Chocolate Whoopie Pies (sort of)

I've been a little addicted to online shopping lately. I love browsing through cute clothes and homewares, especially stores based in America which nearly always have cool things not available in Australia. A lot of the time I'm happy just browsing, dreaming of winning the lottery so I can buy these things that I don't necessarily need. When I found this whoopie pie tin I immediately had to have it. Whoopie Pies aren't that well known in Australia (yet - they seem to be the next 'big thing') and so I've only ever made them once before. Each side of the whoopie pie is meant to be fairly uniform in shape and size so they fit together well. This might be easy for some people, but for some reason not for (uncoordinated) lil me. The one time I did make whoopie pies I struggled to match all my sides together! So I thought this tin would help solve that problem for me. And it did; I had no trouble finding matching sides, however it did make my whoopie pies way way too big! But I'll just have to keep adjusting how much dough I put in the tin until I find the right amount

 

The tin that I bought actually had a recipe on the back for whoopie pies, so I decided to try that out to start off with. The only ingredient which I struggled to find, and which this and a lot of other whoopie pie recipes called for was Marshmellow Creme. Luckily I managed to find some at USA Foods.

See what I mean about them being way too thick?

So onto the recipe - firstly, using an electric mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until the mixture's light and fluffy.

To this mixture add the egg and vanilla and beat until combined.

In a seperate bowl, mix together sifted flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add half of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix until combined. Once you've done this add all of the buttermilk and mix again. Add the remaining dry ingredients to this mixture and mix until combined.

The recipe says to add 2tbsp of the mixture into each cavity, but i found that to be far too much. I added just under one tbsp to each of mine and that still ended up being too much. I think all they need is a thin layer that covers the bottom of the cavity - I'll try that next time.

I baked these for 10 minutes in a 180 degree C oven. Once they were out of the oven I cooled them in the pan for about 10 minutes and then further on a rack.

To make the icing I beat the butter, using an electric mixer, until it was vaguely creamy. There wasn't that much butter so at this stage it kind of stuck to my beaters. Not sure if that was meant to happen! Then I added the sugar and the salt and mixed again. Once this was combined I added the marshmellow creme and vanilla and mixed again. As soon as I added these two ingredients the icing mixture seemed to come together much better. It ended up looked soft and fluffy (and very edible!)

I piped the icing onto one of the whoopie 'biscuits' (and fought the urge to lick it off)

And then added another cake to the top and pressed down gently so the icing spread out to the edges.

Wilton's Chocolate Whoopie Pies:

125g butter, softened

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups plain flour

1/3 cup cocoa

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Lightly spray pan with oil, or coat with a thin layer of butter.

2. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat until combined.

3. In another bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add half the dry ingredients into the butter mixture and mix. When the dry ingredients are almost incorporated, stop the mixer and add the buttermilk. Continue to mix on low speed until all ingredients are almost incorporated. Stop the mixer again and add the remaining dry ingredients. Mix until combined. Spoon batter into each cavity - enough to just cover the bottom of each cavity.

4. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the top of the cake springs back when touched. Allow the cakes to cool in the pan and then remove from pan and cool completely before filling.

Whoopie Pie Filling:

6 tbsp butter, softened

1 1/2 cups icing sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1 jar marshmellow creme

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. In a large bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer until creamy. Add the icing sugar and salt to the butter; mix well. Add the marshmellow creme and vanilla and blend well. Use immediately to fill whoopie pies.

Lucy desperately wanted to be the first one to try one of my whoopie pies but it just wasn't going to happen! haha Sorry Lucy, chocolate just isn't good for dogs (but you can have the rest of my milk!)

Recipe Source:

From the back of the Wilton Whoopie Pie Pan