My brother’s birthday is on Halloween. I always thought he was so lucky–what an amazing holiday to have a birthday on! Everyone is festive, dressing up, eating sweets, and getting free candy, it doesn’t get much better than that. We used to have really fun birthday parties for him too where my mom would create a “haunted-house” in the garage where we’d all stick our hands in various foods blindfolded and told they were “witches eyeballs” or “brains”. It was disgusting but it was fun .

Now that we are older, things are a little bit different. We live on opposite sides of the country and he now likes chocolate, especially dark chocolate (hated it all as a kid). I like dark chocolate, but tend to be more of a milk chocolate gal–only one of our many differences. Yet, as I have been thinking about him a lot recently, I’ve realized that he and are are not as dissimilar as I thought. I tended to think of him as just different because of his illness. This thought was blocking me from seeing him as a whole person–instead I have only been seeing what is wrong–ugh. But I’ve realized that he actually is going through a lot of the same growing up issues that every 20 something does, including issues that I went through. You know those questions, insecurities, doubts, fears, and uncertainties that tend to be especially prevalent during our 20′s. Hearing about other people’s situations and stories can be really helpful for me and is probably true for my brother. So I’ve started encouraging him, letting him know that I am here to talk to or bounce things off of. Sometimes I do slip into the bossy older sister mode and just want him to be OK–I get all wrapped up in just wanting him to be how I want him to be! But in the end, that hasn’t been working. In fact, it just makes things tense and angry between us. So, I’ve decided to use this different approach and already things have been feeling better and more open.

I called him last weekend and was trying to be really covert in asking him about his favorite desserts, flavors, etc (neither of us are good at being super covert!). I found out his favorite desserts are mint chocolate chip ice cream (that would be really interesting to make but hell to ship) and oreo cheesecake pie. As he was telling me about the pie, I had an instant flashback of my brother, my dad, and I on one of our rare trips to the grocery store together. We would buy things that my mother would never have brought home and used to get giddy about it together. One of those “absolute nots” in our house was Oreos–except when dad went shopping . Then my brother and I would savor those cookies, eating them on the sly, until they were all gone. We loved them. That’s when I knew I had to MAKE them and send them to him for his birthday. I knew I had seen the recipe somewhere, did a quick search, and found it on one of my favorite sites Smitten Kitchen. These cookies really do taste like oreos! It is uncanny really. They are good. And addictive. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Homemade Oreos, via Smitten Kitchen

Makes 25 to 30 sandwich cookies

For the chocolate wafers:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

For the filling:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Set two racks in the middle of the oven. Preheat to 375°F.
2. In a food processor, or bowl of an electric mixer, thoroughly mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. While pulsing, or on low speed, add the butter, and then the egg. Continue processing or mixing until dough comes together in a mass.
3. Take rounded teaspoons of batter and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet approximately two inches apart. With moistened hands, slightly flatten the dough. Bake for 9 minutes, rotating once for even baking. Set baking sheets on a rack to cool.
4. To make the cream, place butter and shortening in a mixing bowl, and at low speed, gradually beat in the sugar and vanilla. Turn the mixer on high and beat for 2 to 3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy.
5. To assemble the cookies, in a pastry bag with a 1/2 inch, round tip, pipe teaspoon-size blobs of cream into the center of one cookie. Place another cookie, equal in size to the first, on top of the cream. Lightly press, to work the filling evenly to the outsides of the cookie. Continue this process until all the cookies have been sandwiched with cream. Dunk generously in a large glass of milk.