Whoopie Perfection

I love a great whoopie pie.  Now some people might say that any whoopie pie is a good whoopie pie.  Not me.  Whoopie pies should be completely amazing, mind-blowing, and delectable.  Anything less is unnaccceptable.


Whoopie pies are the one of the rare things that inspires the quest for perfection in me.


I have a whoopie pie recipe I've been using forever.  It's the same one that my mother has always used.  But, recently I've been unhappy with my results.  It may be that I had been a bit heavy-handed when measuring the flour.  (I'm a scoop & dump type baker as opposed to making precise, scientific measurements).  My cookie part had been coming out very thick, heavy, dense and kinda dry...too cakey for my tastes.


Something had to be done.  I looked up a few recipes on-line to get some ideas.  But, in the end I came back to my original recipe and tweaked it a bit - a little less flour, a little more liquid.  


I'm much happier now.  There is still a bit of room for improvement...I'd like the cookie part to be even moister still and I may need to double my filling recipe to have the obscene amounts of cream between the cookies that I love so much.  But, overall, a good...almost great....batch of whoopie pies this time.

 My cookies came out nice and flat, round, and spongy the way they should be.

 This is how a whoopie pie should look close up.  Like it's begging and pleading with you to take a bite.

My Whoopie Pie  Recipe (as adapted from the cookbook, "Our Favorite Recipes from Masonville Mennonite Church)

(Cookie)

1 cup shortening (Crisco)

2 cups granulated sugar

2 eggs

4 cups flour

1 cup cocoa

2 tsp. salt

1 cup sour milk (I put about 1 tablespoon white vinegar in the measuring cup and then fill with milk to the 1 cup line.  Let sit at least 5-10 minutes before using.  The longer it sits, the better)

1 1/3 cup water (or you can substitute coffee...sometimes I do)

2 tsp. baking soda

Cream shortening & sugar together.  Add eggs and beat well.  Add cocoa, salt, and sour milk and beat well.. Mix in flour & baking soda.  (Dough will be stiff).  Add water and mix well (be sure to scrape sides and bottom as you mix).  Drop by teaspoon on a greased cookie sheet.  (Or for monster size whoopie pies like I made, use about 2 tsp. per cookie).  Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes.  Cool and fill with filling.

Filling

2 egg whites

1 Tablespoon vanilla

4 Tablespoons milk

4 Tablespoons flour

4 cups confectioner's sugar

1 1/2 cup shortening (Crisco)

Beat egg whites till stiff.  (If you are freaked out about raw egg being in your food you can apparently buy dried egg whites.  But, I've always done it this way and never had a problem).  Add vanilla and beat.  Add milk and flour and beat well.  Add confectioner's sugar and beat.  Add shortening and beat very well.  Put between cooled cookies.

Wrap those babies in Saran Wrap after you've filled them all.  It keeps them from sticking to each other.