Christmas Whoopie Pies

I was browsing through the Williams Sonoma catalog the other night and came across their Holiday Tree Whoopie Pies that caught my eye.  I new I had to try to make these myself.  I used the Williams Sonoma recipe for chocolate cakelets and use my Mom's whoopie pie filling.  Like many, I am a fan of mini desserts so I bought two Christmas Cookie Shapes pans from Wilton to use as my whoopie pie like forms.

I decided I wanted to bring these as a dessert to a friend's cocktail party so I did a test kitchen/trial run and then the real thing.  Both times I ended up with very good results.  My Mom's recipe for frosting was lighter an more airy than the peppermint buttercream I made for the second batch.  Tough call in regards to which one I liked better.  I think I am leaning towards the buttercream as the peppermint flavor was a nice addition.  I came across the mint buttercream frosting from Jenna at Modern Domestic; adapted from Chockylit.  I suppose I could have added peppermint to the first frosting I made, but I did not think of it.

I will share with you some tricks of the trade I learned while creating these.  If you have experience with cupcakes or muffins your natural tendency is going to be to not want to fill the pans to the top with batter.  Let go of your natural tendency.  In my test run I tried filling some wells 3/4 full and then  others all the way.  Trust me on this one.  You are going to want to fill these to the top so that your edges do not curl away and you get a nice imprint on your cakelet.

By filling to the top the batter will overflow while baking.  Don't fret.  It will all be o.k.  Once you take them out of the oven let them cool for about 5 minutes.  At this point, you are going to want to level out your cakelets.  You can do this by taking a knife and slicing off, or my preference, by utilizing a piece of thread.  Note, some may not look good from this angle since they puffed up, but you can fix that.

Cut a piece of thread about 12 inches long.  You can make it shorter, but I like to be able to be comfortable with it in my hand and also to be able to move it around easily.  Place it up against your cakelet and start to saw lightly back and forth.  The thread will catch under the cakelet and you should be able to easily pull it along.  If you let them cool too long it will not be as easy and if you don't let them cool enough it will be messy.  I have used this thread tip with full size cakes and have always had good results. 

So now you have a flat underside, but what are you going to do about the messy edges that overflowed?  Take a pair of kitchen scissors and cut out the excess batter that cooked around the shapes.  Before you know it, you will have nicely cut out shapes.

 

I was talking to one of my friends about how I made these and she was wondering if you could bake a sheet cake and then use cookie cutters to cut out the shapes.  My concern with this is that the sheet cake would be too floppy and not form as well as the pan shapes did.  I cooked these about a minute or so longer so that they would not be as soft and flexible.

Once you have your cut outs you can proceed to decorate however you like.  As mentioned, I made frosting to put in between two cut outs.  I made my buttercream so that it was little more stiff as I did not want the cut outs to slide off of the frosting.  I also tried grinding up some candy canes to put along the edges, but I could not get them to the right consistency.  I tried smashing them with a rolling pin and also putting in the cuisinart.  I did find some crushed peppermints at Williams Sonoma and will try these when I make them again next week.  The only thing to keep in mind is that crushed peppermints are hard so you don't want huge pieces around the edges or those eating your treats will chip a tooth.

I really liked everything about these.  The cakelets were moist, but firm and the peppermint buttercream frosting was a great last minute add!  You can adjust these to whatever Holiday you are celebrating as their are many pans to choose from.  The pans can get a little pricey, but keep your eyes open for coupons.  I hope you will try these and enjoy creating them and test tasting them as much as I did!

Chocolate Cakelets
 Williams Sonoma
Printable recipe

1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
8 Tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup Dutch process cocoa powder
2/3 cup boiling water

Have all ingredients at room temperature.

Preheat an oven to 325 degrees.  Generously grease and flour pan.

Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together the butter, egg and vanilla; set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar and cocoa powder.  Whisk in the boiling water, then whisk in the butter mixture.  Add the flour mixture in two additions, whisking until smooth and no lumps of flour remain.

Divide the batter among the wells of the prepared pan.  Bake until the cakelets spring back when touched and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Since my pans were much smaller I started checking them around 10 minutes and ended up baking between 14-16 minutes.  Remember that you don't want these to be too flimsy, but also you don't want to over cook.  Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let the cakelets cool for about 5 or so minutes.  You can use the above mentioned thread trick to slice off the excess cake.  If you are having a hard time slicing with the thread, then the cakelet is still too warm.  I also used the thread to loosen the cake that had overflowed.  Let them cool another 5 minutes, remove from pan and then cool completely on a baking rack.

Peppermint Buttercream Frosting
Adapted from Chockylit via Modern Domestic

Printable Recipe


1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
4-5 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1/4 cup milk
1/8 to 1 tsp all natural peppermint extract

In a mixing bowl, beat your butter until creamy. Add four cups of the sifted powdered sugar and milk and beat until creamy. Add 1/8 of a teaspoon of peppermint extract and mix until combined. Taste the frosting – if it is not minty enough for you, continue to add small amounts of the mint extract until you reach your desired flavor.  I did add an entire teaspoon.  Once you have the flavor down, add enough powedered sugar until you get the frosting to the consistency you want.

Kate's Whoopie Pie Filling
Printable Recipe


1 cup milk
5 Tbsp flour
1/2 cup Crisco
1 stick margarine (I used butta)
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sugar

In a small saucepan, blend the milk into the flour.  Cook over low heat until thickened.  This takes a while.  Let cool.

Cream together crisco, margarine, vanilla, and sugar.  Add the flour mixture and beat with an electric mixture for 10 minutes.

Whichever frosting you choose, I would recommend piping it on vs. spreading with a knife.  Using a sandwich bag (snip off a little of one corner) or a pastry bag, fill either with the frosting and pipe on to one of the cakelets. Top with a matching cakelet. Next time I will use a deocrative tip when piping as it just finishes it off a little more.  At this point, you can gently roll the sides of the cakelets in some crushed peppermints.  I would not wait until the end of decorating all of them as the buttercream does start to get a little harder and form.

I made and decorated these the night before the party and they stored perfect in a plastic container in the fridge.