whoopie pies

In case you haven't noticed by my 'olde English' spelling, I'm Canadian. While there aren't any appreciable differences between Canadians and Americans at first glance, the subtleties are what Canadians notice and often ruminate about...or should I say 'aboot'? It comes with the territory of living next to 'the elephant'. Judging by some of the hilarious dialogue on 'Flight of the Conchords', our predicament is much like that of the New Zealanders and their proximity to Australia.

But I digress. My mission today is to discuss my newly discovered love affair with the whoopie pie. Here in Canada we grew up with something called a Jos. Louis, a packaged treat that never really called out to me as a child. Chocolate not being a particular passion of mine, I was more of a Twinkie girl; and if chocolate was forced to be a part of the equation, I'd choose a Hostess cupcake anyday. 

A few months back I was watching an episode of 'Martha' - crazed, hooting audience aside, she still offers some great content - and a couple of ladies from Maine were on the show baking off their signature whoopie pies. Martha had tried them when she was on vacation in Maine, and declared they were the best whoopie pies she'd ever eaten...so of course I had to give them a whirl.

My husband, having a serious addiction to chocolate (he has to eat a piece in some form every day), was celebrating a birthday, so I thought this was the perfect sweet to honour him with. The recipe was straightforward enough and called for only two items unfamiliar to my kitchen: a muffin top pan and a jar of Fluff . While I'm not a fan of using 'fake' ingredients in my cooking, I have a dark side that craves gutter food in all its glory: poutine, wings, jalapeno poppers, the list goes on. Which is really why the whoopie pies were so compelling: transforming a variety store sugar fix into to a home-baked surprise. So Pygmalion!

Unfortunately as I began cooking, it became apparent that Eliza Doolittle was not giving up without a fight. The batter for the dough was very thin and required the structure of the muffin top pan to contain it. The pan had to be well-buttered and lined with circles of parchment paper to facilitate the release of the cakes once they were baked. After retrieving the baked cakes from the oven, they were allowed to sit for about 10 minutes before I began what proved to be the masochistic process of removing them from their shallow graves. There was no question these cakes would be tender and moist, but almost to a fault. At every nook and cranny of the pan they stuck, while I patiently, oh so patiently, tried to cajole them out with an offset spatula. It was a heart-breaking exercise, and it didn't stop there. The parchment circles, though coated in butter, behaved as though they were sheets of glue. It was carnage.

If it weren't for the look of anticipation on dear Joe's face, I might have flung my arms up in surrender; but one has to soldier on for those we love. A few of the cakes made it out relatively unscathed, so they were set aside as the 'tops'. I spread a buttery slick on a sheet of parchment paper and laid down my broken cake bottoms, gluing them back together Humpty Dumpty-style with the marshmallow filling. An ice cream scoopful of the filling was plopped on top of each bed of cake and topped with their better-looking siblings. When reveal time came, the birthday boy was none the wiser. It was so worth the effort: these are now his favourite special-event treats.

Recently the New York Times ran a recipe for whoopie pies from Zingerman's Bakehouse in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Considering the source (both newspaper and bake shop), I knew it was worth trying. Also intriguing was the fact that this cake batter was thick enough to be scooped onto a sheet of parchment. I questioned how such a flour-dense batter would fare against the impossibly tender cakes of the Cranberry Island Kitchens recipe, but I was up for some low-stress baking. Conversely, the filling in this recipe was entirely homemade - no jars of Fluff here. So, seeing as I was in a pinch for time (a pack of feral hockey fans were about to descend on the house to watch the 'big' game - whatever that means), I decided to borrow the easy components of each recipe to make one stress-free whoopie pie. The combination of the Zingerman's cakes and the Cranberry Island Kitchens filling was, while not as ethereal as the original recipe I'd made, still a delicious, zero-anxiety alternative. Good enough for a bunch of hockey fanatics...and me.

whoopie pies
Adapted from The New York Times & The Martha Show
Makes approximately 12 pies

I doubled the original recipe for the cakes and they turned out fine, so of course you can half it and the filling recipe to produce only 6 pies. Also, because there are two separate recipes at play here, you may find you'll end up with more cakes than filling. These cakes are still tasty on their own, but you can always spread a layer of chocolate-hazelnut spread on the extras to make things interesting. Very interesting.

Ingredients for Cakes:

1/2 lb (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
2 cups light brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp sea salt
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup cocoa
2 cups buttermilk

Ingredients for Filling:
Makes 3 3/4 cups.

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 jar (7 1/2 ounces) marshmallow Fluff
2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat until light and creamy. In a separate bowl, whisk together the baking soda, salt, flour and cocoa. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in three parts, alternating with buttermilk, and combining well after each addition.

Using an ice cream scoop or a spoon, scoop out 24 1/4-cup mounds of batter and place about 6 inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake until tops are puffed and cakes spring back when touched, 12 to 14 minutes. Remove from oven and cool completely before filling.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add Fluff and vanilla and continue mixing until well combined.

Using an ice cream scoop or spoon, place 1/4 cup buttercream on flat side of each of 12 cakes, spreading it to edges. Top filled half with another cake to sandwich the buttercream. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, or wrap individually and freeze for up to 3 months.

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