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Whoopie Pies

Sally

I think baking is very rewarding, and if you follow a good recipe, you will get success.

Mary Berry, judge on The Great British Bake Off

One of the nicest things to happen to me recently was when I came downstairs to find the kitchen clean.

Not only clean, the coffee maker was ready to go, with a note taped to it to just push start (or play, as one of my other children used to say).

Not only clean and coffee-ready, I found whoopie pies baked and ready to be assembled.

If you aren’t familiar, a whoopie pie is a New England thing (although the Amish also claim them) made with two chocolate cake-like cookies with a sweet cream filling sandwiched between them.

“I remember you saying that Grammie used to make them for you for your birthday,” my daughter Mary said.

Yes, that’s true. My mother grew up in the Boston area and I loved her whoopie pies. I used to make them for the older kids, but I don’t think I ever made them for Mary.

“I had to look through three boxes of recipes before I found this one,” Mary said, showing me the old hand-written recipe which my mother had labeled “Whoopee Pies.”

“Then, I just thought of it as a technical challenge like on the The Great British Bake Off,” she said. “I followed the directions exactly. When it said, ‘Sift the dry ingredients,’ I sifted the dry ingredients. When it said to put them by teaspoonful on the baking sheet, I used a teaspoon.”

It’s amazing what happens when a baker carefully follows an old recipe.

Even sweeter than chocolate and cream is a person so thoughtful to find a special recipe and make it for someone who would appreciate it.

Mom’s Whoopee Pies

1/2 Cup Shortening
1/2 tsp Vanilla
2 Egg Yolks
1 Cup Milk
1 Cup Sugar
2 1/2 Cups Flour
1 tsp Soda
5 Tbsp Cocoa powder
1 tsp Baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Sift. dry ingredients.
Add rest and mix until smooth.
Drop by tsp on ungreased sheet.
10-12 min at 375 until set but not crisp
When cool, put together with filling.

2 Egg whites
2 Cups Confectioners sugar
1 tsp Vanilla
1/4 tsp Salt
1/2 Cup Shortening

Mix until smooth.

Published by Sally

8 thoughts on “Whoopie Pies”

  4. New Englander here. My mother made them and I did too. My son wanted to bring them to school instead of cupcakes for his 9th birthday, so baked them then instructed him to match up pairs, lay them out, then place blobs of filling on half of each pair until the filling was used up. You can picture the kitchen at this point, which is when the parakeet flew over and tasted the filling, and went totally nuts. He flew like a maniac, dive-bombing the half assembled treats. Let me assure you that the bird and the Whoopie Pies survived.

    1. I LOVE this story. Yes, I remember setting up the whoopie factory, setting up the cake/cookie pieces in pairs of similar size and shape, then going through and blobbing. I CANNOT imagine a parakeet flying through and dive-bombing in the midst of it. Thanks for the smile.

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