Pumpkin Protein Muffins - Part 2

A few weeks ago I posted a blog entry about pumpkin protein muffins...I attempted round 2 last night, with some modifications, and they turned out amazing!

Here's the original recipe:

Wet stuff:

15 ounces canned organic pumpkin

2 egg whites

Dry stuff:

1 cup oats, ground in food processor

2 scoops vanilla protein powder (this had 23g per scoop!)

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 cup splenda (you could certainly use sugar or agave nectar if you don't mind the calories)

Handful chopped walnuts

Mix all that junk up and transfer to a muffin tin coated with nonstick spray, filling each muffin cup about halfway. Put into a 350 degree oven and bake for just 8-10 minutes.

And here's my new version:

Wet stuff:

1 c. pumpkin puree (better with freshly pureed pie pumpkins!)

2 tbsp of ground flax seeds blended with 6 tbsp of water

Dry stuff:

1/2 c. wheat germ

1/2 c. whole wheat flour 

3 scoops vanilla protein powder (should be about 50 g worth)

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 c. sugar

A handful or so of shredded coconut

Mix everything together, batter will be a bit thick. Bake in mini-muffin tins at 350 degrees for about 9 minutes.

These new muffins turned out amazing! I got almost 3 dozen mini-muffins out of this recipe. They are very moist, puffed up nicely, and the coconut is a really nice added texture and flavor. And they're still super healthy, and vegan!

Enjoy!

First Pumpkin Pie of the Season

Sunflower was having a wicked sale on pie pumpkins, so I stocked up on my last trip to Santa Fe. Needless to say, I am now inundated with mashed pumpkin! I pretty much love anything pumpkin, but pumpkin pie is definitely one of my favorites.

There are two places in Cincinnati that make incredible pumpkin pies: Frisch's Restaurants and Kroger's grocery stores. Kroger's is actually the parent company of Smith's, so Smith's might have amazing pumpkin pies too, although they never look nearly as good as the pies in Kroger's do.

My only gripe about most pumpkin pie is that I'm not a big pie crust fan. I know Scott is appalled by this, since he makes a pretty damn good pie crust! I like it, but I don't love it. I would prefer to just eat the pie filling, and leave the crust behind. So, I needed something besides Crisco to make a pie crust with! I settled on a graham cracker crust, which is always a good fallback.

The dough for homemade graham crackers is best if made the night before. I completely forgot about making the dough since we headed into town for the Halloween festivities, so I needed to come up with another idea. The Los Alamos Co-op recently had Annie's brand Bunny Grahams on sale, and I had purchased both chocolate and cinnamon bunny grahams. I figured the cinnamon ones would make a great crust, until I learned that someone had eaten all of them!! (For the record, it wasn't me...)

So chocolate bunny grahams would have to do. I also remembered that we had some crystallized ginger cookies in the pantry, so I figured I'd throw some of those in as well. I put about half a bag of chocolate bunny grahams and 4 cookies in a Ziploc bag and proceeded to mash them to pieces. I always feel bad mashing up the little bunnies though, it seems a bit cruel.

Once I was done with the mashing, I melted about 5 tbsp of butter in a mixing bowl and added about 1/3 cup of sugar (again, my baking is extremely inexact!). I mixed it all together, and then pressed the crumbs into a pie pan. I baked the crust for about 7 minutes at 350 degrees.

The traditional way of making a pumpkin pie is using pureed pumpkin, evaporated milk, and sugar, plus some other seasonings. The Los Alamos co-op only carries organic sweetened condensed milk, not evaporated milk, so I figured I'd give the sweetened condensed milk a try - it would require eliminating any added sugar though, since sweetened condensed milk is basically evaporated milk with sugar added. The recipes for pumpkin pie with sweetened condensed milk are fairly uncommon...I ended up using Eagle Brand's recipe, found here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/perfect-pumpkin-pie/detail.aspx

I cooked the pie at 425 for 15 minutes, and then turned the oven temperature down to 350 for another 30 minutes (as the recipe instructed). I think the higher initial baking temperature is key for 'setting' the pie. The recipe said to bake for 35-45 minutes at 350, but I found that 30 minutes would about right...any more time, and it might have started burning. In fact, the edge of the crust started getting a little brown, but never really burned.

I was really amazed that the pie ended up with no cracks, even after cooling. It did puff up a bit while baking, so I assumed it would crack once cooled, but it stayed nice and smooth on top (except for my one little knife poke to check doneness, boo). Overall, the flavor was delicious! Very pumpkin-y, and the crust was a great complement to the pumpkin flavors. I think the sweetened condensed milk helped make the pie creamy, without making it overly sweet. I will definitely be replacing evaporated milk and sugar with sweetened condensed milk in any future pumpkin pies.

No cracks! The crust looks a little burnt, but it actually turned out okay

One other thing that I will be sure to do next time I make a pumpkin pie is to do it at least one day before I want to enjoy it. I think that letting it chill in the fridge overnight made a huge difference with the consistency of the crust. By allowing the pie to completely cool, I think it softened up the crust a little bit, so that it was a more continuous bite through the pie, rather than a bit of filling and a bit of crust with each bite. I will definitely be making this one again!

Birthday cupcakes: chai-spiced cupcake with honey buttercream and margarita cupcakes!

I had my first 'official' job last week for a friend's birthday party, so I should start with a big thank you to Laura!

Our friend Kathleen was celebrating her birthday, and I was initially going to make a cake but couldn't decide on a flavor. So I figured cupcakes were the way to go! Not only are cupcakes all the rage now, but they much easier to eat and are a great way to sample different flavors. After some research, I decided that a chai-spiced cupcake would be great for the fall season. I planned to top the cupcake with a honey buttercream to complement rather then overwhelm the chai spices.

I also wanted something fun and festive, so when I stumbled on a recipe for margarita cupcakes, I knew it would be perfect! One reviewer suggested a swiss meringue icing…I have never made swiss meringue icing, so I figured it was a perfect time to try.

I made a small batch of each cupcake flavor during the week, mainly to test out the recipe and make adjustments. Both flavors turned out pretty good, with the collapsed cupcakes (always a challenge at high altitude!). The honey buttercream was a bit thick, and the swiss meringue icing was a little buttery, so the icings were going to need some adjustments. I was off to a good start, but I'm glad I tested the recipes first!

The plan was to make the cupcakes the morning of the party, get the icing made, head to the pool for Masters, then come back and finish decorating in time for the party. I had a little bit of extra time on Thursday, so I pulled out some of my old cake decorating stuff to make some flowers for the cupcakes. After a little bit of trial and error, I finally made some flowers!

First batch that actually started looking like flowers

 Royal icing (basically just sugar and water that you use to make 'stiff' flowers) is a pain in the butt to work with…it hardens almost immediately (which I had forgotten), so it's essential to keep the bowls covered, or else the icing won't pipe well out of the bag. My plan was to make a variety of flowers, but after failed attempts at making daisies, I ended up just making lots of the same flower in a variety of colors! They still turned out pretty cute.

I got really good at making these! Need more practice for anything harder though...

 My hand and wrist got tired pretty quickly…I'm out of practice, and unless you get your royal icing to the perfect consistency for making flowers, it really takes a lot of work. So I made what I needed and ditched the rest of the icing. Next time I'll try the daisies again!

  

It was my Friday off, so as soon as Scott and I got back from our 6 AM kettlebell class, I made some pancakes and started the cupcake baking! I did the chai-spiced cupcakes first. They smelled delicious and turned out great. The trick is to not only use chai (made with milk) in the batter, but also to add cardamom, ginger, and other chai spices to really bring out that chai flavor. I ended up baking them at a slightly higher temperature than the recipe called for, but I think it worked well. Sometimes I find that leaving the oven at 350 makes the top of the cupcakes a little crusty, but the higher temperature cooked them faster, so they were moist from top to bottom.

They didn't dome up at all, but the flat tops are actually easier for decorating anyways. 

The margarita cupcakes were next. The first batch that I made earlier in the week had lime juice, lime zest, and tequila in the cupcake batter, but the tequila taste didn't seem to come through that well. So the second time around I skipped the tequila and made it just a lime cupcake. Once the cupcakes cooled a bit, I brushed the top of each one with a tequila/orange liquer mix. Each cupcake got at least 2 rounds of tequila, to make sure the tequila flavor was well-infused into each one. These were definitely not kid-friendly cupcakes!

These puffed up nicely! And no overflowing...

 The first batch of honey buttercream was a little thick and didn't spread that well, which might have been partly due to the honey. For the second batch, I whipped the honey and butter together until very smooth and fluffy, and then slowly added powdered sugar, being sure to let all of the powdered sugar get incorporated before adding more. I also put in just a splash of half and half, which usually helps thin the icing out a bit without making it too runny. The second batch turned out much better…light, fluffy, and lots of honey flavor!

I wanted the icing to look a little nicer than just spreading it on each cupcake with a knife or frosting spatula, so I decided to try a new trick that I recently read about. I cut the corner off of a Ziploc bag, filled it up with icing, and then started piping. I really liked the results…cute dollops of icing on each cupcake, plus quick and easy clean up!

So cute!

 Each cupcake also got a little flower, I didn't go through all that hard work for nothing!

I love the flowers on these, cute but somewhat elegant. 

The swiss meringue icing for the margarita cupcakes was going to take a little more work. First, the egg whites and sugar must be cooked in a bowl over a pot of steaming water until they reach 160 degrees. Then, you have to whip the egg whites on high for about 10 minutes, until stiff peaks form, and then you start adding butter. At the very end, you whip in some tequila and lime juice (at least for tequila-flavored icing!).

My first batch of meringue icing turned out very sad. The egg whites turned out well, but when I added the butter, it caused the icing to start to curdle, and then the lime and tequila didn't help! It seemed a bit fatty or buttery, leaving a weird film in your mouth after eating it. I was definitely glad that I tested this out first, which gave me time to fix my mistakes before Friday!

There were a few tricks that I learned the second time around: first of all, every single ingredient needs to be at room temperature. Well, the egg whites don't, since you cook them anyways, but the butter, lime juice, and tequila absolutely need to be at room temperature. Also, it turns out better when you 'cook' the egg whites and sugar in the same that you'll be whipping them in. The first time around, I cooked the egg whites and sugar in one bowl, and then transferred them to the stand mixer bowl. The temperature difference between the hot bowl and room temperature bowl can cause the meringue to curdle while whipping. Also, the butter was warmed to room temperature in the microwave, but was not completely at room temperature. And the lime juice was cold! So when I added the lime juice and tequila the first time, it curdled the icing almost instantly.

The second time around, I used the stand mixer bowl to cook the egg whites and sugar. I also got the butter out a day in advance, to make sure that it was at room temperature. I also warmed up the lime juice in the microwave to make sure it was room temperature, and of course the tequila was already at room temperature. The icing turned out SO much better. Very smooth and very light. I think it's my new favorite icing! It is like the whipped frosting that grocery stores put on their cakes, but better! Seriously, next time you make cupcakes, make this icing! It'll go well with any type of cupcake. Yum.

I wanted to decorate the margarita cupcakes a little differently, and Scott suggested little dollops. They turned out really cute! I also topped each cupcake with some pink kosher salt and lime zest. The salt really completed the margarita flavor profile, and the lime zest added that little bit of extra citrus to really bring it all together. Of course my little flowers made them look even prettier!

Lots of cupcakes!

Close-up. These turned out very festive, with the pink flowers, green zest, and pink salt

I would definitely make either of these cupcakes again. I think the chai cupcakes could have used a bit more cardamom to really bring out the chai flavor, but overall they were really tasty. And I think most people would agree, based on how quickly they got consumed!

Caramel Apple Cupcakes

Last week I found a great looking recipe on Whole Foods' website for a Caramel Apple Layer Cake and I couldn't wait to try it! You can find it here: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/2344

The recipe seemed somewhat healthy, using whole wheat pastry flour and a combination of oil and applesauce to keep the fat and calories down some (although the butter and the sugar in the icing kind of counterbalances the somewhat healthy cake part!). I also thought the caramel apple flavor sounded great for a fall treat.

I usually prefer to make cupcakes rather than layer cakes...cupcakes are much easier to transport and share, plus people are way more willing to grab a cupcake than to cut off a piece from a half-eaten layer cake! So I got out the muffin tins and started mixing up the batter.

I only had regular pastry flour in the pantry, so rather than doing a mix of whole wheat pastry flour and all-purpose flour, as the recipe calls for, I did 2 cups of regular pastry flour and 1 3/4 cups of whole wheat flour. I also shook out a teaspoon or two of flour from each cup (high altitude adjustments). I also cut back on the baking powder just a bit, which I think helped prevent the cupcake from collapsing. I typically measure out the full amount and then just shake a little bit out of the measuring device...not very technical, but it works (almost) every time!

The light brown sugar was pretty compacted, so I ended up just using regular sugar, which turned out fine. I also couldn't find any caramel dessert sauce at the co-op, so I am pretty sure I only had about 1/3 c. instead of  the 3/4 c. that the recipe called for. Everything else I did pretty much according to the recipe. The dough was a little thicker than typical cupcakes, although I've found that I prefer the thicker dough...easier to measure and scoop for more uniform-sized cupcakes.

The recipe said to bake at 350, I upped the oven temperature to 355, might not have made much of a difference, although I'm convinced that the slightly higher baking temperature also helps keep the cupcakes from collapsing. I put 18 in at a time, baking for 7 minutes, rotating, and then baking for another 8 minutes, which was about perfect.

They puffed up nicely, and none of them collapsed!

After baking. ~15 minutes was about perfect.

Although some of them did start to collapse on the second batch...I was in a bit of a rush to get them rotated, and I think the tops collapsed a bit.

Small amount of collapsing on the second batch,
probably just from rotating them a little carelessly.

I tried one before it was completely cooled and iced, and it was good, but not great, and definitely not caramel-y enough! I figured I'd work on the icing and hopefully they would be better after being iced.

The frosting called for butter, powdered sugar, and apple cider. Yum! But again, the apple cider flavor didn't quite seem to come through. I went ahead and iced the cupcakes and stuck them in the fridge a bit to set.

Letting them cool was the trick. When I tried one a few hours later, it had definitely developed more of a caramel flavor, and the apple cider started coming through even more in the icing. The cake itself was moist but not overly sweet, more of a cross between a muffin and a cupcake, probably due to the whole wheat flour. I also didn't put in quite as much sugar as it called for, so they weren't overly sweet.

Overall, I think these are a great fall cupcake recipe. I'd like to try a few modifications though. Scott suggested maybe brushing them with some sort of simple syrup or applejack liquor, and I'd also like to try coring them and putting a little bit of sauteed cinnamon apple filling inside each one, just to really reinforce the apple flavor. Yum!

Frosting turned out a bit thin, probably could have used a little more powdered sugar.
But the apple cider flavoring was delicious! 

Pumpkin Protein Muffins

I am pretty much in love with anything sweet, especially if it involves ice cream. But, that's not very conducive to my triathlon-training lifestyle! So, in an attempt to make baking a little more healthy, I tested out a recipe from Neghar Fonooni's blog (a super strong woman that seriously kicks butt and takes names!) for pumpkin protein muffins. The basic recipe taken from her blog http://www.negharfonooni.com/ is as follows:

Wet stuff:

15 ounces canned organic pumpkin

2 egg whites

Dry stuff:

1 cup oats, ground in food processor

2 scoops vanilla protein powder (this had 23g per scoop!)

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 cup splenda (you could certainly use sugar or agave nectar if you don't mind the calories)

Handful chopped walnuts

Mix all that junk up and transfer to a muffin tin coated with nonstick spray, filling each muffin cup about halfway. Put into a 350 degree oven and bake for just 8-10 minutes.

I actually doubled the recipe when I made them (apparently I was confident that they would turn out yummy!), but I accidentally forgot to double the sugar, so they turned out a bit less sweet than you'd expect in a muffin. I also added some milk to the batter, since it seemed a little thick. The overall result was quite tasty. They are still very muffin-like, although slightly more dense and none of that weird oily (read: fatty) texture you get sometimes, and the ground up oats and protein powder combo (rather than just plain, all-purpose flour) make them much more nutritious than your average muffin. I'm curious to try making these again with a little more protein powder and oats, or maybe a wheat germ/oats combo....some of the larger muffins were still a bit undone in the middle (perhaps partly the result of me adding milk), but the wheat germ should help soak up any extra moisture. I also want to try subbing the egg whites with a flax seed/water combo that is a great egg substitute in vegan baking.

These could easily be made vegan and/or gluten free, although I still need another batch or two to get the texture right. This is my first time cooking with protein powder, and overall the muffins turned out great! I'm excited to try some other combos in the future, to lend a little more nutritional value to some of my baking endeavors!

Up next: Frosted Caramel Apple Layer Cake!

Fresh out of the oven, still kind of dough-like rather than muffin-like

Finally back to baking - A first attempt at French Macarons

I was finally able to get back to some baking this past weekend after two months of complete craziness. Two large end of the fiscal year projects had me working some serious overtime, and I also spent a week biking around the Black Hills of South Dakota with my dad. Both projects have been wrapped up and turned in, so life is finally somewhat back to 'normal'.

A friend recently emailed me asking if I have ever tried making French macarons. These are distinctly different from the typical coconut macaroon that many of us probably grew up with. A coconut macaroon involves making a meringue, then folding in shredded coconut and baking. The result is a crunchy outside and chewy inside that is even better when chocolate dipped!

A "typical" macaroon, the coconut deliciciousness that most people think of when you say the word 'macaroon'

A French macaron also involves a meringue, but then powdered sugar and finely ground almonds are folded in to make a somewhat runny batter that is then baked and formed into little sandwiches using some sort of jam or buttercream filling. The recipe is fairly basic, and creates a wonderful meringue cookie that can accommodate almost any flavor profile.

A French macaron! Yummy little sandwich-type cookie. 

The trick to a good macaron is the right stiffness when beating the eggs and the correct number of folds when adding the powdered sugar and almond flour. Too little folding and the batter is too stiff, resulting in macarons that retain a little peak on the top and are not perfectly rounded. Too much folding, and the batter is too runny and won't set. A perfect macaron should be slightly domed but well-rounded on the top, with little crinkled 'feet' that pop up during baking and a light, airy texture.

When it comes to baking, I tend to throw technique out the window and go by what looks right or tastes good, but macarons require a fair bit of technical skill and a little bit of luck. So I was careful to follow the recipe directions, and also referred to this blog for help along the way: http://www.giverslog.com/?p=1089

I measured out the powdered sugar and almond flour (which I bought pre-ground, rather than making my own) and mixed the two together, then sifted the mixture twice. I actually ended up using a sieve, since the almond flour balled up in the regular flour sifter. After that was sifted and set aside, I got the eggs whipping. It took about 3 minutes for them to get foamy, then I added cream of tartar and continued whipping. Once soft peaks started to form, I added the sugar and continued whipping. (Note: the recipe called for baker's sugar, which is super fine sugar. I didn't have any, so I tried making my own by grinding some granulated sugar in the food processor. It worked well enough, but wasn't great.) Towards the end of the whipping process, I added some pink food coloring, just to make them pretty! I used the Wilton brand pink coloring for icing, and it worked great.

Once the eggs were whipped, I folded in the powdered sugar/almond flour combo. This is where it got tricky. The recipe I was using said to fold 50-75 times, until the batter reaches a "magma-like consistency". Being a geologist, I had to ask 'What kind of magma!!?' The viscosity differences between magmas are quite significant, and if we're talking basaltic magma that is an entirely different consistency than a rhyolitic magma! Ack!

Another tip was to watch for a 'toffee-like sheen' when the batter is ready. I've never seen fresh toffee, but the egg whites quickly deflated with the folding, took on somewhat of a sheen, and the consistency seemed "magma-like" after almost 60 folds. I dumped the batter into a prepared pastry bag and prepared to pipe the batter onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.

The piping onto the cookie sheet was quick, since the batter is pretty thin. The first round of macarons still retained a little bit of a peak after piping, the second round seemed a little closer to the consistency that I wanted (and didn't have any peaks on the top), so I'm guessing I could have used a few more folds before piping the first batch.

The macarons with little peaks were part of my first piping batch. The macarons on the sides and bottom of the image are from my second round of piping. Obviously those couple of extra folds that resulted while scraping the bowl made a big difference in consistency. Made me realize how easy these things are to mess up!

The recipe said to preheat the oven to 375 while letting the macarons rest for about 30-45 minutes. Once the macarons have started to develop a slightly hardened outer shell, turn the oven down to 325 and bake them for about 10 minutes, rotating halfway through.

As the macarons bake, they don't expand or rise, but rather develop little 'feet'. I was confident that my macarons would turn out well when I pulled them out of the oven and they all had cute little feet!

Some of the peaks remained during baking, but you can sort of pick out the little feet on the bottom of each macaron. 

Everything was looking good until I bit into one, and found out it was hollow!

A little too airy!

The bottoms of some of the macarons were also a little brown to slightly burnt, so I think I overbaked them. We have a new (to us) oven, so I'll have to get an oven thermometer so that I can really track the oven temperature, particularly with something so temperature sensitive. I am also going to experiment with just some basic meringue cookies in the near future, because I think that altitude has something to do with it, as it most likely affects the egg whites.

Perfection of the macaron will be an ongoing process, similar to my quest to replicate the Jacob Lake chocolate parfait cookie! So check back for another update sometime soon on my successes (and failures!) in the macaron-making process.

Chocolate Whoopie Pies with Peanut Butter Filling - Yum!

I had never heard of a whoopie pie until I moved to Baltimore and the girl I lived with was obsessed with them. Apparently they are an east coast thing...they originated in Maine (although Pennsylvania tries to steal the glory for being the whoopie pie creator), and they are even Maine's state treat! My roommate in Baltimore was from Massachusetts, so it would make sense that she grew up eating them, but being from Ohio, I had never heard or one, nor tried one.

Whoopies pies come in all different flavor combinations, although the recipe I stumbled upon was for chocolate "pie" with peanut butter filling. Since I am currently loving Maranatha brand peanut butter (and we recently stocked up on it at the Los Alamos Co-op since it was on sale), I figured the chocolate/peanut butter combo would be perfect.

I decided to make a half batch, since Scott made a recent comment about all the 'junk' we have in the house, i.e. all of my baking creations :) The half batch still made about 15 whoopie pies, which was more than enough!

The dough was a basic cupcake dough, calling for all purpose flour and some whole wheat flour, baking soda and baking powder, cocoa powder, buttermilk, eggs and butter. I've really liked using buttermilk lately in recipes. Fat and calorie content is fairly low (100 calories and ~2.5 grams of fat per 1 cup serving), and it really makes cupcakes and breads moist but still fluffy. In fact, I used buttermilk in a recent batch of bread that I made to use some leftover quinoa, and it turned out wonderful, sort of like a light, airy buttermilk bread with little bites of nutty quinoa. Another good vessel for peanut butter!

The whoopie pie dough was fairly thick, about the halfway mark between a cake batter and a cookie batter. The recipe instructed the baker to cook the pies on parchment paper, so I scooped out the batter about a tablespoon at a time onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and stuck them in the preheated oven.

Pre-cooking: the dough is thick enough that it stays in place after scooping onto the cookie sheet

The recipe said to bake the pies for only 8 minutes, rotating the sheet about halfway through and removing the pies from the oven when they were soft to the touch, but not wet. Each tray took exactly 8 minutes, although I probably could have gotten by with 7 to 7.5 minutes.

Perfect little pies!

The pies all came out a uniform size and shape, which is exactly what I needed! They smelled great and looked delicious.

In order to make the filling, I put the butter and peanut butter in a bowl and used the Kitchen-Aid mixer to mix on high for about 2 minutes until fluffy. Then I slowly added powdered sugar and a little bit of whipping cream and continued beating until I got the desired consistency for a light, fluffy filling, similar in texture to a buttercream icing.

Once the pies had completely cooled, I placed about 2 tablespoons of peanut butter filling on one pie, and then topped with another pie. Half a batch still made about 15 pies total.

A few are missing already: George and Courtney got to take some home, and I sent some home with Liz (lucky her!) when she stopped by with Bailey

Of course I had to taste-test one (or two!), and they were absolutely delicious. The chocolate pie was light and airy, but still moist, and the peanut butter filling was a wonderful compliment to the chocolate pie. I love the cake/cookie combo of the whoopie pie, it's like you're getting the best of both worlds! I think I would cook the pies for about a minute less next time, as the bottom of each pie started getting a little hard, so there was a slight crunch when biting through the pie, and they really should be soft and airy all the way through. I will definitely be making these again but perhaps in some different taste combinations. Scott suggested a coffee filling with the chocolate pie, which would probably be equally delicious.

Pretty sure that whoopie pie and ice cream isn't quite traditional, but it still tasted delicious!