Kitchen Adventures: Cookie Dough Whoopie Pies

At cookbook club the other night, I was looking at cookbooks for next month and picked up The Cookie Dough Lover's Cookbook by Lindsay Landis. The recipe I first turned to was for Cookie Dough Whoopie Pies. The hubby loves cookie dough and has been asking me to make whoopie pies forever. When we first moved into our apartment, I picked up a whoopie pie pan and 3 years later it still hasn't been used..until today.

I think my biggest reason for not making whoopie pies was that I thought they were too much work. I only have 1 small whoopie pie pan and I didn't want to be tied up in the kitchen all day making whoopie pies. To alleviate this problem, I cut the recipe in half since I don't know what we were going to do with 20-24 sandwiches except feed my coworkers. The recipe itself was pretty easy. When I cut the recipe in half, I figured we would have about 10 whoopie pies. Um, yeah my calculations were way off. I got 4.5 whoopie pies out of the half batch. Either I made mine bigger or my math was way off.. 4 is actually a really good number for us. We can try them and don't have to worry about them going bad since they only last about 3 days.

Whoopie Pie Pan

I did tweak the recipe slightly since the hubby doesn't like dark chocolate. I used regular cocoa powder instead of dark cocoa powder and omitted the espresso powder. I had to pick up the marshmallow creme. I came home with marshmallow fluff and momentarily panic. Google reassured me marshmallow fluff and creme are the same thing. It's like tissues vs. Kleenex.

I had the 1/2 whoopie pie and it was scrumptious. I'm hoping the hubby agrees.

Cookie Dough Whoopie Pies -- from the The Cookie Dough Lover's Cookbook

Ingredients (makes 24 sandwiches according to the cookbook)... If you want to make a half batch, see the note at the bottom for the conversions of the odd measurements.

For Cookies:
2 Cups Flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup dark or Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 tsp instant espresso powder
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup whole milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 tsp vanilla

For Filling:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 (7 oz) jar marshmallow creme or fluff
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, salt, cocoa powder, and espresso powder. Stir in sugar. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and stir in milk, oil, egg, and vanilla.

Put the wet ingredients in a well in the dry ingredients

Stir until flour is incorporated and no large lumps remain; mixture should have the consistency of thick cake batter.

Line a baking sheet, if you don't have whoopie pie pans, with a silicon mat, parchment paper, or just spray with cooking spray. Drop batter by the tablespoonful approximately 2 inches apart. Bake 10 to 12 minutes, or until cookies are set. Let cool on baking sheet about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining batter.

To prepare filling, beat together butter and brown sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Mix in flour and salt on low speed until incorporated.

Add marshmallow creme and vanilla and beat until fluffy. Stir in chocolate chips.

To assemble whoopie pies, sandwich 1 heaping tablespoon of filling between two two cookies.

Press until filling spreads evenly to the edges Repeat with remaining cookies. Refrigerate in an airtight container, whoopie pies will keep for up to 3 days.

I'm guessing you could freeze the cookies until you are ready to use them and then just making the filling.

Now that I know how easy this are, I have a feeling my whoopie pie pan will get more use.

**Note** If you want to make half the recipe, here are the conversions for the odd measurements.
1/3 cup = 5 Tablespoons + 1 teaspoon (2 1/2 Tablespoons + 1/2 teaspoon for half the recipe)
3/4 cup = 12 tablespoons (6 tablespoons for half the recipe)
1 egg = 3 tablespoons when beaten (1 1/2 tablespoons of beaten egg)

If you don't have whole milk, you can substitute 6 tablespoons evaporated milk and 6 tablespoons water for the 3/4 cup whole milk.