Gluten Free Vegan Oreos or Chocolate Sandwich Cookies Recipe -- Easy and Frugal

A little while back my family was gifted with a bunch of free Oreos.
Only they're gluten, and 4 out of 5 members of my family don't eat gluten, so my eldest, Lee, got them all to himself. My other kids were envious, and I told them that I'd make them gluten free Oreo's instead. To be honest, when I told them I'd do that, I wasn't quite sure how I'd do it, but had confidence that I'd figure it out.

Every day when they came home from school the kids asked me if we could make Oreos today, but my life was too hectic and it was hard to find time to do that.

However, finally I got around to making them, and the kids really enjoyed them.
You'd think they'd be super hard and complicated to make, but they were pretty real world. Not only were mine gluten free, they were also naturally vegan. You can make these with gluten if you eat gluten.
Ok, I will admit, they don't taste identical to Oreos. But they are certainly delicious, and pleased my Oreo deprived kids. They also pleased our gluten and junk food eating house guest.

When trying to figure out what type of cookie to make, I knew I wanted something thin and crispy, so went with my thin mint cookie recipe as the base, just leaving out the mint, and with some other adjustments. It worked beautifully.

Oh, and note that the only special ingredient here was coconut oil. The rest are all standard kitchen ingredients, so it is very budget friendly.

Gluten Free Vegan Oreos or Chocolate Sandwich Cookies Recipe -- Easy and Frugal

Cookie Ingredients:
1/2 cup oil of choice (I used sunflower, but canola, soy, or even coconut oil works here)
1 cup sugar
2 cups all purpose gluten free flour mix, or 1 cup rice flour and 1 cup potato starch and 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum, or 2 cups all purpose gluten/wheat flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup water
Frosting Ingredients:
Coconut oil (if you're allergic to coconut oil, any solid fat will do, whether butter, margarine, or shortening, but those are either not healthy or not vegan)
Powdered sugar
Water

Cookie Instructions:

1. Mix your oil and sugar.

2. Add in the rest of the ingredients other than the water. Mix well.

3. Add the water, a bit at a time until you have a good workable dough.

4. Make your cookies. To do this, you can either make a small ball of dough, place it between two pieces of parchment paper, and press it flat with the bottom of a cup. This is easiest but they end up being less uniform. Alternatively, roll it out between two pieces of parchment paper using a rolling pin, and cut out each cookie with a cookie cutter (or the top of a cup in my case).

5. Place each cookie on a lined baking tray. They can touch, as they don't really spread when cooking.

6. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, then bake exactly 10 minutes.

7. Let cool before frosting.

Frosting Instructions:

1. Take a small amount of coconut oil, and mix it with powdered sugar until you can no longer mix in any more powdered sugar. This works perfectly with homemade powdered sugar made by grinding white sugar in a coffee grinder or powerful blender. That's what I used for this recipe.

2. Add a drop of water to thin it out, until you have a good workable consistency for the frosting. If it ends up too wet, just add more powdered sugar.

3. Spread thinly or thickly, your choice, on the bottom of one of your cookies, then place the other cookie, bottom side down.

Enjoy!

Is your family a fan of Oreos or other chocolate sandwich cookies? Does this look like a recipe you'd try?