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!