Chocolate Whoopie Pies with Peppermint Buttercream Filling

Chocolate and peppermint might be one of my favorite flavor combinations during the holiday season. Well, actually, it might just be one of my favorite flavor combinations year round, let's be serious. :)

I made these deeelicious whoopie pies for a holiday party this past weekend. And they were a huge hit!! The cakes were light and airy, yet moist, and the peppermint buttercream filling had just the right amount of mint flavor and, in my opinion, the filling is what really made these whoopie pies the hit that they were. If you love chocolate and peppermint like I do, you are doing to love these. I promise!!

The recipe is from a handy dandy, awesome little whoopie pie cookbook a friend gave me:

This cookbook has made an appearance on the blog before too, back when I made zucchini whoopie pies with a maple filling. What I like about this book is that it has many different cake recipes ("cake" meaning cookie) and many different filling recipes, and then you can mix n' match flavors as much as your little heart desires! In case I haven't mentioned it, this chocolate and peppermint combo was a real winner (oh wait, have I already said that??).

Ingredients for chocolate whoopie pie cakes:

-1 and 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

-2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

-1 and 1/2 tsp. baking soda

-1/2 tsp. salt

-4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature

-4 Tbsp. vegetable shortening

-1 cup packed dark brown sugar

-1 large egg

-1 tsp. vanilla extract

-1 cup milk (I used 1%)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. In the work bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the butter, shortening, and brown sugar on low speed until just combined. Increase the speed to medium and beat until fluffy and smooth, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and beat for another 2 minutes.

Add half of the flour mixture and half of the milk to the batter, and beat on low until just incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the remaining flour mixture and 1/2 cup milk and beat until completely combined.

Using a spoon, drop about 1 tablespoon of batter onto one of the prepared baking sheets and repeat, spacing them at least 2 inches apart. Bake one sheet at a time for about 10 minutes each, or until the pies spring back when pressed gently. Remove from oven and let the cakes cool on the sheet for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool completely. Makes about 48 two-inch cakes (says the book!). I made about 36 cakes (so 18 sandwiches), but mine were more like 2 and 1/2 inches wide.

Ingredients for the peppermint buttercream filling:

-2 cups confectioners' sugar

-4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

-3 tablespoons heavy cream (whipping cream)

-2 tsp. vanilla extract

-1/2 tsp. mint extract

-1/2 tsp. salt

Instructions:

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the confectioners' sugar and butter, starting on low and increasing to medium speed, until the mixture is crumbly, about 1 minute. Add the heavy cream, vanilla, mint extract, and salt and beat on high until smooth, about 3 minutes.

Spread a generous tablespoon of the buttercream filling on one cake, and top with another cake of roughly the same size. If desired, sprinkle with colored sprinkles or crushed candy canes.

After writing this post, I really want to just go make another batch of these!!

Zucchini Cake Whoopie Pies with Maple Buttercream Filling

Zucchini cake whoopie pies? Who thinks up such a thing? I do! What made me think of this? Well, you see, I recently received this fun whoopie pies cookbook for my birthday, and I wanted to try one of the recipes in it.

In the book, I saw a recipe for carrot cake whoopie pies that sounded awesome. However, I was in possession of this huge zucchini:

And I felt the need to bake with it! So, I decided to try substituting shredded zucchini for the carrots. Success! The zucchini cake cookies were awesome. 

Then I had to decide which type of filling to use for the whoopie pies. Some kind of cream cheese filling? Chocolate? Actually, thinking back, chocolate probably would have worked quite well with zucchini. What I settled on though was a very tasty maple buttercream filling recipe that was also from the whoopie pies cookbook. Score! A great, unique combo was born.

Ingredients:

-2 cups all-purpose flour

-1 and 1/2 tsp. baking soda

-1 tsp. baking powder

-1 tsp. ground cinnamon

-1/2 tsp. salt

-1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

-1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

-1/2 cup granulated sugar

-2 large eggs

-1 tsp. vanilla extract

-1 cup grated zucchini

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl. 

In a stand mixer, beat the butter and both sugars until light and creamy, about 5 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, then add the eggs and vanilla and beat until combined. Mix in the flour mixture until just combined, then add the zucchini. Chill the batter in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour (I chilled mine overnight because I wasn't making the cookies until the next day).

Drop about 1 to 2 tablespoons of batter at a time onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing cookies about 2 inches apart. Bake for about 15 - 20 minutes, or until the cakes spring back when pressed gently. Remove from the oven and let the cakes cool on sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely. 

For the maple buttercream filling:

-1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

-2 cups confectioners' sugar

-1 Tbsp. milk

-2 Tbsp. pure maple syrup

In a stand mixer, beat the butter on low speed until creamy. Add the sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, with the mixer on low until incorporated. Add the milk and maple syrup, and beat on medium for 3 to 4 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl periodically.

Match up cookies of roughly the same size, top one with a generous amount of maple filling, and put the two cookies together. Bam! You've got yourself a delicious (and somewhat healthy, perhaps?? ;-)) whoopie pie. This recipe made about 36 cookies for me...so about 18 whoopie pies.

You'll want to store these cookies in the fridge, and be sure not to stack them on top of one another because they'll stick together. I put mine in tupperware containers, and each layer of whoopie pies was separated by wax paper.

The cookies were a tad flatter than I would have liked, but the flavor was great and they were very cake-like so I was still happy with them.

Hi there little green specks of zucchini! Love that you can see those.

Mmmmm, time for filling. :)

I also made zucchini chocolate chip muffins with that beautiful, huge zucchini, so hopefully that recipe will appear here on the blog soon!

Hope you all had a wonderful Labor Day weekend!

Carrot Cake Whoopie Pies

Whoopie pies. They seem to be quite trendy right now and rightfully so. Who wouldn't want to eat not one but TWO cookies sandwiched around a delicious, sweet filling? It's like two desserts in one, and if you don't think too much about the fact that you're eating two cookies, you won't feel too guilty, I promise. ;-)

I made these carrot cake whoopie pies in my mom's kitchen last weekend when I was home in upstate NY. On Saturday night, my boyfriend and I were attending a potluck get-together, hosted by one of my good college friends and her fiancé, and I obviously signed up to bring a dessert! I decided to make something simple that wouldn't require me to transport too many ingredients from Boston to NY. I immediately thought of making a cake mix cookie of some sort, and thanks to inspiration from a delicious, recent post over at Eats Well With Others for carrot cake cookies with a cream cheese filling, I had the idea to make carrot cake cookies (with cake mix to keep it simple) into whoopie pies by adding a delicious cream cheese filling. You could easily just conceptualize these as the cookie form of a classic carrot cake with cream cheese frosting (kind of like my Easter cupcakes this year!). :) 

Ingredients:

Cookies

-1 box (18.25 oz.) carrot cake cake mix

-2 eggs

-1/4 to 1/3 cup vegetable oil

Cream Cheese Filling (from Eats Well With Others)

-8 oz. cream cheese

-5 Tbsp. butter (I used unsalted)

-2 tsp. vanilla extract

-2 and 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

-1 tsp. fresh lemon juice

Start out by making the filling since it should sit in the fridge for 30 minutes or so before using it. Combine the cream cheese and butter (both of mine were softened before I used them) in a large bowl and beat well with an electric mixer, about 2 - 3 minutes. Mix in the vanilla, and then gradually add in the confectioners' sugar until it's well incorporated and smooth. Lastly, add in the lemon juice and beat well. Let refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease cookie sheets. For the cookies, combine the cake mix, eggs, and oil in a large bowl, and mix well with a spoon or spatula. Drop by spoonfuls of desired size onto cookie sheets and bake for 9 - 11 minutes.

To make the whoopie pies, try to choose two cookies of similar size for each "pie," and spread about one heaping tablespoonful of cream cheese filling on one cookie and then top with its matched cookie. Voilà! You've got yourself a carrot cake whoopie pie.

This particular recipe made 24 cookies overall, which resulted in 12 whoopie pies (aren't my math skills awesome??). My ratio of cookies to filling was slightly off, so I had some leftover filling (there are worse things of which to have left over though ;-)). And by the way, I checked; there are no laws against eating cream cheese filling by itself with a spoon. Just sayin'...

If I had more time while making these cookies, perhaps I would have also added some shredded carrot to enhance the carrot flavor and change the texture of the cookie a bit. You could probably also add raisins or walnuts or whatever else you might typically add to carrot cake when you make it. As is though, these cookies were still great! The tasty cream cheese filling is really what made them awesome though, let's be serious.