Red Velvet Whoopie Pies

These are the sorts of pictures you get when you bake in the evening, in Canada in the winter.  Oh and when you don't know how to take a picture either.

  So I may have mentioned that I got a part time job recently, like 3 months ago.  I am still learning and boy do I mess up a lot.  I mean A LOT!  So I have to say thanks to my co workers who are so amazing at helping me and making me feel like I am not a complete moron.  But you know, lets just call it what it is, I am not the smartest.  So I had a request for red velvet whoopie pies, with cream cheese frosting.  As I was told.  Also they are called whopie cushions by my co worker, who I cannot name because she knows the real name now.

 So I wanted to let them know I care, and I also wanted a reason to make something I had not before.  I used my amazing book, Whoopies and went to work.

I made a double batch because I wanted to have enough for everyone at both my jobs, and a few for me and even a few itty bitty baby ones for Pork Chop.  He loves oreo cakesters, which he calls cake cookies, so I told him these were even better.  I will let you guess how that turned out.

So these are the itty bitty ones, I got 12 on a cookie sheet as they spread, could have gotten more if I tried.

 So I know there is this "baking equation" or something, I know we learned about it in school, I even tried to google it to no avail.  So I just decided to throw caution to the wind and double it all up.  It worked, so I am sure I must have been hearing things at school.  Maybe it is like an urban legend of the baking world.  Figures, I have no clue. Educational dollars well spent Mom!

  So I also did not follow it exactly, I used vanilla bean paste because I think that is fancy and I used more red colouring because I wanted to get rid of the darn red food colouring so I can buy more paste instead of the watery kind.  Oh and I did not have butter milk, I just made my own with vinegar and milk.

Ohhh, Ahhhh.  

Okay so here you go, I will give you the recipe, but just know I doubled it and ended up with about 40 pies and 12 itty bitty baby ones.

Red Velvet Whoopies
Based on  Whoopies! by Susanna Tee

1/2 cup butter milk (or 1/2 TSP vinegar and fill up to 1/2 cup with regular milk, stir and let sit for 5 minutes)
1/2 TSP vanilla bean paste
1TBSP red food colouring
1 1/2 TSP white vinegar
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 extra large egg
2 cups all purpose flour
1 TBSP unsweetened cocoa
1/2 TSP baking soda
pinch of salt

combine all the wet ingredients and set aside, cream the butter and sugar, beat in the egg.  Sift all dry ingredients together and mix into the sugar mixture.  Slowly mix in the wet ingredients to combine then scoop and bake.

Just a close up for you, those are the tiny ones on the bottom, they are about the size of a toonie.  (raise your hand if you know what that means!)

I used the two smallest scoops I have. The larger one is the size I use for a truffle sized cake ball, and they turned out to be about the size of a cakester.  Then I used the tiny one which is about a teaspoon, they turned out to be the size of a loonie or a toonie.  For you non Canadian readers it a bit bigger than a quarter.

So I baked the larger ones for about 7 minutes and the tiny ones for 5.  I bake them at 350 ( in my convection oven) until they are no longer shinny on top, and they will hold up to you sort of poking at them.  You know, poke lightly with your finger and if your finger can easily break through they are not done.

I am sort of anal retentive when it comes to things, even though they are going to be squished, I still pipe a nice swirl.  Except for the baby ones, they got a blob.

I then let them cool while I made my cream cheese filling.  Firstly, I love cream cheese icing, I hate plain cream cheese.  But I always forget that and take a nibble of the cream cheese that has crumbled off the block while putting it in the bowl.  I always gag but then I do it the next time.  It just looks like it would taste good, boy is it deceiving.

I made a huge batch, because I put way too much milk in. Then I had to add like 5 pounds of icing sugar.  But you know, now I have some left over to make something else, maybe cupcakes or oh, cake balls, or truffles or even just to eat with a spoon.  I am not against any of those ideas.

The book says to match up like sized sides.   I don't have time for that, and even if I did, I don't care, I will eat it even if it's mismatched. 

  So here is half of the recipe for what I made, which should still give you lots, I mean a whoopie should be full of icing, especially when it is cream cheese icing.

My most amazing cream cheese icing


-1 block cream cheese
-1/2 cup butter
-1 1/2 TSP vanilla bean paste
-milk and icing sugar to get it to be as much and as thick as you want

So cream the butter and cream cheese, add the vanilla bean paste.  Then, if you are smart, slowly add like 1/4 cup milk, then icing sugar until it is nice and thick.  Then decide if you have enough, if not add a TBSP of milk and then add more sugar.  I so just poured in the milk and you would not believe the amount of sugar I needed, and it was still a bit thinner than I like, but I was so not opening another bag of sugar.

Another crappy picture, but those are some cute pies.

So you can fill your pies how ever you like, but I have a method.  Don't ask me why, it just seems to make sense to me.

Line up your pies half facing up, half facing down.  Then pipe ( or spoon or smear or whatever) the icing on the inside of a cookie, then push the other side down to make them stick.  Then, because I hope to goodness you made an extra cookie half, top it off with extra icing and eat it.  Yum!

I keep mine in the fridge in boxes or containers.  Because they have cream cheese I think they need to be kept colder if they are not being eaten right away.

  I love how cute the baby ones are, like 2-3 bites, but could you imagine a table or platter of like three different kinds.  Oh and then what if you dipped them in chocolate? I don't know about you, but I am getting ideas!  My mom has her annual party coming up, I think I have a reason to go baby whoopie pie happy.  I cannot wait!

 Oh and for those of you that were hanging onto the edge of your seat, Pork Chop didn't really like it, he said it tasted amazing.  But when I asked if he wanted another, I got "no thank you."  So you know he hated it.  Which means more for me, score!