Whipped Cream

I love whipped cream.  On my pie, ice cream, hot chocolate, fresh fruit, and the list goes on.  When I'm making something creamy, I must admit I use cool whip, but there are some scary sounding ingredients in that stuff.  Reddi Whip from the can is so fun and easy to squirt straight to your mouth when you just NEED it.  Real whipped cream is super tasty, and you can control the sweetness.

Who will take the cake?  Muahaha - pun intended.

The store brands: Cool Whip (tub from the freezer section)
Reddi Wip (yep, from the can)

The recipe (from http://www.allrecipes.com/):
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon confectionary sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Chill the bowl and beats in the freeze for at least 5 mins before starting.  Combine the cream, sugar, and vanilla and beat about 2-3 minutes until peaks form.  Don't beat too long or you will end up with butter (not such a bad thing)!

So cool whip always comes from the freezer section, which means it takes at least a little planning.  I've tried to make the creamy jello while it's still too frozen - don't do it.  Reddi Wip from the can tends to "melt" down really fast.  Homemade will fall as well, and you need to handle it fragilly so you don't let too much of the air out.

As far as taste goes, the Reddi Wip was out right away.  It's the lightest, but it has a chemically taste - it's just not right.  The Cool Whip was far sweeter than my whipped cream, but the homemade was just so much creamier.  If you want it sweeter, you can always just up the amount of confectionerary sugar.

Left is Reddi Wip, middle is Cool Whip, and right is homemade.

Well the cost works about about the same for cool whip and homemade.  Reddi Wip comes at a premium, but it is convenient to use it when you need it.  My mom always used to keep a can in the fridge.

	Amount	Cost	Cost/oz
Cool Whip	8 oz	$     1.65	$          0.21
Reddi Wip	6.5 oz	$     2.79	$          0.43
Homemade	8.5 oz	$     2.03	$          0.24

So Bake or Buy?  BAKE!

Cool Whip will do fine if you need to fold it into a recipe, but if you are topping off some fresh strawberries or a warm pie, buck up and make your own!

Oreos

Oreos are not my favorite cookie.  In fact, I generally enjoy fruity desserts more than chocolate.  But my husband loves Oreos and I'll be shipping most of these out as part of the Great Cookie Swap. 

If you haven't heard, the Great Cookie Swap is a food blogger event, where bloggers make cookies, send them to other bloggers, and get a bunch in return.  Cookies in the mail??  How exciting!  And look at this mountain of cookies in the works:

So anyways... The store brand: Oreos. (Nabisco)

My recipe: (From http://www.smittenkitchen.com/)

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 to 1 1/2 cups sugar [see recipe note]

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

- Set two racks in the middle of the oven. Preheat to 375°F.

- In a food processor, or bowl of an electric mixer, thoroughly mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar.

- While pulsing, add the butter, and then the egg and process until it forms a mass.

- 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 cookies on a rack to cool.

- 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.

- 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.

And the outcome?  The cookies were great.  I guess I expected them to be soft and more like a whoopie pie, but the chocolate cookies were really crunchy, just like an Oreo (after a day in a container, they got soft from the filling and I think they were even better that way)!  The filling was better than the competitor - and I filled them almost to the point of a double stuffed Oreo.  I said I wasn't a huge fan of Oreos... but I could eat 10 of these.

The cost was actually pretty interesting.  With all the butter, vanilla, and cocoa powder, I thought the store bought version would cost much less to buy.  It was close, but the homemade cookie came in at just a few pennies more per cookie (they were also a little larger):

	Cookies	Cost	Cost/Cookie
Oreos	30	$      4.39	$          0.15
Homemade	28	$      5.14	$          0.18

So, my opinion here is if you are going to eat a cookie, it might as well be delicious and you should have to work for it (a little).  This recipe was made entirely in the food processor and the filling was really easy.  So come on, go the extra mile for your desserts, and earn those calories!

Bake or Buy? BAKE!