One of the items I get asked about most are whoopie pies with many local people asking me, “is it a cookie or is it a cake?” If you are not from New England, these delectable sandwiched mouthfuls are a strange but devilishly tempting unique sensation. While they are considered a New England phenomenon and a Pennsylvania Dutch tradition, it is with great contention that both states claim to be the birthplace of this delightful morsel. The Amish claim that women began baking these cakey cookies for their husbands from leftover cake batter. At the time, they were known as hucklebucks, and as the legend goes, when their farmer husbands would find them in their lunch pails, they would shout “whoopie” out of excitement…well, who wouldn’t?
When I first started researching the whoopie pie about six months ago, I made my rounds to every place that I knew carried them. Most tasted like a moist and delicious chocolate cake filled with a very sweet, sugary icing. The ones I picked up at the local Amish Market in Annapolis were amazing…the filling was like marshmallow and the cake just melted in your mouth. Most were overfilled with cream that poured over the baked edges of the cookie and created a messiness that made it fun to eat and actually part of its charm.
My goal was to create something that combined the ethereal texture of the whoopie pie but something that was easy to scoop and bake and did not require any special bake ware.
The recipe I developed is amazing and moist, and I actually added some Swiss buttercream as the filling and received rave reviews from all of my taste testers. These would make a great dessert for your next cookout, picnic or bagged lunch. They bake beautifully in large rounds and equally well as mini bites for an assorted pastry tray or something easier to hold for little fingers. So…to answer the question as to whether it is a cake or a cookie…it is a pleasure to say that it combines the best of both worlds.
Chocolate Whoopie Pies (makes 8 large sandwiches)
2 oz whole egg
3 oz vegetable oil
6 oz lowfat yogurt
.5 oz vanilla
10 oz sugar
5.5 oz cake flour
5.5 oz all purpose flour
3 oz dutch process cocoa powder
2 ½ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
.2 oz salt
Preheat your oven to 350°F. Add all of the wet ingredients into a bowl and mix well. Then sift in all the dry ingredients into a separate bowl then add directly into the wet mixture. It’s that simple! Whisk all of this together until there are no lumps or flour visible. Using a 3 oz scoop, you will make about 16-3” pieces, which will make 8 large whoopie pies. Bake until edges have set (center may still appear raw) approximately 10-12 minutes, then allow to cool completely before adding the filling.
For the Swiss buttercream, follow the step by step directions and set this aside until the cookies are completely cool. Using the same 3 oz scoop, fill each cookie with a scoop of cream and then sandwich it together with another cookie by pressing the two pieces together, gently spreading out the cream in the process.
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