ALMOST OLD-FASHIONED WHOOPIE PIES

Whoopie pies, for those of you not from the Northeast, are considered a New England phenomenon and a Pennsylvania Amish tradition.  Did Amish women make them first, or did New Englanders?  No one knows for sure.  Legend has it that Amish women would bake these desserts (known as hucklebucks at the time) and put them in their children's lunch pails or lunch boxes. When children would find the treats in their lunch, they would shout "Whoopie!"  Maine claims the whoopie pie as their official state treat.  

A true old-fashioned whoopie pie is made with shortening, not butter.  And many older recipes did not use commercially made marshmallow fluff for the filling.  No matter, even though this is not the original whoopie pie, it's as old fashioned as I want to be.  I'll eat butter over shortening any day of the week.  

My first batch, using 1/4 cup batter per cookie according to instructions, made ginormous cookies.  1 level tablespoonful of batter makes a better two-bite size, at least for me.   I’ll have to make these again to get a proper count, but I’m guessing the yield to be about 4 dozen cookies, or 2 dozen sandwiches.  The cookies are chocolatey, soft and velvety, not too sweet, and they go perfectly with the just-sweet-enough filling.  I’ll be making these again, for sure. 


Other soft sandwich-type cookie recipes I love:  Swoon Pies, Chocolate-Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies, and Candy Johnson’s Whoopie Pie Cookies.

Almost Old-Fashioned Whoopie Pies Adapted from forkingdelicious.blogspot.com Rating:  10 out of 10 Click for PRINTABLE PAGE

COOKIES:  2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour 1/2 cup Dutch processed cocoa powder 1-1/4 tsp. baking soda 1 tsp. Diamond kosher salt 1 (5.3 oz.) container plain nonfat Greek yogurt + enough fresh coffee to yield 8 ounces 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract (I used my homemade vanilla.)  1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened 1 cup dark brown sugar, packed 1 large egg Heat oven to 350F.  Line sheet pans with parchment paper.  In a small bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.  Resift.  In another small bowl, stir together yogurt, coffee and vanilla. In a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Add egg, scraping down sides of bowl to combine.  Reduce mixer speed to low and alternately mix in dry ingredients and yogurt mixture in batches, beginning and ending with flour.  Scrape down side of bowl occasionally and mix until smooth. Using a level tablespoonful of batter, drop mounds about 2” apart on prepared pans.  Bake in middle of oven till tops are puffed and cakes spring back when touched, about 9-10 minutes, or till a toothpick inserted near center returns with just a few crumbs.  Transfer cakes to a rack to cool completely.  When cool, dollop a rounded teaspoonful of filling on flat sides of half of cakes and top with remaining cakes.  Whoopie pies can be wrapped in plastic wrap and frozen or refrigerated.  Yield:  about 48 cookies, 24 sandwiches, depending on size FILLING: 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature 1 cup confectioner’s sugar 1 (7 oz.) jar marshmallow fluff 1 tsp. vanilla powder or pure vanilla extract (I used homemade vanilla powder.)  Cream together butter and sugar till light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Add marshmallow fluff and vanilla and continue beating till smooth and light, about 2 more minutes.