Cream of the Crop: Coconut Cream Whoopie Pies Recipe for Serious Eats

Guess what? Tomorrow (May 8) is National Coconut Cream Pie Day.

Clearly, this is an appropriate occasion to eat your weight in coconut cream pie. But why stop there? Why can't whoopie pies come to the party, too?

True: traditional whoopie pies are not pie at all—rather, they are cake-like cookies with frosting sandwiched in between. But in the case of the Coconut Cream Whoopie Pie, you can have your cake and eat your pie, too. The rich filling is sort of like a mix between coconut frosting and cream pie filling.

Moreover, these sweet sandwiches are like eating the delicious intersection between sugar cookies, coconut cake, and coconut cream pie in one delectable form—that is to say, an absolutely appropriate food to celebrate this red-letter calendar day.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Gobba Gobba Hey: Matcha Gobs with Lemongrass-Ginger Filling Recipe from a Sweet New Gob Cookbook

Photo: Gobba Gobba HeyTrue Story. Recently I received an email from an esteemed publisher you may know of called Bloomsbury, asking if I'd be interested in a review copy of their new release, entitled Gobba Gobba Hey: A Gob Cookbook. It was written by Steve Gdula, who owns a gob (um, whoopie pie) business by the same name in San Francisco.

As a lover of the Whoopie Pie or Gob (it's a geographical thing), even though I wouldn't call them "the new cupcake", I was beyond delighted to receive this sweet book in the mail, and even more delighted when I found the writing style to be engaging, the business backstory to be interesting, and the recipes to be delectable.

But one of my favorites from the book? Matcha Green Tea Gobs with Lemongrass-Ginger Filling. NOM!

And they were kind enough to allow me to reprint the recipe here. Lucky you! here goes:

Matcha Green Tea Gobs with Lemongrass-Ginger Filling

Recipe courtesy Gobba Gobba Hey

For the batter

• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup highest quality Matcha Green Tea powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1.5 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups sugar, sifted
• 8 tablespoons butter, softened, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 2 eggs 
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
• 2 tablespoons sour cream

For the filling

• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 12 tablespoons cream cheese, cut in 1/2 inch cubes
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• 3-4 tablespoons lemongrass-ginger syrup (steps to make below)
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

For the lemongrass-ginger syrup

• 1 cup sugar
• 2-inch pieces fresh ginger, sliced into four or five rounds, skin peeled
• 1/2 cup lemongrass (about 3 stalks), outer husk and bottom tip removed, sliced in rounds
• 1/2 cup water
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1/2 cup loosely packed Rau Ram leaves (optional)

Procedure

1. Make the cookies. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line three 8x13-inch cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, matcha powder, baking powder, baking  soda, and salt. Whisk together until they're evenly green in color.
3. In another large bowl, cream the sugar and butter with a mixer on medium speed. Add the egg yolks to the creamed ingredients and mix on medium. Add the egg whites and vanilla, and mix on medium-high until the mixture looks like a dense pudding.
4. Alternate adding the dry ingredients and the buttermilk to the egg mixture, mixing on medium speed after each addition. Then add the sour cream, and mix well. 
5. Using a tablespoon or pastry bag, drop 1 1/2 inch rounds of batter on the prepared cookie sheets, leaving 1 inch between each round. Bake 8 minutes, or until the gob domes have risen. Remove the gobs to a wire rack to cool.
6. Make the filling, part 1. First, make the lemongrass-ginger syrup which you'll set to the side. Place the sugar, ginger, and water in a saucepan. Bring the liquid to a boil over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add the lemon juice and the rau ram leaves, if using, to the syrup, and stir well. Remove the pan from heat and set aside, covered, to let the syrup steep for at least 20 minutes. Strain out the lemongrass, rau ram leaves, and ginger and lemon seeds and pulp, and reserve the syrup for the gob filling. This mixture will keep, tightly covered, in the fridge for up to a week with the rau ram, 2 weeks without it.
7. Make the filling, part 2. Cream together the butter and cream cheese with a mixer on medium speed.
8. Add the vanilla, 1 teaspoon lemon juice, 3 tablespoons of the lemongrass-ginger syrup, and confectioners' sugar; beat on medium high, scraping down the bowl as needed to reincorporate the ingredients. Taste and add another teaspoon of lemon juice or another tablespoon of lemongrass-ginger syrup if you'd like.
9. To frost your gobs (I love saying that), flip the baked gob domes over on a cookie sheet and match up similarly shaped and sized domes. Add 1 tablespoon of filling to the flat side of an overturned dome, then place another dome on top, sandwich-style. Allow the gobs to fully set by refrigerating them on a baking sheet for at least 1 hour. Wrap the gobs in plastic wrap to keep them from drying out.

Sweetness Overload: Banana Split S'more Whoopie Pies Recipe for Serious Eats

In case you didn't already know it, August 10th is both National S'more Day andNational Banana Split Day.

And in celebration of this momentous day, here's a dessert mash-up which allows you to go above and beyond your civic pastry eating duty: the Banana Split S'more Whoopie Pie. It combines all of the key flavor points of both the banana split and s'mores, but the delivery is a bit of a curveball: cakey banana-marshmallow cookies are lined with chocolate before sandwiching ice cream flecked with graham cracker bits.

Just more proof that if some is good, s'more is better.

Note: Don't like the idea of cold cookies? For an easy variation, sandwich toasted marshmallows or marshmallow fluff between the sandwiches instead of ice cream for a treat that doesn't have to be chilled.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Wickedly Delicious: Wicked Whoopie Pies, Freeport Maine

Whoopie pies are basically the best excuse to eat two large, cakey cookies at once, with a big smear of frosting holding them together.

There are two places in particular in the US in which this sweet treat proliferates: Pennsylvania and Maine. The style is slightly different in both places, and if you want to read about who truly invented it, you can read this great article in the New York Times.

And of course, in Maine there's even an added dimension of controversy, because the race between Whoopie Pie and Blueberry Pie as official state dessert was quite a hot debate.

But at this moment, we're going to set aside controversy and backstory and simply talk about some Whoopie Pies that I ate in Maine, from Wicked Whoopies. I went there shortly after I visited a big boot with Carrie of Fields of Cake.

If this place looks kind of corporate when you walk in, that's because it is; they have a retail storefront in the Freeport Outlets in Maine (and another in Farmingdale), but also have a very large mail-order business. 

Initially I found it slightly off-putting that each pie was individually cello wrapped in the style of Twinkies or lower-market treats, but I was extremely impressed by the variety of flavors--banana! Red Velvet! Pumpkin! Lemon!... and pretty much I got over it once I unwrapped slowly and saw what treasures awaited.

First off, the Maple Whoopie Pie. The cookie-cakes were extremely moist and redolent of that gorgeously mellow maple flavor; the cream filling was the perfect complement, extremely rich, pairing the mellowness of the maple with a nostalgically and fairly unforgivingly sweet charm. I say this in a loving way. It was a mouthful of awesome.

But the real highlight was the chocolate-covered mini whoopie pie ("whoop-de-doo"). these were under a dome and were not individually cello-wrapped, which made them feel slightly more pinkies-out.

Now, you might think that topping a cream-filled double-chocolate cookie sandwich would be gilding the lily, but you know, it actually didn't come off as excessive in the taste. The thin chocolate shell added a nice texture contrast, and kind of crunch-melted into the soft cookie as you bit into it. This was a fairly pleasurable experience to repeat over and over until the cookie was all the way gone. 

Final verdict: not pinkies-out fancy, but double-fist, big-time tasty.

Wicked Whoopies has two locations in Maine, but you can also order online; find out locations and order online here.

Getting Loopy: Froot Loop Whoopie Pies Recipe from Munchin With Munchkin

Photo: Muchin With MunchkinCakeSpy Note: This is a guest post from Cake Gumshoe Christine, who blogs at Munchin With Munchkin. Let the NOM begin:

The first time I had a whoopie pie was 15 years ago and completely by accident. I had found a sandwich cookie recipe in one of my mother’s cook books and begged her to make it with me. I remember the chocolate cookies being moist like cake and the icing tasted like no other. We only made them once as the cookbook was lent to a friend and never seen again.

I would dream about those cookies and subconsciously was on the hunt for another fresh batch. Every recipe I tried after that became a horrid mess of typical vanilla icing and cookies that in no way resembled cake. Years later the whoopie pie trend emerged and I finally re-discovered that magical cookie of my childhood.

One evening, after being horribly nostalgic, I picked up a box of fruit loops as a late night snack. The first bite yielded memories of elementary school and early morning chaos. By the second bite I had a revelation! The mysterious taste of fruit loops was no longer a mystery!

I ran to my spice cabinet and searched through the endless glass bottles until I found one in particular; cardamon. The spice that only  saw the light of day during a curry cook-off was the secret ingredient in my childhood cereal!

Upon this discovery I began to imagine all the new baking possibilities. Cardamon rice pudding, cardamon lime pie, cardamon cake, and that’s when it hit me; Fruit Loop inspired whoopie pies. Combining cardamon cookies with a light and fluffy fruit flavoured icing would make everything wrong in the world right. So today I say farewell to my diet (at least for now) and hello to orange and green coloured carbs.

Froot Loop Whoopie Pies

Cookies

• 1 cup granulated sugar
• ½ cup vegetable shortening
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 ½ Tsp. baking soda
• ½ Tsp. salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 Tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 Tbsp. ground cardamom

Lime Filling

• ½ cup vegetable shortening
• ¾ cup powdered sugar
• ½ cup marshmallow cream
• ½ Tsp Vanilla
• 1 Tsp. Lime zest
• 1 Tbsp. fresh lime juice

Mandarin Filling

• ½ cup vegetable shortening
• ¾ cup powdered sugar
• ½ cup marshmallow cream
• ½ Tsp Vanilla
• 1 Tsp. Mandarin zest
• 1 Tbsp. fresh mandarin juice

Procedure 

1. Preheat Oven to 350.
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with cooking oil; set aside. (Or alternately use a whoopie pie pan)
3. In a large bowl cream together the sugar with ½ cup shortening using an electric mixer. Add eggs and continue to mix until well combined.
4. Add flour, baking soda, salt, buttermilk, vanilla and cardamon and blend on low speed for one minute. Increase speed to medium and continue to mix for an additional two minutes ensuring to scrape down the sides.
5. Scoop one tablespoon of batter onto the prepared pan about an inch apart. Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes until no indentation appears when the top is lightly touched.
6. Let cool on cookie sheet or in whoopie pie pan for two minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack until cooled.
7. While cookies are cooling prepare the filling. Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl. Using an electric mixer beat on low for one minute.
8. Add desired amount of food colouring, increase speed to high and continue to beat for an additional two minutes. Refrigerate until ready to use.
9. To assemble cookies place a dollop of icing on the centre of the flat side of one cookie. Top with another cookie and press gently together to evenly spread the icing. Repeat for all cookies.

Makes about 20 sandwich cookies

Pastry Profiles: Peanut Butter Chocolate Whoopie Pie from Baked, Brooklyn

It is no secret that I not only love Baked, but am actually IN LOVE with the owners, Matt and Renato. They are adorable; they are funny; they have two stellar cookbooks; and above all else, they make a mean baked good.

And their flagship Brooklyn bakery, Baked, is a pretty swell time to spend some time, money, and calories.

But on this visit (which was at breakfast time, by the way), I was a hunter, and my prey was the chocolate peanut butter whoopie pie.

I also picked up one of these!This sweetie consists of two cakey, moist but not too dense chocolate cookies (sort of devil dog style) with a generous dollop of the most exquisitely peanut buttery (accent on the buttery)frosting, studded with bits of candied nuts on the outside.

And it is so, so good. Somehow I was able to cut it in half, so I had half for breakfast (so decadent, so delicious!) and half later on, after dinner. And these two halves made my whole day sweet.

You must go get one. (and pick up a cute tote while you're at it!)

Chocolate Peanut butter whoopie pies (as well as a rotating menu of other flavors, including their signature pumpkin) from Baked, 394 Van Brunt Street, Red Hook Brooklyn; online at bakednyc.com

Also a good idea: buy their most excellent books : Baked: New Frontiers in Baking and Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented.

Thanksgiving Pie Chronicles: Cranberry Pecan Pie in a Maple Peanut Butter Cookie Crust for Peanut Butter and Co.

CakeSpy Note: Did you know that I'm an all-star? Well, an all-star blogger, anyway, for the lovely and amazing Peanut Butter and Co.! Here's a peek at my latest recipe entry, for Cranberry Pecan Pie in a Maple Peanut Butter Crust!

Don’t get me wrong–Thanksgiving has a lot going for it food-wise. But sadly, the traditional offerings are extremely lacking in rich, delicious peanut butter.

But what if–just what if–you combined classic Thanksgiving flavors with a peanut butter cookie crust?

I wanted to find out, and so I prepared a thick Mighty Maple peanut butter cookie crust, which I then filled with a mixture of tart, unsweetened cranberries and crunch pecans, all topped with a thick, brown sugary, pecan pie-inspired filling. The result? Total magic: the tartness of the cranberries is perfectly balanced by the richness of the peanut butter and pecans, and the maple and sugar contribute plenty of sweetness. It’s a flavor combination to be thankful for, indeed.

For the full entry and recipe, visit the All-Star Recipe Blog on Peanut Butter and Co.!

Role Reversal: Reverse Whoopie Pies for Serious Eats

What's a Reverse Whoopie Pie?

Basically, if you can imagine a Milano cookie going through a Hulk-like transformation into a supersized sweet treat, you've got the right idea.

That's right: these cakey whoopie pies pack all the flavor of the classic chocolate-filled buttery cookie sandwich, but without making any pretense of daintiness. This is treat of such proportion that it requires two hands to hold and all of your stomach to handle. Of course, if you want an even Hulkier variation, add peppermint extract instead of vanilla (and maybe a dash of green food coloring for good measure) for a chocolate-mint variation.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!