A Whole Lot of Whoopie, Pies That Is.

  Hey guys, so this is actually a guest post I did last month so I thought I would come here and share it all in case you missed it and, you know, it makes up for the fact I have not been able to bake for a bit. I will for sure this weekend, promise!  So enjoy, and try to ignore the worse than usual pictures, I try to.

  So I wanted to do something fun and easy, but something that you could really make bigger and better, you know?  So I decided I would make whoopie pies, but not just any whoopie pies.  I wanted to show you how to make itty, bitty, teeny weeny little pies.  Why?  Well firstly, whoopie pies are awesome, secondly anything small is automatically cuter, and thirdly, with minis you can eat way more and try different flavours.  So it is a win win all around!

This is how it all starts, me measuring everything out and being all ready to just toss it in the mixer.

  I am going to show you how I make my mini pies, and I will include the recipe for the vanilla ones I made, I will link you back to posts where I made the chocolate and red velvet ones.  So this is a three in one deal!

  To get started, I used recipes from the book "Whoopies" because it is the best thing ever , really a must have for whoopie pies.

  As I was baking in bulk, think four batches, I started out with my mes en place.  That is fancy talk for having your crap all together.  So this means I measure out and sift all my dry ingredients together and then put out all the wet ingredients then I get to work.  So here is the recipe for vanilla whoopie pies,  I doubled it because I wanted lots, and I ended up with way too many.  If there can ever be too many whoopies you know?

Obviously these are chocolate, but I was not thinking when I was in the throws of whoopie pie making and this is the picture I took.  Sorry.

Vanilla Whoopie pies
From the book Whoopies  by Susanna Tee
-1/2 cup butter
-1 cup sugar
-1 TSP vanilla
-1 extra large egg
-2 1/3 cups all purpose flour
-1 1/4 TSP baking soda
-pinch of salt
-1 cup butter milk ( I use regular milk, just put a TSP of vinegar in your measuring cup, then fill to the 1 cup line, then stir and let sit for 5 minutes, and you have butter milk!)



Set your oven to 375, or if you have a convection oven 350.

Start by creaming the butter, sugar and vanilla together.  Once creamed, add your egg.  Then once the egg is fully incorporated you add the dry ingredients.  Once they are all in there, and trust me the dough will be crumbly and thick, slowly add the butter milk.  Then mix well and get ready to scoop.

See they spread out a bit, and remember you are using two of these and icing, they are a mouth full!

For these minis I used my tiny little ice cream scoop.  I mean it is small, like 1 TSP small.  It doesn't look like much, but trust me it will be perfect.  So I scoop them out, onto a parchment lined cookie sheet, leaving room for spreading and then bake them for about 5 minutes.  You know they are done when you notice they are no longer wet looking on top, and maybe they are browning just the tiniest bit.  Then take them out of the oven, and let sit for a few minutes before removing them to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

As I was making hundreds I just put them all in cake pans to store.  Please ignore the three large ones in there, those were to be used as taste testers.  I think testing is important.

I think I got about 180 whoopie halves out of this batch, but I was doing 4 different ones, and since I doubled the batch and since I was at this for hours, I lost count, but trust me you get lots!  You can also make them larger with a TBSP size cookie scoop, but that seems to be huge to me, and then I can hardly even eat one, so you know, you choose. So you should get around 80 halves in a regular batch.

Now for the filling I made a few different ones.  For these pies I made two.  A basic chocolate butter cream, and a vanilla butter cream with chocolate pearls.  But it was all one recipe and so easy.

Basic butter cream:
based on me just putting stuff in a bowl and mixing it all up

(this should be more than enough to fill two batches of minis, with lots of icing)

1/2 cup butter
1-2 TBSP Vanilla Bean Paste, or just regular vanilla
milk and icing sugar to add as you need.

-cream the butter and vanilla until creamy, then add about 1/4 cup of milk
-add icing sugar until it is thick enough for what you want, if you feel there is not enough just add milk 1 TBSP at a time then more sugar.  I know it's not exact, but I never do things the right way you know.

Now using this basic butter cream you can change it up however you like.  For my chocolate I just put in cocoa powder until it looked dark enough for me, about 1/4 cup.  And then to make the vanilla with sugar pearls, I just added these chocolate covered rice puffs, they stay nice and crispy but add a little something. Just add as many as you like, I think I added almost 3/4 of a cup.

This was a great find, they were at the outlet store for under $20, and they are yummy!  Little puffs of rice covered in chocolate.

So you can be very organized and lay out all your whoopie halves and what not, like I usually do, or you can just do whatever.  I suggest laying them out, it is much faster.  So lay out your bottoms, wrong side up, and fill with frosting, you can scoop it, or use a piping bag.  I found the frosting with the pearls was really hard to pipe so I used a disposable piping bag and just cut a huge hole in the end for it.

You don't have to pipe it all nice, you won't really see it. Also  I usually do this on a large piece of parchment paper, but I was tired and just wanted to get them done.  Hundreds of whoopies will do that to you.

Once you have filled them, just put the other half on top and press them together to make the icing spread out and stick together.  If you want you can then roll the sides in sprinkles or sugar to look pretty.  I would have, but after whoopie number 200 I was just tired and wanted to be done.

You can store them in the fridge in a container or leave them out for the day for a party.  The only thing that would go bad is the butter cream but you have a good day before you need to worry.  If you make cream cheese icing, I would keep those in the fridge until you are ready to serve.

These are the red velvet ones I made.   I sort of just stacked them together in a cake pan to take them to my moms.

I hope you enjoy these and try them out, I love that you can make so many different combinations, like adding  things to the batter.  I have done banana chocolate chip, chocolate chocolate chip, chocolate with crushed whoopers, and well you can do anything!  Be creative. 

And this is the party picture my Mom took, I was at work, and well, they look sort of bad, but they tasted great!

I'm guest posting! Mini Whoopie Pies!

Hey I am doing my very first guest post ever over at Happy Hour Projects head on over and take a look:)

And yes, the pictures are just as stunning as always.

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!

Banana Chocolate Chip Whoopie Pies - Eating the Alphabet

This is the best picture I could get, Porky was having a play date and I thought I was going to kill one of them.  So no time for pictures, just eating them!

 So this is going to be a great post.  I am really excited to be part of this blog hop.  I was first introduced to blog hops through the 12 weeks of Christmas cookies.  And it was perfect.  I learned so much and I really enjoyed that there were so many others out there reading and sharing with me.  That awesome blog hop was put together by Brenda over at Meal Planning Magic.   And I loved every minute of it, so when Brenda sent out a note to all of us letting us know about her new years blog hop suggestion I was so excited.  Now mind you I think she meant for most people to put together cooking posts.  I said well I want to play, but it will be sweet, because if there is one thing I love, it's sugar.  

  So here it is, the first instalment of eating the alphabet.  This months letters were A and B.  And I was all set to make something with apples.  Then I thought about it and figured I would have to peal them probably and that is a lot of work.  Then I thought well bananas, so that is what I went with, if you couldn't tell by the title.

  Now baking with bananas means you need really ripe bananas and I didn't have any, so I had to plan ahead.  I got hubby to buy me some bananas, but I had no idea what I really wanted to make, so we may have bought a few extra. They are now safe and sound in the freezer all ripe and ready for when I want to make these again, because you know I totally want to.

So to start off, I was thinking of making banana bread or muffins, but those are not usually cute.  So I thought about cookie, and that just didn't sound right either.  So I found my trusty baking book and picked out a whoopie pie to make.  I changed it up just a tiny bit, but you know it's still going to be good.

See this looks gross, but it smells really good.  Bananas and lemon juice

So here you go, super yummy baking with fruit in it.  Which I may have pointed out before as being wrong, but for this, I will admit I might change my mind.

Banana Chocolate Chip Whoopie Pies

Adapted from Whoopies, by Susanna Tee

set oven to 350

-2 ripe bananas

-1 TSP lemon juice

-1/2 cup butter

-1 cup light brown sugar

-1 TSP vanilla 

-1 extra large egg

-2 cups all purpose flour

-1/2 TSP ground cinnamon

-1 TSP baking powder

-1 TSP baking soda

-pinch of salt

-3 TBPS sour cream

-1 cup mini chocolate chips

Start by mashing your banana with the lemon juice.  I used a potato masher and then a fork.  Set it aside.

Blend butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy.

I was a little worried because the mix was sort of watery, but it was fine.

Add the egg.

Combine and sift all the dry ingredients, and add them to the butter mixture.  Then add the banana and mix.  

I only got 6 on a tray, and a total of 20 full pies.

Lastly add your chocolate chips and stir until they are distributed.

I would be lying if I said I didn't eat a few of these hot out of the oven,  so good!

Take a small cookie scoop and place the mixture by the scoop full on a parchment lined cookie sheet.  Bake for about 8 minutes, until they are done, but still soft.

Once baked, let them fully cool and make your filling.

Filling

-1 1/2 cups butter

-1 TBSP vanilla

-3 TBSP cocoa powder

-icing sugar

-milk

So this is just like my regular butter cream, just no shortening.  So cream the butter, add your vanilla and cocoa and then alternate adding sugar and milk until you get as much as you want, and as thick as you want.  I made mine with 2 KG of sugar, so I had lots of extra to make other stuff with.

I made way too much, I have like 5 cups left, I would not be opposed to eating it with a spoon for diner.

Place your pies half wrong side up and the other just regular and using a piping bag with a large star tip, pipe as much or as little as you would like.  I like a lot, obviously, so I did more.  But feel free to do less, I won't think any less of you, I would just have to eat more of yours.  

I set them all up, only because I am OCD with some things.

I put a lot of filling, the chocolate and banana was just amazing.

That's it, then just store them in a container in the fridge until ready to eat.  Mine didn't last too long, and one girl at work told me she really liked my "whoopie cushions"  which was hysterical, because she really thought that was the name.  So no matter what you call it, they are good.  And as an added bonus they are healthy.  I think the ratio of banana to sugar and butter is fair, and if not, at least you get a bit of fruit in your diet.

Another view because I think they look so yummy.

Oh and the one on the left is the left over monster one I made.  And I ate it and had to hear my tummy gurgle for hours afterwards.  So only small ones for me from now on.

Mini Mudslide Whoopie's

A whole bunch of yummy!

 Okay people, these are going to be good.  I made Mudslide cupcakes in a jar last month.  And I had a bunch of left over frosting.  Now I had planned on eating it, with a spoon, right out of the freezer. Yeah I admit I have problems.  Anyway, as with many of my plans, it did not come to be.  So I decided to pull it out of the freezer and use it again.  Only because it was like frosting gold, and I like gold.  And Diamonds. 

  Anyway.  The last time I made whoopies I really loved them, but they were a little too big, and a little too good.  I think I ate one and went into a sugar coma. Not good, not good at all.  So this time I made them smaller. I used my cake ball sized cookie scoop to make them, and they turned out a better size.  Still big enough to fill you with sugar, but not big enough to make you pass out.  I hope.

I used my small cake ball scoop, they are about 1 - 2 TSP.

  So I used a whoopie recipe from the great whoopie book I bought and changed it up a little.  I wanted to add some smashed up whoppers, because that is what they needed.  So I followed the recipe and replaced the chocolate chips with my whoppers and baked away.

They flatten out as they bake, to about the size of an Oreo, maybe just a little bigger.

 Mini Mudslide Whoopie's
Makes 34 minis
Adapted from Susanna Tee's book, Whoopies

1/2 cup butter softened
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 extra large egg
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1 cup milk
1/2 cup smashed whoppers ( or chocolate chips as the recipe calls for in the book)

-Heat oven to 375 ( 350 if you are using a convection oven)
-cream butter, and sugar together
-add the egg and vanilla
-sift together all dry ingredients and mix in
-slowly add the milk and mix until combined
-add whoppers or chocolate chips and mix
-scoop out with small ice cream scoop, or use a teaspoon to make drops of dough
-bake for about 6 minutes, until they are fully baked, the best way to tell is if the shine is gone from the dough, they puff up and become matte
-remove from tray after 2 minutes so they do not continue to bake

*make sure you use parchment paper if you are using the whoppers as they sort of caramelize and stick a bit, trust me it was a little tricky getting them off the paper, so I can only imagine the cookie sheet.

Frosting ( I had left overs from before)
1 package of cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
icing sugar*
1 TBSP vanilla bean paste or just vanilla
milk or Irish cream or half of each **
Irish cream flavouring to taste (if you are not using the real stuff, and if so replace the booze with milk)

*as much as you need to get the amount and consistency you need
** same as the icing sugar as much as you need

 For the icing, just cream the butter and cream cheese, then add the vanilla and alternate between Irish cream and icing sugar until it is as thick as you want and you have as much as you need.  I think about 1 TBSP is good for each whoopie, but I pipped mine so I bet I used more.  The icing freezes well.  And tastes great eaten on a spoon, right out of the freezer, or so I have been told.

I put them together on a cookie sheet so I could just put the whole thing in the freezer.

 So once your mini whoopies are cooled, line then up in two rows, one row tops the other row bottoms. The bottoms should be flat side up.  Then take your icing in a piping bag, with a larger round tip ( or you can use a zip lock bag and snip the tip off) and pipe a flat layer of icing.  You can do a lot or a little.  It's up to you.  I did it thinner, because I had plans for these whoopies. Plans that even you will not want to miss.

See how easy is that?

I was going to put crushed whoppers on top, but I found these, and for $5 a bag, they were only going to be  garnish.

  Okay so once you pipe the filling, put the tops on and push them down a little so they stick.  Now while I got cleared up and ready for the next step I popped them in the freezer to harden up.  I then got a large bowl and melted some candy melts and added paraffin crystals.  I used milk chocolate, but you could do any colour, Christmas colours would be really cool actually.  Why do I think of these things after the fact?

I set up with two forks to dip, as the pies were big, I would dip then pick it up with a fork, and tap the extra chocolate off on the side of the bowl.

So I melted my candy and added the crystals ( or shortening if you want) to thin it out, I did not want too thick of a coating on my pies.  And then, here it is people, I dipped those whoopies in chocolate.

Take a minute to let that sink in.

Mudslide Whoopie Pies. Dipped. In. CHOCOLATE!  Sorry, didn't mean to scream, but people, seriously?  This is good stuff.

I have nothing to say, really, it's just chocolaty goodness.

So after you have a heart attack over the shear genius of what you are doing, sprinkle a little smashed up whopper, or sprinkles or whatever on each one and call it a day.  Or just wait until they dry

This was supposed to be my artistic shot, and it looked good on the camera, then I uploaded it.  Sigh, I hate my pictures.

Now that is what I am talking about, layers of yummy goodness.

I found these little cards in the Michael's $1.50 spot last year, perfect.

So I put three in a bag for my friends at work, and some in a container for the group of guys that get some too.  All done!

 Once they are dried you can either eat them, which I suggest.  Or you can wrap them up with cute little cards and be happy your holiday baking is almost done.

And just as a disclaimer, I ate one, then wrapped the rest up, then I had to fight the urge to open a few bags and take more out for me.  They were that good.  At least I managed to eat only one, and didn't get sugar sick.  Go me!