about 3 inches apart. These cookies will spread, so I suggest placing no more than 5 per cookie sheet. Tip: re-roll dough balls in powdered sugar just before putting them in the oven. The crinkled appearance will be more prominent.
Bake until cookies are puffed and cracked on top about 14 minutes. Let cool on the pan about 5 minutes (cookies will be soft) then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

The main thing I would do differently if I make these cookies again, is to use a smaller amount of dough per Oreo cookie. With mine, you get a few bites of cookie with no Oreo, before you get to the Oreo. They taste really good though, nonetheless, and look so pretty! My husband loved them. :)