Oatmeal Creme Pies

Thursday is ‘Cookie Day’ at BeeHive where I consider it my mission to fill our assisted living memory care home with the amazing aroma of freshly baked cookies. In a world where memories are fading day by day, homemade cookies have a way of sparking memories from the personal baking experiences of yesteryear. My cookie recipe rotation includes classic favorites like chocolate chip, Snickerdoodles, peanut butter, and oatmeal raisin. When it’s oatmeal raisin’s turn on the menu, I sometimes make a special batch of thinner oatmeal cookies without raisins, adding just a hint of molasses.

I use Amanda Rettke’s recipe for “Oatmeal Cream Pies” found on her wonderful I Am Baker website. This cookie dough does require some chill time in the fridge. Rather than chilling the whole bowl of dough, I pre-scoop all of my cookies into uniform balls straight onto a few cookie sheets with only a tiny bit of space between each dough ball. I then slide the cookie sheets into a fridge and let them chill for about 30 minutes to an hour while I clean up my work station.

When it’s time to bake, I just place those chilled dough balls on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, spacing them appropriately so they can flatten and spread as they bake. As you can see in the photos, I do not use a cooling rack. After the cookies have cooled a bit on the cookie sheet, I slide the parchment paper straight onto the countertops to let them finish cooling.

While dozens of cookies are cooling on every available countertop and flat surface, I then create a marshmallow filling to sandwich between pairs of the cookies. The result is reminiscent of Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies — a popular lunchbox treat straight out of the 1960’s and still available today.

Since I use a cookie scoop, the cookies bake up fairly uniform in size, which makes the next step a little easier. I pair the cookies up and flip one of each pair upside down. Using a slightly smaller scoop, I add a dollop of marshmallow creme filling on one half (flat-side up), then top it with the other half and give it a little squish, stopping once the filling just reaches the edges of the cookie sandwich.

I let the cookies sit on the countertop to set up a bit until just before serving time. By this step in the cookie baking operation I usually have a little audience of residents standing at the window into the kitchen. They truly enjoy watching me bake and eagerly anticipate getting to eat the cookies after their lunch.

It is my heart’s desire that the nostalgic aroma and flavor of freshly baked cookies make our residents at Beehive Homes of Oregon feel like they are at home.