I have made Smitten Kitchen's homemade Oreos before with great success, but I forgot that I don't live in the States anymore. There are times where I can go for days forgetting that I live abroad. But then sometimes, it hits you right in the face and you realize that this is in fact a foreign country.
The frosting for the Oreo calls for shortening. No problem at home. Just grab a can of Crisco and you're good to go. They don't make that here though. And there really isn't even a substitute! They have refrigerated shortening which will work if you're baking, but this frosting isn't cooked and needs to be kept at room-temp. After a long search and discussions with the local baker, I was directed to try vegetable suet. At first I was pretty grossed out because suet is traditionally raw animal fat. But then I realized that 1) this is a vegetarian version and 2) isn't that exactly what lard is? I wasn't 100% convinced though, but the store owner ended up giving me the package for free.
It ended up working OK, but it's really not the same. The real problem is that it comes as shredded pieces of fat rather than just a solid. So it was really hard to get it completely smooth in the frosting. As hard as I tried, I still ended up with little pieces of suet, which is really not appetizing. When the frosting was in between the two cookies you couldn't really tell though.
The most important thing is that the final product tastes just like an Oreo! I'll definitely be making these again whenever I need a little slice of home.
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