Chocolate Whoopie Pies with Caramel Cream Filling

It seems (and probably is) like ages since my previous post, but we had a loooong (one “o” per day-off) weekend and we visited family in Switzerland. 🙂

But as I said in the previous post, we have whoopie pies today!

I only tried whoopie pies for the first time this year and I fell in love. This dessert has everything I like: you bite into soft cookie to reach a thick creamy frosting. Swoon.

Also, for the first time, I made caramel all by myself!

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC).

Start by whisking together the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda.

Cream the butter with the sugar, add the eggs and vanilla, and alternate the buttermilk and the flour mixture, finishing with the latter (i.e. add half of the flour mix, half of the buttermilk, half of the flour etc.).

Using either an oven tray lined with parchment paper, or a special tray (as the one I used), drop a teaspoon (or 1½) of cake batter leaving a 2-inch (5cm) space between them.

Bake for 12-15min. They should spring back when pressed gently. It took me exactly 12min.

In the meantime you can prepare the caramel cream frosting.

If you decide to make your own caramel, as I did,  you can find very helpful instructions in Bakers Royale blog here.

Start by creaming the butter. Then add the powdered sugar and salt. Lastly, add the caramel.

Keep it in the fridge until you are ready to use it.

When the cookies are completely cooled (completely! otherwise the frosting will melt!), spread frosting on them and make the little sandwiches.

And this is it!

You can store them in the fridge, but make sure to let them reach room temperature before you eat them!

And since my habit is to bring the desserts I bake to the lab and share them with my colleagues, I had just enough time to snap a photo of a bitten pie!

And then there was none.

Have a nice day!

Ingredients

Makes around 36 pies

For the cakes (recipe from The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book)

425g (15 ounces) all-purpose flour

90g (¾ cup) unsweetened cocoa powder

1½ tsp baking soda

⅔ tsp salt

170g (1½ stick) butter, room temperature

300g (1½ cup) brown sugar

1½ eggs, room temperature

1½ tsp vanilla extract

360ml (1½ cup) buttermilk (if you can’t find buttermilk: 1cup buttermilk = 1cup milk + 1 tbsp lemon juice, let it stand at room temperature until it thickens)

For the caramel cream frosting (recipe from Bakers Royale)

240g (1 cup) butter

260g (2 cups) powdered sugar

¼ tsp salt

60ml (¼ cup) caramel sauce

Quick Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC). Start by whisking together the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda. Cream the butter with the sugar, add the eggs and vanilla, and alternate the buttermilk and the flour mixture, finishing with the latter.

Using either an oven tray lined with parchment paper, or a special tray (as the one I used), drop a teaspoon (or 1½) of cake batter leaving a 2-inch (5cm) space between them. Bake for 12-15min. They should spring back when pressed gently. It took me exactly 12min.

For the frosting, cream first the butter. Then add the powdered sugar and salt. Lastly, add the caramel. Keep it in the fridge until you are ready to use it.

When the cookies are completely cooled (completely! otherwise the frosting will melt!), spread frosting on them and make the little sandwiches.

Bite.