Nate loves whoopie pies. As a New Englander, it’s in his blood. I’ll be honest…the only “real” whoopie pie I had until about a year ago was in Amish country. And it was kind of gooey and not-so-great. Well, I could see other people maybe liking it, but it just wasn’t my thing. But Nate, he’s always talking about how good whoopie pies are, so I felt it was time to embrace the whoopie pie.
For his birthday last week, I decided to make whoopie pies. He was happy about that and said I had to get his mom’s recipe. I called Pat and her very words were, “This recipe isn’t very good. I think you need to tweak it.” When I told her that Nate gushes about her whoopie pies, she just laughed. I was beginning to think that it really was just the nostalgia talking and that Nate was crazy…
Holy cow people, these whoopie pies were GOOD. So good that I think I might make another batch. Tonight. Because they’re gone. And I’m sad about that. So is Nate. He keeps asking where they all went.
New Englander or not, nostalgia or not, these whoopie pies are fab. Enjoy!
- For the cookie part of the whoopie:
- 1 cup butter, softened at room temp (original recipe calls for shortening, fyi)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 cup sugar
- 2 cup milk
- 4 cup flour
- 1 cup cocoa powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- Cream Filling:
- ⅓ cup evaporated milk
- ½ cup butter, softened at room temp
- 4 ounces cream cheese, softened at room temp
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup sugar
- 6-7 cups or so of powdered sugar
- Cream sugar and butter together. Add milk and eggs – mix well. Don’t be scared”¦the batter is going to look all lumpy and weird and you’re going to think you did something wrong. You didn’t.
- Add everything else and beat well. See, told you the batter would look normal eventually.
- Drop from teaspoon onto ungreased cookie sheet. I used my medium scoop, which was about 2 tablespoons – so my whoopie pies were medium sized. Pat does mini cute tiny little whoopie pies. Choose your own adventure!
- I baked mine on a silpat. I also smoothed the dough balls out and pressed them down slightly before baking (with wet fingers to minimize sticking, but make sure you don’t drip water on the dough). I definitely recommend pressing them down a bit so they aren’t totally round after baking, they’ll sit on your serving plate easier.
- Bake at 425 degrees for 7-9 minutes, until they are firm to touch and toothpick comes out clean.
- So the ORIGINAL cream recipe is a shortening-based filling. I think shortening-based frostings taste nasty, so I evolved the original recipe using butter, cream cheese (to lend creaminess) and powdered sugar. Cream all of the ingredients together in a mixer with about 5 cups of the powdered sugar. Then, keep adding powdered sugar until the frosting is sturdy enough to hold up to being placed between two cookies but still relatively soft”¦I know, super helpful. You just don’t want the filling to be too soft or fluid or it will squeeze out of the sides of the cookie, but you also don’t want super duper crazy stiff filling.
- Place frosting in a large ziploc bag with the very tip of the corner trimmed off and pipe frosting onto a whoopie pie cookie, topping with a second cookie. You should have plenty of filling to fill all the whoopie pies.
- When making the medium-sized whoopie pies with the 2 tablespoon scoop, this recipe yielded 26 whoopie pies.
- (Original cream filling recipe, in case you want to go that route: ⅓ cup evaporated milk, ¾ cup white sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, ⅔ cup crisco, pinch salt – mix, let sit 15 minutes, beat until creamy.)
Hi! My name is Jane Maynard and you've landed yourself on my blog, This Week for Dinner™. Every Sunday I share a weekly menu...and count on you to share yours! You'll also find other deliciousness that I hope you'll enjoy!
I am so going to try these!! I was born and raised in MA and my Mom made them growing up! My Sister and crew are coming soon I may have to whip up a batch for them! Thanks for sharing!!
let me know if you new englanders approve of the recipe! nate did, so I think you will too! 🙂 enjoy!
I was lucky enough to try one of these Whoopie pies and it was so good it made me want to cry!
Can’t wait to make them!! YUM!
I love making you cry, ana. I’m disappointed I only go you to the almost crying stage. 😉 so glad you liked them!
The funny thing is that when I read the “weekly menu” post on Sunday, I noticed the cake stand full of whoopie pies in the background of your picture (the pic with your daughter wearing the veil). I thought to myself, “I should ask her for her whoopie pie recipe. I love those!” Looks like I didn’t need to ask. Ha ha! Thanks! 🙂
you are not the only one who noticed – a few people commented asking about them! 🙂 hope you enjoy the recipe! 🙂
I live near the Amish here in MD. Each Saturday morning my husband and daughter rush to buy whoopie pies from the local Amish before they’ve been sitting out all day.
I think they’re disgusting.
HOWEVER— I like the ingredients in your recipe and I might have to give ’em a try. Might.
ha ha! you seriously will have to try this recipe and see what you think! 😉
So funny – I didn’t realize that whoopie pies are a New England thing! I feel like I should have known that. My kids are big fans, but usually they’re practically the size of an actual pie. I like these more tasty, kid and figure friendly sized ones.
I’ve seen them huge like that, which is fun, but decided to go a little smaller and I really liked this size. you’ll have to try it! like I mentioned, pat does them super mini – she said they’re really cute and easy to pop in your mouth (over and over and over again)
I made Whoopie Pies for my grandmother when we went to my cousins wedding. I was disappointed that I couldn’t find the recipe that I got from an Amish woman whose husband works with my husband. I looked online and found an authentic looking recipe and I turned out great, but I definitely agree about the shortening in the cream. I thought the cream was nasty at first and then I actually refrigerated the whoopie pies because it was hot out and the cream tasted much better a little bit cold. I have had some of the best Whoopie Pies here in NE Ohio, but would really love to make them without the shortening. The Amish here say they have to be made with shortening, and I just haven’t ventured away from that yet.
I really think the shortening gives the filling the right consistency…BUT…I’d rather have the right taste. you’ll have to let me know if you ever venture away from the amish path! 😉
I will only eat whoopie pies with a marshmallow creme filling. There’s a great recipe from the America’s Test Kitchen cookbook.
I found a ton of recipes with marshmallow creme filling – nate was like, no way! since it was his birthday, we didn’t do it…but maybe one day – and ATK is always spot on!
I absolutely LOVE whoopie pies! The best ones in my opinion are made by the Amish in central Pennsylvania. They take completely different than all othe whoopie pies I’ve had. They are not mushy at all either.
I used to have a client in central PA and I made sure whenever I visited it was on a Wednesday………the day of the Amish “Barn Sale” which is like a farmers market/quilt/animal market. Most of the parking lot was filled with horse and buggies.
maybe I’ll have to give the amish whoopie pies another chance, sometime! 🙂 ps…I love amish country!
I meant “they taste completely different”….
OK I’m from Maine we make the best whoopie pies and its known for the Maine snack.My recipe is almost the same along with the filling.I make about 50 whoopie pies a week for our farm stand..I like the candle idea…
I love that a Mainer approves of the recipe – phew! 🙂 And I love that you make 50 every week for your farm stand. that makes me smile.
I think the sugar in the filling ruined it. It made it grainy-
mine wasn’t grainy at all, but I think you could totally leave the regular sugar out and just use powdered sugar next time and it would be great. sorry it was grainy!
okay, I would like to amend my response! the sugar DOES add a bit of texture, and we actually like that. The original filling recipe I don’t even think called for powdered sugar – it was all granulated. I thought that would be too much, but left some of the regular sugar in the recipe to keep a bit of that original texture. but, as I mentioned before, if you don’t want ANY grainy-ness, just swap out for powdered sugar! 🙂
I had a really bad experience with these, not sure why but the consistency was completely off. For me, there was way too much dry to wet ingredient ratio which meant I had to add a lot more milk which caused them to lack taste. Also the temperature of the oven seems extremely high to me. I started at 425 and could only leave them in for 5 minutes before they started to smell like they were burning. I’ve made whoopie pies before and they turned out wonderful – I won’t be using this recipe again.
Hi Rebecca,
Thank you for commenting and so sorry you had a bad experience. I have made these exact whoopie pies MANY times and they are always wonderful, so I would love to help you figure out what went wrong.
For the frosting, how much powdered sugar did you end up putting in the mix? All 7 cups? I start low and then add as necessary (the weather/temperature can sometimes affect how wet things are, so I always start on the low end with the powdered sugar and go up if needed). I give a range of 6-7 cups, but you could even start with 5 cups and go up from there.
Also, it sounds like your oven must run much hotter than mine. Do you have that issue with other recipes? Or maybe mine runs cool, although I’m pretty sure it’s pretty accurate (I normally have a thermometer inside). I’m sure if you lowered the temp to even as low as 350 the cookies would come out well.
Baking can be so tricky, with ambient temperature affecting things and different ovens at play. sorry it didn’t work out for you! This is definitely one of my most favorite recipes and are always a hit – and I can’t resist overeating them! 😉 Hope this is helpful. Thank you!
I grew up in MA and the traditional filling recipe we used consisted of marshmallow fluff, shortening, powdered sugar and vanilla extract. It wasn’t until my adult years when whoopie pies became trendy and flavors such as the fall pumpkin or red velvet came along that cream cheese made an appearance in the filling.
you are so right, they are totally trendy now! I think other flavors are fun…but the classic chocolate will always be my favorite for SURE. that filling recipe you have sounds spot on, very close to what my MIL gave me (although hers was missing the fluff!)