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September 07, 2010

Learning to cherish my failures: faux (but delicious) ice cream whoopie pies


I wanted to make whoopie pies. More precisely ice cream filled whoopie pies. I had never made whoopie pies before and, as usual, I just looked around the web and in my books, looking for a convincing recipe. I found thousands of them and all different from each other. So I came up with mine.

Or at least I tried. At first, the disaster! The batter was obviously too liquid and the result was that the whoopie pies once in the oven lost completely shape. Here is the proof…they totally look like flat pancakes!


But I decided not to give up on them! I added some flour hoping that would help them keep their shape and it seems it worked. The second batch was better. They were still weird though. I don’t think whoopie pies are supposed to have the texture of a sponge cake, do they? Well, mine were like tiny sponge cakes L Don’t take me wrong, they were good and still pretty cute. I made them coffee flavored with vanilla ice cream filling. The contrast of tastes was very good. But still, I don’t think I can call these “whoopie pies” and cross them out of my wish-to-bake-soon list. 

Do you guys have any suggestion or family recipe for fools proof whoopie pies? I would love to hear about it!

Note: the first few totally unshaped whoopie pies were eaten just like that….plain or with some ice cream on a side. I'm learning to love my failures J



Fake whoopie pies
Ingredients

210 gr (1 and 2/3 cups or 7.5 oz) all purpose flour
5 gr (1 tsp) baking powder
1 gr (1/4 tsp) salt
1 gr (1/4 tsp) baking soda
85 gr (6 tbsp) unsalted butter
200 gr (1 cup or 7.1 oz) sugar
3 large eggs
1 ml (1/4 tsp) vanilla extract
80 ml (1/3 cup or 2.6 fl oz) milk
60 ml (1/4 cup or 2 oz) coffee (espresso)
vanilla (or other flavor) ice cream

Preheat the oven to 375F degrees and prepare two baking pans with parchment paper.

Sift the flour, the baking powder, the salt, and the baking soda together and set aside.

Beat the butter and the sugar in medium bowl until you obtain a light and fluffy cream. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Mix the coffee, the vanilla and the milk together and add to the batter in thirds, alternating with the flour mixture, until combined.



Spoon the batter on the baking pan and bake for about 10 minutes, or until the edges start to get golden.

Cool them on a cooling rack. Before spreading the ice cream, put them in the freezer for about 15 minutes so that they get hard enough to make the spread easier. Keep in the freezer until it’s time to serve them.

Have a sweet day.

12 comments:

  1. Great concept! I bet even though they were not what you expected they were still very tasty :o)

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  2. Sara, just because something does not look the way we expected, does not mean they didnt taste great. A for effort. And i am sure when you make them again they will work a treat. Yumm.

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  3. I love whoopie pies.. I have a lemon flavored whoopie pie recipe on my blog if you wanna check it out- they've been fab everytime! And CONGRATS ON TOP 9!!!

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  4. I have to admit I've never actually had a whoopie pie! My kids love the name, but I haven't a clue what is "right". Yours look great though!

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  5. Thank you all ladies. These guys (whatever I should call them) were indeed pretty good. And Evan, I bookmarked your lemon whoopie pie recipe so one day I will be able to cross whoopie pies out of my list :) Thanks! Kim: I also love the name and still don't know what they are! I just know they are not what I've made :)

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  6. I've made whoopie pies many years ago with a recipe that someone gave me. Way back then (some 30 yrs. ago), I was a little skeptical about the recipe but I made it and I was so surprised it turned out perfect. They were delicious. My recipe is somewhere in my paper- recipe archives and if I can find it I will share it with everyone.

    You can't go wrong with a tried and true recipe.

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  7. I am terrible with failure but these look like they turned out OK. We need to find a way to have you send some of these goodies our way!

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  8. Isn't there also some sort of piping trick to getting them rounded? I swear I saw it somewhere. Either way, I would have eaten these. Sometimes ugly food is the best food so pffft.

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  9. Wish I could help but I've never been a whoopie pie person (I know, I'm just weird). Yours look really good, I think.

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  10. Ha, I just found this on Google images after failing at a batch of whoopie pies (even though I have made them lots of times before!). They should have the texture of cake so don't worry, but they usually rise a little more.

    In terms of fool-proof recipes, I made carrot cake whoopie pies from this book http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0224086790/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1X36AVA25A8JH3WQJ2MQ&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=467128533&pf_rd_i=468294 and they turned out perfectly with very little effort. They were absolutely delicious too!

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  11. Thanks for the suggestion Sara!

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