Cake 16 - Whoopie Pies

When my friend Julie suggested I should make Whoopie Pies, I thought she was being vulgar and rude. The word ‘Whoopie’ hasn’t crossed my mind since my friend thought it would be funny to put one of those noisy inflatable cushions on my chair.

After a bit of googling, I found out that whoopie pies are the latest baking craze, and make cupcakes look like last year's jumper. I thought I was quite up to date on baking affairs, but it seems that the whole whoopie pie phenomenon has really passed me by - until now.

Let me start off by telling you that I love a good craze. All through my life I have become addicted to passing fads. When I was 9 it was WWF (Wrestling not Wildlife), when I was 15 it was Sun-In hair lightener (much to the detriment of my fringe), between the age of 19 and 21 I ate scampi in every single restaurant I went to (which was tricky at Chinese and Indians), and more recently I've embraced my inner teen by falling head over heels for the vampire craze.

These love affairs can be very intense, and although they don't last forever I always throw myself into them wholeheartedly. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that whoopie pies are my new best friend, and I might be blogging about them for a while. Cupcakes are dead, long live the whoopie pie!

I thought I'd start off with a recipe I found in a food magazine for Vanilla Whoopie Pies. To those of you who aren't sure what whoopie pies are, they're a cross between a macaroon and a victoria sandwich cake (but mini) - both of which are featured on this blog!

This particular recipe contained butter milk, which I have never used before. I had a little taste of it from the carton, but I have to say it was pretty revolting on its own. This didn't inspire me with much confidence, but I was determined to trust the recipe, and cooks usually swear by it, not at it.

After I had combined the butter, sugar, egg and buttermilk to form a batter I poured into a piping bag (as recommended by the recipe) and prepared for things to get messy. I'm still not very well practiced with a piping bag, so piping the little whoopie circles on the baking tray required full ‘mouth open’ concentration. To my surprise...it went well!

When they were baked and cooled, I sandwiched butter cream between the outer shells, and iced the top of the whoopie pies. A good sprinkle of hundreds and thousands added a little bit of crunch. The result had me shouting 'whoopie', and the butter milk added a different dimension to the recipe.

This week’s taste panel included Tobey, his Mum and Dad, and me. All agreed that Whoopie Pies are the sweet treat to beat.

That's all for now, but if you want more then you can now look at my cakes on Flickr!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/whatbridiebaked/