The Perfect Whoopie

The Whoopie Pie. A little piece of Pennsylvania deliciousness. And my latest baking obsession.

Throughout our childhood in Central PA, Grayer and I split a lot of whoopie pies (one of the joys of adulthood: eating a whole whoopie pie by yourself), but here in Georgia, they're hard to come by. I've found them at places such as Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, and I get super-excited and buy them, only to be disappointed. I can tell they are store bought and not made by the Amish, as truly delicious whoopies are.

So, I began a Quest. The Quest for a whoopie recipe that produces the perfect, Amish-tasting whoopie pie. And by Amish-tasting, I mean tasting like it was baked by the Amish, not tasting like an actual Amish person. That would be gross. I've always been a big fan of baking, so I looked forward to the challenge. It gave me a chance to use my Kitchen Aid stand mixer (the only truly nice thing I own) and throw on my ipod and sing at the top of my lungs to Glee ballads (when my roommate isn't home), but after a few failed experiments that left me with runny filling and flat whoopie, I was more than a little frustrated.

That's when I bought The Book. The Whoopie Bible. I'm pretty sure it's going to change my life. When I finished my first batch of whoopies, I noticed they looked exactly like the picture in the book. When I whipped up the delicious creamy filling, I took a taste, and it tasted exactly like the creamy fillings of my childhood. I did a happy dance.

Since then, I've been on a whoopie binge. I've made at least one batch of whoopies a week ever since, experimenting with the different flavors of whoopie and creamy fillings. I've made classic chocolate, oatmeal, chocolate with coconut cream filling, and the completely awesome Death by Chocolate: chocolate whoopie, chocolate filling, with the edges rolled in chocolate chips. And the best part: my roommate actually paid me for those. She was in charge of birthday treats at work, so instead of going to the store, she funded my whoopie baking. Fantastic. This weekend, I'm going to try The Chipwich. Chocolate chip whoopie, classic creamy filling, edges rolled in chocolate chips.

My whoopie obsession means that I've been going through baking supplies at rapid speeds. I've been buying butter, eggs, and brown sugar pretty much every time I've gone to the grocery store. And today, I actually bought one of those industrial sized tubs of Crisco. You know, the ones you see on the shelves and wonder, "who needs that much Crisco?" This girl, that's who. I mean, most people have to throw out their small tub of Crisco after two years. I've gone through two of those in less than a month, so the big tubs are an economical advantage.

Obviously my latest baking obsession isn't exactly the healthiest, but it's making me (and everyone around me) a lot happier. Isn't that what matters?