Whoopie Pies Part Tres

Can't believe I'm just now getting to my first post of the month. And it's a long overdue update on the ongoing trials and tribulations of me versus whoopie pies. It reminds me of that trial in Bleak House that outlasts the entire law firm... except the jury came back from sequestration this weekend and I won this lengthy trial!

Okay, enough Dickens references and legal jargon. On to the play by play. As all three of you regular readers know, I've been trying to make whoopie pies since before Easter. The Boy's dad is from Maine, where whoopie pies reign supreme, and recipes happened to popping up everywhere in the blogosphere this spring. I had no idea how long of a battle I was in for when I tried to dazzle the Boy's parents with my domestic abilities. I should have known baking would be my Achilles heel.... So Easter and Memorial Day were glorious fails (as you can see in previous posts), and I guess the silver lining is that I didn't actually kill myself with the last poisionous batch, and we've been seeing the parents regularly enough that I was able to square off once again.


This time I recruited The Boy (who mostly got in the way or lost the directions) and Brady-man to assist me in tangling with the chocolate devil. I even brought everything outside for our little cooking class, which followed Brady's famous Burlington Burgers and probably a few too many Labatts.

The boys took over the chocolate recipe, while I attempted the red velvet one. Both batters came out tasting just fine, despite a lack of vanilla for mine (you've got to be fast when you're in a cooking class showdown). Since batter was in abundance, we were able to finally figure out the infinitessimally small spoonfuls of batter required to make sandwich cookies. But not after several pans full of ginormous chocolate globs. After about four pans we finally realized the parchment paper wasn't doing us any favors, and left it off entirely. As usual, the last batch was really the only one that turned out perfectly. But I did notice the next day that the ones that had been stuck to the wax paper actually came off much more easily (except for the smaller scoops, which turned into thinner cookies that simply cracked when any attempt at peeling was made).

So since we survived the first step, which had been my failing in the last two rounds, I moved on to making the filling the next day. I decided to cut the giant chocolate whoopie pie cakes into smaller, more edible cookie shapes and then put the traditional powdered sugar icing in between. (Note: apparently Crisco is a very necessary ingredient in both the cookies and the filling. Despite my initial disinterest in buying it, when I did they finally turned out). I then added a few drops of blue food coloring to the remaining icing to put between my red velvet whoopie pies -- to make a patriotic version for the 4th.

Frankly I'm glad to be done with these things. To my credit, I just ate the scraps from making smaller chocolate ones, and they're still fresh and moist after a week. To my discredit, I will say they all got eaten, but mostly because the Boy has a lot of sugar-fiending young nieces.

Traditional Whoopie Pies
1 3/4 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 c. cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. Crisco
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 c. milk
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375. Whisk together the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, cream together Crisco and sugars, then add egg and continue beating. Add in milk and vanilla, then slowly add in dry ingredients. Scoop very very small (teaspoon sized scoops) of batter onto a greased cookie sheet. Cook 10-12 minutes, remove to a wire rack to let cool. Pipe frosting (recipe below) between two similarly shaped cookies when cooled.

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies:
1 1/3 c. all-purpose flour
2 tbs. cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup Crisco
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tbs. buttermilk (since it calls for vinegar anyway, I just used regular milk)
2 tsp. apple cider vinegar
2 tsp. vanilla extract (or maple syrup if you run out of vanilla like me)
1 tbs. red food coloring

Preheat at 375. Notice this makes much less than the previous batch. Mix together your dry ingredients. Then in a separate bowl, cream the butter into the sugar, add in eggs, and beat in the remaining wet ingedients. Then add dry to wet slowly. Drop batter in small batches onto greased cookie sheet. Cook 10 minutes, allow to cool on pan, then transfer to rack to finish cooling. Spread spoonfuls of frosting between two similarly-sized cookies

Basic Frosting:
Whip 1 1/2 c. of powdered sugar into 1 c. (or stick) of Crisco. Add 1/3 c. skim milk and 1 1/2 tsp. of vanilla (or maple syrup). Alter amounts to get the consistency desired (you want something substantial for frosting these cookies, but it can be thinner for icing cakes).