I was house/offspring sitting again and since I had the help, decided to tackle a recipe I’ve always wanted to try – whoopie pies! Traditional recipes have a marshmallow filling, but we used cream cheese icing because my ‘baking assistant’ loves it and we didn’t feel like going out to buy Fluff. We made them and even though we both bake a lot, we were shocked at how good they were. The only downside is that because you put two together, it only makes 12 servings and you’re going to want more!

Whoopie Pies

Ingredients

Cakes

• ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1¾ cups all-purpose flour
• ⅔ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1½ teaspoons baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk (if you don’t have buttermilk, you can make it with regular milk and vinegar/lemon juice)

Cream Cheese Filling

• 1 pkg (8oz/250g) cream cheese, softened (such as Philadelphia)
• ⅓ cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 pinch salt
• 2 cups icing sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 350^oF and line baking sheets with parchment paper.

In large bowl, beat butter with sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in egg, then mix in vanilla.

In medium bowl, whisk flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Then alternately add the buttermilk and flour mixture into butter mixture, making 3 additions of flour mixture and 2 of buttermilk.

Drop heaping tablespoons, about 3 inches apart, onto the prepared baking sheets to make 24 mounds. Bake 12-14 minutes, until tops slightly crack and spring back when lightly touched. Let cool on pan on rack.

While the cakes are cooling,  beat together cream cheese, butter and salt until smooth. Incorporate icing sugar, 1 cup at a time, until smooth. Drop about 3 tbsp icing over each bottom of half of the cookies, then sandwich with tops.  Enjoy!

Source: Canadian Living