Pumpkin Spice Whoopie Pies with Caramel-Cream Cheese Filling
First
off, a hearty and heartfelt hello and welcome to my favorite season: Fall! I love fall! It is the start of the holiday season, it is
the time of the prettiest colors coming together, the best food and drink, my
absolute favorite seasonal ingredients popping up at the market, and it means I can get my nails painted this really sexy
gun-metal color without looking totally emo! I mean, all around, there is
nothing better than fall.
I’m also very excited because this is my first post based on
a request/self-imposed challenge. So, my wonderful friend (and fellow blogger)
Stephen Gregory Smith, showed me a picture of these pumpkin cookies topped with
caramel frosting and asked if I could make him a batch. Now, I love cookies,
and I love frosting, but unless we’re
talking about those chemically-delicious supermarket sugar cookies with the
shock of perfectly unmeltable frosting on the top, I am not a fan of sticky,
buttercream-topped cookies. So, I took it upon myself to make this recipe into
something a little less messy and totally Fall-licious!
I decided to take away the cookie aspect and instead do a
sweet, fluffy, whoopie pie. Obviously this led me straight to my favorite
whoopie-pie maker, Dawn Casale of One Girl Cookies in Brooklyn, and so with the knowledge that a riff
on one of her recipes put me in good hands, all I had left to do was create the
perfect filling!
Now, whoopie pies are generally sweeter than cookies, and I
wanted to cut the caramel frosting (which would now become a filling) with a
bit of tang, so I concocted my own little batch of homemade caramel-cream
cheese frosting, and used that to keep our whoopies together. And guess what?
It worked! The resulting treat was soft, spongy, and perfectly autumnal. And
the best part is, it’s officially fall, so you don’t have to feel about eating
them, like you did when you (or maybe this is just me) got a Pumpkin Spice
Latte when it was still, like, 95 degrees out and the people behind you on-line
at Starbucks gave you side eye so you decided you had to stick to iced chai, because, yes, maybe it was a little early for
a PSL, but you also start listening to Christmas music on Pandora come October
1st and you never feel judged for that, even by your very opinioned
cats, who really shouldn’t be that judgmental either, considering that you are
really good to them and let them sit in the tub, even when you want to take a
bath and you know that’s not going to happen anymore, because God knows those
paws are probably covered in litter pieces.
Anyway, Stephen Gregory and I were quite happy with this
portable dessert, and that leads me to believe that you should run the kitchen
right now and make these whoopie pies! They’re the dessert equivalent of
jumping into a big pile of leaves in slow-motion.
Pumpkin Spice Whoopie Pies with Caramel-Cream Cheese
Filling
Pumpkin Spice Whoopie Pies
Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp kosher salt
1 15-oz can of pumpkin puree
2 cups packed light brown sugar
1 cup canola oil
2 large eggs
2 tbsp dark molasses
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
- Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper
- In a medium bowl use a whisk to gently mix together the flour, ginger, salt, cinnamon, baking powder, and baking soda.
- In a large bowl, use a hand mixer on medium to beat together the pumpkin, brown sugar, canola oil, eggs, and molasses for around 3-4 minutes.
- Use a rubber spatula to scrape any batter on the sides of the bowl into the center.
- Add the flour in three batches, using the hand-mixer on low to beat the ingredients together between each addition.
- Use the rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl, and gently mix the batter to make sure there are no bits of flour or dry ingredients left.
- Use a soup spoon to scoop the batter onto the prepared baking sheets. If they don’t form a perfect circle, use a moistened finger to gently form the batter into a rounded shape.
- Bake in the oven for 10 minutes, open the oven, rotate the pan, and bake for another 10 minutes.
- Remove
from the oven and let cool on the pan for about 5 minutes, before moving
them onto a cooling wrack to cool completely.
- While the whoopie pies are cooling, prepare the filling.
Caramel-Cream Cheese Filling
Ingredients:
½ stick unsalted butter
½ cup packed brown sugar
4 oz cream cheese, softened
½ cup powdered sugar
Directions:
- Place
brown sugar and butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until the
butter and sugar have melted.
- Stirring
constantly, bring the butter and sugar to a boil and continue to let it
bubble for around 2 minutes. You want the color to be a nice amber hue, be
careful not to let it get too, because that indicates that the caramel has
burnt.
- Before you remove the caramel from the heat, use the whisk you are stirring with to pick up a bit of the caramel and let it cool just enough so you can rub it between you fingers. You want to make sure there are no crunchy granuales of sugar left, and that your caramel is smooth.
- Once the caramel has been deemed smooth, remove it from the heat and pour it into a large bowl.
- Use a hand mixer on medium to beat in the cream cheese.
- Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the powdered sugar.
- Mix the powdered sugar into the caramel-cream cheese mixture, using the hand mixer.
- If you feel the filling consistency is too thick, you can use some milk or cream to thin it out.
- Once the filling is finished begin assembling your whoopie pies!
- I like to match up the whoopie pie sides together first, before filling them. Obviously, you want to try and make the whoopies as uniform as possible, but generally some may come out smaller or bigger, but don’t worry, every one seems to find its match.
- Now,
use a butter knife to spread a big ol’ dollop of filling on the bottom of
one side of whoopie pie, and then sandwich it against the bottom of
another whoopie pie.
- Repeat
with remaining whoopie pieces.
- Eat with your hands and relish the feeling of eating frosting with no messy fingers or plates or forks to clean up.
Til next time,
D
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