I am ASHAMED of myself: "Faux reos"

There are recipes that, ultimately, are abhorrent. This is one of them. But the people want bread, circuses , and oreos.
Ask people what their favorite cookie is, and if they think of the homemade stuff, they will give you answers like chocolate chip, peanut butter, or oatmeal. If they think storebought, I think Oreos will win in a landslide. At least they did amongst Annalena's entourage.
And Annalena knows how to make them. Except that, because we cannot use the oreo trademark, we call them "faux reos."
Wink wink, nudge nudge.
To the abhorrency. The cookie per se, is not so bad. Simple chocolate wafer, no worse than most cookies.
But the filling. Oh, dear. Notwithstanding this, and having told people of what is in it, the response to these was along the lines of "they should be illegal, they're so good."
Sigh. So, they are on Annalena's repeat list. I shall make them again. Not happily, well,yes, happily, because my friends are adults, and can control themselves.
You can, can't you?
Ok, here's the story. Let's bake cookies first. You need a heaping cup of granulated sugar, half a teaspoon of salt, and a stick and a half of softened, unsalted butter. Also, if you have espresso powder, a teaspoon of that. You also need a large egg, a tablepoon of vanillasome water, 1.5 cups of flour and 3/4 cup of the darkets, blackest cocoa you can find. There is one called "black cocoa," and if you can find it, use it.
Preheat the oven to 325. This is low heat, because these are thin cookies and they burn easily .

Beat together the sugar, the butter, the salt and the espresso powder. Work it till it's smooth and uniform, either by hand or with the mixer. Now add the egg, a teaspoon of vanilla, the flour and cocoa. Stir it all together. You'll make a mess, but you will get it done. The dough is stiff.

Measure small amounts of this. Two teaspoons or so per cookie. Measure. Roll the first two teaspoons into a ball, and then you have a template for what the size should be. Put the balls onto cookie sheets lined with parchment paper.

Get a glass ,or something with a flat, smooth bottom, and put it into some granulated sugar. Press down on the cookies until they are really thin. This is important. Then bake them, for 18 minutes or so. you have to keep an eye on this step. These burn in an instand, but if you don't cook them enough, they won't be crisp. The best test is smell. If you can smell a rich chocolaty smell at 18 minutes, you're fine. If things begin to smell scorched, stop the tray.

Let the cookies cool. Now make the filling which is the disgusting part. Here are the ingredients:

2.5 cups confectioner's sugar
.5 cups of crisco
vanilla extract
at least a tablespoon of water.

GROSS. Mix the sugar, crisco and extract until it's as blended as it's gonna get. It will not come together. That's why you have the water. Annlena can explain the chemistry to you someday. Add a tablespoon of it and stir, and if the glob comes together smoothly, fine. If not, add another tablespoon of water. Then another. I believe I added 4 to get uniform texture.

Put a goodly spoon of the gross filling on a cookie, cover it with another one and press them together. Do this until you've used up the cookies, or the filling. Ideally, this will happen together, but it never does. Try to have leftover cookies. They are great with ice cream. Left over filling. GROSS.

You'll get a little more than 2 dozen cookies from this recipe. Don't eat too many of them. You know what's in em.

Ah, you will anyway.