Cake Mix Whoopie Pies

Whoopie pies are a Maine/New England staple. I think they exist in other parts of the country, but are called different names in different regions. They are a favorite in our house, especially with the hubster & little princess. One year we ordered hubby a giant Whoopie Pie cake from a bakery, but I had never attempted to make them on my own (until yesterday).

My desire to make them at home blossomed about 9 years ago when my boss, at the job I was working, brought in a platter of homemade Whoopie Pies. I will never forget how they tasted, they were incredible. Sadly, she would not share her recipe, at that time, hehehe. Making them has been at the back of my mind since then, and I finally did it yesterday.

This is a bit of a shortcut recipe, as it uses cake mix, but I don't really see that as a cheat. Both the cake part & the buttercream filling are SUPER easy to make. I am sooo happy with how these turned out on my very first attempt. These recipes are hybrids of various recipes & info I found around the web.

Cake (ignore directions on the box):

1 box chocolate cake mix (I used devil's food)

1/3 cup water

3 tbsp oil

2 Eggs

Buttercream filling:

1 cup softened (NOT MELTED!!!) butter

1 cup butter flavored shortening

6 cups confectioner's sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

3 tsp. vanilla

6 oz. heavy whipping cream.

For the cake, add all ingredients to the bowl and beat on high for about a minute and a half. The resulting batter will be VERY thick, much thicker than regular cake batter. The baked batter will be almost cookie like.

I had read, on one recipe, that these get very big and to only drop them out onto the baking sheet by teaspoonful, so I used my smallest scooper to drop the batter out. I don't know my scooper capacity sizes, but here they are, and I used the one on the left, haha! It turns out that they didn't get HUGE like the recipe said, so the middle one will be more appropriate when I make them next time. Also, have three self-portraits of me, I know you've always wanted one.

Drop batter onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Drop 6 per sheet, relatively far apart, because these spread out as they are baking.

This is what they look like after 10-12 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

For the filling, in a large mixing bowl, beat together butter & shortening until creamy. Add sugar 2 cups at a time, and beat until well blended. Add salt, vanilla & whipping cream, and beat until frosting is fluffy. If it is too dry, add more cream an ounce at a time until you get your desired consistency. This makes about doble what you will need for the amount of cake in one recipe, so next time i will double the cake recipe, or do one chocolate and one vanilla batch.

Fit a pastry bag (or ziplock with a corner snipped off...you know, same difference) with a coupler & large star tip. Get a tall glass (insert plug for our favorite pub here), and place bag inside, turning the sides out and down the glass. Then fill the lined cup with frosting, this is just an easier way to fill the pastry bag.

Once the cakes have completely cooled on a wire rack, use the pastry bag to pipe desired amount of filling onto bottom side of one cake, and top with another cake!

Don't forget to let the 6-year-old try her hand at filling some of them.


And ENJOY!

Thanks for reading!