Over winter break, I had the highly anticipated chance to teach others about my passion: baking! With help from Kate Novack’24, we put together a Zoom for a group of girls from our grade. During the session, I led the group through a whoopie pie recipe. From measuring to mixing to baking to icing to tasting, we did it all together via our home wifis. 

Early in January, I spent weeks researching and testing whoopie pie recipes. I went through trays and trays of little cakes to find the perfect fudgy but not too fudgy chocolate sandwich with tops that were shiny and didn’t crack. Thankfully, my brothers were more than willing to eat the failed batches. The Zoom session was a great way to test out the recipe on people other than myself (and my brothers, who, let’s face it, will eat anything). I was able to tweak a few things after, and the recipe down below is, in my opinion, la creme de la creme of  whoopie pie recipes!

WHOOPIE PIE recipe:

Ingredients:

For the Whoopie Pies:

2 cups all-purpose flour

⅔ cup cocoa powder

1½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

¼ cup butter (at room temperature)

¼ vegetable/canola oil

1 cup brown sugar

1 large egg (at room temperature)

1½ tsp vanilla extract

¾ cup hot coffee

⅔ cup buttermilk (at room temperature) or add 2 teaspoons of vinegar/ lemon juice to just a little bit less than ⅔ cup whole milk and let sit

For the Vanilla Buttercream Frosting:

½ cup butter (at room temperature)

3 cups powdered sugar

A couple of splashes of milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

½ tsp salt

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees (Fahrenheit).
2. Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt together in a medium-sized bowl.
3. In a large bowl cream (using a stand mixer, hand mixer, or your hand (definitely not recommended)) brown sugar, butter, oil, and vanilla extract. Cream for 2-4 minutes or until light and fluffy.
4. Add egg and mix on low-medium until incorporated.
5. Alternate adding the dry ingredients and buttermilk (add ⅓ of dry, then ½ of buttermilk, another ⅓ of dry, the rest of the buttermilk, and finally the rest of the dry).
6. Slowly add warm/hot coffee in a stream. Start with ½ of the coffee and then add more. The batter should be runny, but not pure liquid. (Very Important!!!! Make sure that the coffee is not boiling, use warm/hot. If the coffee is too hot the batter will be too runny).
7. Using a cookie scoop or a spoon, place balls of batter onto a prepared cookie sheet leaving a couple of inches between each cake. (The size of the balls is up to you— I personally don’t like my whoopie pies too big. I use 2 tablespoons of batter per cake which bake to approximately 4”.)
8. Place the tray on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 7-9 minutes. 

Frosting: 

1. Cream butter until light and fluffy
2. Slowly add powdered sugar. The butter and the powdered sugar will be crumbly but don’t worry.
3. Add milk until desired consistency (I use around 2-4 tablespoons)
4. Add vanilla extract and salt

Assembly:

If you want, you can pipe frosting or you can use a knife or spoon to spread frosting onto whoopie pie halves

Enjoy!!

Cecilia Ashenuga ‘24, Staff Writer

24cashenuga@montroseschool.org