Making Whoopie

In the competitive world of fashionable bakery (yes, it is a real thing) there has been fierce (ish) debate going on for the last couple of years on the subject of which sugary treat should replace the cupcake as the ubiquitous patisserie du jour. The humble cupcake was boosted to international fame by Sex and the City, and swiftly morphed from children’s party favourite to ludicrous symbol of decadent consumerism, topped off with teetering swirls of glittery, multicoloured buttercream. Anything eaten by hen parties is quite clearly o–ver as far as fashion is concerned, so obviously we can’t be seen eating them any more.

The first natural successor to emerge was the macaroon, which perennially retains its fashion status due to a winning combination of bright colours (pretty!) but no glitter (tasteful!) tiny size (figure-conscious!) Parisian associations (très chic!) and hellish expensiveness (exclusive!). They also seem to be quite hard to make.

But lo! A new pretender has recently reached these shores, springing up in fancy bakeries across the country. The intriguingly named Whoopie Pie looks like the strange offspring of the two aforementioned cake varieties, comes in many, many flavours, contains cream, and has a nice backstory as baked good of choice of the Pennsylvania Amish. It’s so named because the Amish famers (bless ‘em) were known to exclaim “Whoopie!” when they opened their lunchboxes to discover a cream-filled delight lovingly prepared by wifey back home in the kitchen. So they’re delicious enough to make you shout out loud, and, even better, a new recipe book – The Whoopie Pie Book by Claire Ptak – has just been released that tells you how to make a wide variety of flavours in the comfort of your own home.

As a confirmed bakery novice, I felt the best way to test the Whoopie’s effectiveness would be to try and bake some myself. To give you an idea of my level of novice-ness, I have only knowingly baked once in living memory (some fairly malformed mince pies), I had to buy a set of scales to take on this challenge, and the photographer had to explain spatulas to me. I also unwittingly undertook one of the most complicated recipes, believing it to be straightforward. For future reference, a recipe that requires you to make lemon curd from scratch is much more complicated than a recipe that requires you to simply flavour some whipped cream.

In the face of overwhelming odds, the cakes actually turned out quite well. They were at least tasty, as was the cream, although it wasn’t exactly what one might call solid. This might have had something to do with my having forgotten to add the lemon juice to the curd mixture at the prescribed time, or forgetting to put it in the fridge to set for long enough, or indeed stirring it into the whipped cream rather than following the precise requirements of folding. I also performed several unauthorised ingredient substitutions. Basically, there are many reasons why it might not have worked out exactly as intended, and they are all down to my incompetence rather than the very precise recipe. It presumably works just fine.

To make a lemon whoopie pie I used:

1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
125g unsalted butter, softened
300g plain flour
175g soft brown sugar
1 large egg
1tsp pure vanilla extract
75ml whole milk
50ml lemon juice
Zest of 2 medium lemons

Method:

Sift together the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl, stir in the salt and set aside.
In another bowl, cream the softened butter and the sugar together until light and, uh, creamy. You can use a mixer or somesuch, but we used a wooden spoon. Add the egg and mix well. In a jug, combine the vanilla, milk and lemon juice. Add to the butter mixture, stirring well. Mix in the dry ingredients. Finally, fold in the lemon zest, then chill it all for 30 mins.
Meanwhile, heat the oven to 180ºC and line two trays with baking paper. Using a couple of spoons, drop dollops of the chilled mixture onto the trays, about 5cm apart. Bake in the middle of the oven for 10-12 minutes, until the cakes are left with a slight impression when prodded.
Cool on a wire rack.

To serve:

You’ll need some flavoured whipped cream, spread between two pies to make a cake sandwich. The lemon curd one would presumably work out by folding (FOLDING!) together whipped cream and shop bought lemon curd. But to see the wide wide variety of flavours available to you as well as actual professional instructions on how to make them, best pick up a copy of the book we used but departed from due to ineptitude.