Whoopie Pies!

I have been seeing a lot of Whoopie pies around lately. They have been gracing the covers of many food magazines, Sur La Table sells whoopie pie pans, and many famous chef's have been promoting them, like Bakerella and Martha Stewart. So I gave them in decided to give it a go, I always have my handy taste testers around and knew they wouldn't go to waste.

You can make the batter and drop them onto a sheet of parchment paper or buy the Wilton Whoopie Pie pan, I opted to buy the pan at Sur La Table this morning since it was on sale and because I thought it would help me keep the size consistent. Yes, I really struggle with keeping size proportionate....it always start off good and by the end of a batch I've usually doubled the size.

I also decided to try making some from scratch and also some from a mix to see the difference. For the mix I bought StoneWall Kitchen's chocolate whoopie pie mix. Their mix is for the chocolate outer cookies and for vanilla filling. However I decided to add some peanut butter to StoneWall's filling mix to make a chocolate peanut butter whoopie pie.....because how can you go wrong with the combination?! Then I used Wilton's recipe for vanilla whoopie pie and their filling recipe, which I added cocoa powder to.

The verdict.....

I really liked how the cookies turned out for both. I liked Wilton's recipe from scratch a little more, it seemed more moist and made more. Also, from a cost perspective the Wilton recipe is a lot cheaper since the StoneWall Kitchen mix is $10 at Sur La Table. However in regard to the filling I did not like Wilton's filling recipe at all. It was really runny and too sweet - which is saying a lot with my sweet tooth. I want a thicker, more frosting like consistency. Wilton's recipe calls for marshmallow creme, which many don't. Think I will steer away from that in the future.


I'd never had a whoopie pie before today and I definitely love them. I'm excited to keep experimenting with new recipes and trying out new things. Thinking I'll try out a red velvet version next....!

Celebrations!

We have had a lot of celebrations lately! Lots to be thankful for and lots of happy occasions. To start with we have had two very special graduations which gave me a great excuse to make some baked goods!

My baby cousin, who is 22, graduated from Fresno State along with her husband. A huge accomplishment and she is onto get her teaching credential from here. I'm so proud of Sarah and her hard work at Fresno State. We had a lot of fun putting her graduation party together and making her cake! It was my first two tiered, two flavored cake and I was happy with how it came out.



Not long after was the next big graduation....my baby boy finishing kindergarten! I can't believe he is onto first grade! It seems like just yesterday I was dropping him off for his first day of school. I am so proud of how much he has grown this year and how much he has learned. He worked really hard and excelled in reading especially. In fact the week before graduation he got an award for finishing his first grade site words! Such a handsome and smart boy! I love him so much.