Welcoming Fall With Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

Photo: Flickr/Dr.Bacchus

I love the days when beautiful cookbooks and glossy food mags grace my mailbox. Yankee Magazine‘s latest installment of “Best New England Recipes” is no exception. Available now on news stands, here’s one of the yummiest recipes we could find — Pumpkin Whoopie Pies.

Tell me you can’t keep on reading.

Amy Traverso, Senior Lifestyle Editor at Yankee, says that while “Pennsylvanians may claim whoopie pies as their own, we know they’re a New England thing. ”

And how to make a whoopie pie even more New England? Traverso explains that Yankee “replaced the usual chocolate in the cakes with native pumpkin, giving [the pies] a warm spice flavor and further bragging rights to one of the greatest culinary invention ever:  a cake that eats like a cookie.”

So, without further ado, here is the recipe.

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies
From Yankee Magazine’s Best New England Recipes, 2011-2012 (pages 115-116)

Total Time: 40 minutes
Hands-On Time: 20 minutes

For the cakes:

1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup firmly packed light-brown sugar
2 eggs at room temperature, lightly beaten
1 cup canned pure pumpkin purée (not pumpkin-pie filling), such as One-Pie brand
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon table salt
1-2/3 cups all-purpose flour


For the filling:

8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons maple syrup
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/8 teaspoons salt
Pre-heat oven to 350°. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In the bowl of a standing mixer with whisk attachment, mix together butter and brown sugar until smooth. Add eggs, pumpkin purée, spices, vanilla, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Using a spatula, fold in flour.

With an ice-cream scoop, drop 6 generous mounds of batter, spaced evenly, onto each of the two baking sheets. Bake until springy to the touch, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Meanwhile, make the filling: In the bowl of a standing mixer or electric beater, cream together cream cheese and butter. Add vanilla, maple syrup, powdered sugar and salt.

Mix on low speed until blended; then beat on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes.

Spread the flat sides of 6 cakes with cream-cheese frosting. Top each with another cake.

Yield: 6 pies

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About

Associate Producer, Here & Now Most recently, Jessica worked as an associate producer at WBUR's daily local program, Radio Boston. Jessica moved to Boston in 2008 and has lived many places since leaving her native Texas. After graduating from college, Jessica worked as a federal employee, documentary film festival producer, oral historian, university teaching assistant, traveling saleswoman and klezmer musician. Her work and projects have appeared in The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, Bust, Barnard Magazine, National Public Radio, Public Radio International (PRI), and the BBC. Jessica's freelance radio work has received various awards including accolades from the Religion Newswriters Association and the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. As a Fulbright Scholar in El Salvador, Jessica collected and studied oral histories from the Jewish Community based in San Salvador. Jessica received her B.A. in political science from Columbia University’s Barnard College and her M.A. in history from Indiana University. She learned how to make radio from the phenomenal folks at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. Jessica lives in Somerville with her husband, twin son and daughter, and two cats. To learn more about Jessica’s projects, both current and past, please visit www.jessicaalpert.com.