Posted on June 15, 2008
Filed Under Cookies and bars
My Father’s Day post I had planned didn’t really happen then, but Happy Belated Father’s Day anyway. Especially to the father of my daughters. And also to my own father.
I’ve got good memories growing up. Dad spent alot of time with us, from laying on the floor playing games with us to taking the family out on the boat multiple times a week in the evening in the summer. Dad taught us children how to play chess when we were pretty young. He’d take off his queen AND give us hints. As we got older, the hints stopped and eventually the queen came back on, and we could even beat him sometimes. We went boating and picnicking on islands and fishing alot too. I grew up here among the many lakes in the northwoods and a boat was almost as important to own as a car, in our opinions. At a certain age, Dad stopped taking the fish off of our hooks and said we were old enough to do it ourselves. I don’t remember exactly what age that was (maybe 9 or 10 yrs old), but whenever it was is when I started mostly just going along fishing for the ride and not getting my pole out. I missed seeing my bobber jerk underwater and feel the tug on the line, but it was worth giving up not to have to take a fish off the hook! His storytelling ability is amazing and kept us very entertained and wide-eyed growing up… especially the stories involving his horse Dusty and the stories about their one-of-a-kind neighbor. Oh, and one other thing, not alot of people grew up with yearly Donald Duck renditions by their dad of the “Happy Birthday to you” song. 
Another thing about Dad is that he loves whoopie pies. Every year for his birthday, Mom would make him whoopie pies and at least one year, she made a whoopie pie cake. It was huge (maybe about 12″ across) and looked exactly like a whoopie pie. I haven’t made whoopie pies for years, but I did just lately. I was so disappointed that they didn’t turn out like Sheila’s OR Julia’s… the 2 people that I consider to be whoopie pie queens. But oh well, they were good anyway.
Not sure why this picture has a lavendar hue! ????
Ever wonder why whoopie pies are called whoopie pies? I didn’t really wonder it until Lexi wondered it and started questioning me like I’d just automatically know. It’s like 3 desserts all in one… they taste like chocolate cake with frosting, but you bake them like cookies, and they’re called pies! Maybe it’s one of those things that will forever be a mystery… try explaining that to a 5-yr-old! Her world is full of questions and she’s not satisfied with no answer.
Whoopie pies …recipe taken from the Tasty Favorites cookbook (Pleasant Grove Mennonite Church)
2 cups sugar
1 cup shortening
2 eggs
3/4 cup cocoa
2 tsp. soda
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup hot water
1 cup sour milk or buttermilk
4 cups sifted flour (sift?! Does anyone out there sift?)
Mix and drop by teaspoonfuls (I did more like 2 Tablespoonfuls) on cookie sheet. I spread them out a little so they wouldn’t be so thick. I don’t like thick whoopie pies… too much cake.
Bake at 400 for 8 minutes. I baked it for 7 minutes.
Filling:
2 egg whites
2 Tbsp. vanilla
4 tsp. flour
4 tsp. milk
2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup Crisco
Beat egg whites until stiff. Add vanilla, flour milk, and powdered sugar. Beat and cream, then add Crisco. Spread filling on bottom side of one cookie.
Top with another cookie. Yield: 66 cookies (33 sandwiches) Here you go, Dad… I wish you could just pick one off the screen!
This recipe tasted great, but I had a couple problems with it. The filling didn’t get white. It was a light tan. Do you think the vanilla is a misprint? Should it be teaspoons? Everything else in the filling is white except the Crisco I used is yellow, so I think it was mainly the vanilla’s fault that it got tan. The other problem I had was that the cookie part made 5 1/2 dozen cookies, which made 33 sandwiches, but the filling was gone after 24 sandwiches. And it was none too thick, either. So, next time, I’d either make 1.5 times the amount of filling or do what I did this time… filled the leftover cookies with ice cream.
That was good! They tasted like ice cream sandwiches!
On a different note: I won’t be posting on here much at all this week… we have Summer Bible School at church Monday – Friday and I’m teaching the nursery class (4-yr-olds), so that’s where I’ll be during the day. Then, the rest of the time I’ll be trying to keep up with the laundry, cleaning, etc. around here. Some wonderful ladies from church who aren’t teaching offered to make suppers, so I’ll probably be doing little cooking this week. I will be making rice crispy treats for snack time at Bible School though.
Comments
12 Responses to “Whoopie Pies”
The girls would love these. Mom used to make them all the time at home. I love your tribute to your Dad, sounds like fun stories growing up. Someday you’ll have to do a book for your own family.
We are big whoopie pie fans here. I haven’t made them in awhile, but they never last long around here. These look good. I don’t like the thick ones either.
I think the best part of a whoopie pie is the fluffy filling so I always make 1.5 recipes of that for every one recipe of the cookies and I load ’em up!
I use the recipe from the original Basics cookbook which calls for 1 T. of vanilla (but I have “tsp” penciled in). It also calls for 4 T. each of flour and milk and 4 C. pwd. sugar to 1 1/2 c. Crisco. I wonder if the butter Crisco wasn’t part of the reason for the tan colored filling. When you have time you could make them again with reg. Crisco and try clear vanilla and report on the difference. 
Have a good week with those energetic 4 year olds!
I blogged about whoopie pies when I made them back in April. They are a huge hit at my house. When I was getting ready to post, I researched a bit about the origin of the name. I didn’t really find a straight forward answer (see link below)
http://thecuttingedgeofordinary.blogspot.com/search?q=whoopie
My recipe came from Leites Culinaria and made 24 pies. (48 tops and bottoms with more than enough filling). My filling only called for 1 TEAspoon of vanilla. That might be where you got the brown filling. You can buy clear vanilla, but for just one recipe, it probably isn’t worth it. Mine also look smaller than yours (I’m just judging by how big they look in your hands), so that might be the reason for running out of filling. I just might have to make whoopie pies again, your post is making me crave them now!
I’ve been lurking on your site since finding it linked on Cookie Madness a few months ago. Your stuff always looks yummy!
I recently went on a rice krispy treats binge and made a bunch of different kinds. You can look at my blog and see some different ones, if you’d like. Choc/PB, Red/white/blue, Strawberry/Banana. The possibilities are endless.
Have fun.
http://www.kevnkoi.blogspot.com
Whoopie pies were a fav of mine, as a kid–I should try them w/ my kids now…..
As for the icing-here are my thoughts–yellow crisco can taint the color and I think 2 TBSP is A LOT of vanilla….AND, if you made your cookies thinner–that means that you’re going to have more cookies to fill, so, therefore, you’d need more icing (b/c even though the cake part is thinner-it’s not like you’re going to go thin on the filling….ya know what I mean?)
Okay-now my tummy is growling….teeehee!! gotta print this out, to take me w/ back “home” when I go visit my family next month.
My son is a fireman and around Christmas he mentioned whoopie pies to them and they were curious so I made some I also made pumpkin ones. They loved them.(Of course they like most anything I send) I heard?? The reason for the name is because a mom made them and the children were excited and yelled “whoopie”. Sounds good enough for me.
i had never had whoopie pies before i met my h.s. sweetheart at age 15, now my husband!
my mother in law made them quite often back then… she would make them for my birthday, not enough time i guess anymore b/c she hasn’t made them for a few years! i have always wanted to try, but been to nervous i would mess them up! our recipe in the church cookbook (bethel mennonite, odon indiana) looks kinda hard… but yours seemed more simplified, or maybe it’s just not intimidating b/c it’s not in a book! haha! but thnaks, i’m def. going to try it soon!!
Yum… Whoopie pies are my favorite cookie! I’ve learned with making frosting for cookies you always have to make more than the recipe says.
Hey, cousin, this website is really cute! My mom told me about it, so this is how I found it. Ahhh, whoopie pies. I have to tell my own whoopie pie story. It was 5 days after Rose’s birth and I was hanging up laundry outside on the washline (which I really should not of been doing at that moment in my life), and this construction worker nearby shouted across his construction fence, asking if I would please bake him some whoopie pies. He said he’d pay for them. And me, being a sucker for money, baked them. And yes, I was severly sleep deprived and not thinking straight. And no, I didn’t make a big profit either. But ahhh, I could eat one right now. By the way, I’m experimenting with homemade pizza. Do you have any recipes for it on this site? I tried to search, but for some reason it didn’t work. Maybe you can direct me to the right link. Thanks!
i haven’t had these in years!
I love whoopie pies!