Whoopie pies nibbled their way onto my radar over Christmas. A box of them arrived at work, then a friend posted a pic of some, then... I decided to bake them for a Christmas Eve feast. This recipe is best described as two chocolate cake-cookies with salted caramel frosting in the middle (although you can make this whatever flavour you want); they look like mini planets, and were gobbled up faster than Santa’s sleigh on Christmas Eve - so try them out, and let me know how you go...
For the whoopie pies
240g plain flour
80g cocoa powder (yes, it looks like a lot, but keep the faith..)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt
170g softened butter
150g sugar
1 egg
Few drops of vanilla extract
120ml buttermilk
For the frosting
160g softened butter
200g icing sugar, sifted if poss
five table spoons caramel (I used a tin of Carnation’s)
1/2 teaspoon of ground-up sea salt
Recipe
Mix together softened butter and sugar in one bowl, then stir in the egg and vanilla extract. In another big bowl or mixer, bung in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, bicarb of soda and salt. Pour the contents of the first bowl into this big one, then stir in the buttermilk. It should form a dry-ish dough - if it’s still too sticky, add a little more flour.
Then roll the mixture into walnut-sized balls on a lined baking tray, before squashing each one down a bit with a wet fork.
Put them in an oven at 190C, and bake for about 10 minutes, until the cookies have a firm outside, and are cooked through. Leave to cool, whilst making the filling...
For which you just mix all the ingredients together until fluffy. Wait until the whoopies are cool, then sandwich similar-sized ones with a generous dollop of filling until it peeps out the side.
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