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Sunday, February 12, 2012

Chocolate Whoopie Pies with Vanilla Bean Filling: BAKED Sunday Mornings

Along with the new (and fun!) changes to the blog I'm also trying to get back into a few of the groups I've participated in in the past.  BAKED Sunday Mornings is a group that is working on baking it's way through the incredible cookbook, Baked Explorations by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito.  They are owners of the BAKED Bakery in Brooklyn, and this is their second cookbook dedicated to exploring some of the classic American baked goods.

Whoopie pies certainly fall into this category.  They have two competing origin tales, one from Maine and one from Pennsylvania Dutch country.  Matt and Renato offer up two possible filings for these pies, a basic vanilla and a peanut butter.  I had just made a chocolate peanut butter dessert last weekend so decided on the vanilla.  I made one tiny switch to the recipe though, using the scrapings of one vanilla bean in place of the vanilla extract in the filling.  It lent the nice, black, telltale flecks to the filling and a great vanilla flavor.  I might up it to two vanilla beans next time though and suggest you do the same if you are interested in making the change to the filling.  


I love how easy these are to put together.  Make cookies, make frosting, smoosh together, done.  Way easier than a cupcake, that's for sure, and almost nearly as impressive.  The chocolate cookies had great flavor, the addition of the coffee really highlights the chocolate.  It was the first time I've made a Swiss meringue buttercream.  It was easy and delicious.  But, with a pound of butter it's got to be delicious - right?  At least I can't imagine any recipe that calls for a pound of butter tasting bad.


Head on over to BAKED Sunday Mornings for the recipe and to see what the other bakers thought of the recipe!







6 comments:

Sheri said...

Welcome back Amy! I agree - Swiss buttercream, yum. I just pretended that it didn't really have a pound of butter, and was looking for things to smear it on. :)

Katie said...

Using a real vanilla bean with all these beautiful flecks in it sounds like a fantastic idea! Yum!

Susan said...

I think these are a great alternative to cupcakes. Being from California (mostly), I'd never had these before, but I really liked them! I'll be the vanilla bean seeds really upped the flavor!

Kris' Kitchen said...

Good idea to use vanilla bean. Mine needed something...maybe the vanilla bean would be the answer. My buttercream really tasted like butter...too much like butter, even overpowered the chocolate in the cookie. But...it was very good, I'd just like to change something in the filling next time.

Rebecca said...

Vanilla beans sounds like they would just push this over the top. Yours look so great.

Bourbonnatrix said...

So much easier than eating a cupcake too! (wait, is that a good thing?) in any case, your whoopies look great! welcome back to BSM!