Whoopie!
Whoopie pies seem to be everywhere at the moment, so I thought I’d add to the fun. Although not commonplace here in NZ yet, red velvet is slowly growing in popularity. Seemed like the perfect flavour to experiment with, so here you have it folks:
Red velvet whoopie pies!
I used a recipe from Annie’s Eats for these, though didn’t make love heart shaped ones. That’s a bit icky.
For my first home made red velvet, and my first home made whoopie pies, I must say I did brilliantly. I’m totally cool. Really, I am.
The first thing I did was pour myself a glass of bubbly and read over the steps (important step folks, always do this with a new recipe!).
Then the awesomeness happened:
Red velvet whoopie pies
For the cookies:
2 cups plain flour
2 T cocoa powder
½ t baking powder
¼ t salt
8 tbsp (113.4g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 large egg
1 t vanilla extract
½ cup buttermilk, at room temperature (remember to shake before pouring!)
26ml red food coloring
For the frosting:
230g cream cheese
5 T unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 t vanilla extract
2½ cups icing sugar, sifted
Preheat the oven to 190C.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or a hand mixer), cream together the butter and brown sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
Always measure the butter! Baking is a science people!
Beat in the egg until incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Blend in the vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, beat in about a third of the dry ingredients, followed by half of the buttermilk, beating each addition just until incorporated. Repeat so that all the buttermilk has been added and then mix in the final third of dry ingredients. Do not overbeat. Blend in the food coloring.
Transfer the batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large plain round tip. Pipe the batter onto baking paper. Bake 7-9 minutes or until the tops are set, rotating the baking sheets halfway through. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheets at least 10 minutes, until they can be easily transferred to a cooling rack. Repeat with any remaining batter. Allow cookies to cool completely before proceeding.
To make the cream cheese frosting, in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment beat the cream cheese and butter on medium-high speed until well combined and smooth, about 2-3 minutes. Mix in the vanilla extract. Gradually beat in the icing sugar until totally incorporated, increase the speed and then beat until smooth.
Transfer the frosting to a clean pastry bag fitted with a plain, round tip. Pair the cookies up by shape and size. Flip one cookie of each pair over so that the flat side is facing up. Pipe frosting onto the flat-sided cookie of each pair, leaving the edges clear. Sandwich the cookies together so the flat sides are facing each other and press gently to help the filling reach the edges. To store, refrigerate in an airtight container.
Here’s something I learnt making these….the step where it says “use a piping bag” to put the mixture onto the cooking tray? Yep, really important. There was enough for two trays with the mix, and the first lot I just used a spoon. This caused me to put too much on and ended up with big pies. Second tray I used the piping bag and they looked way better. Use the piping bag folks. I make the mistakes so you don’t have to…
Enjoy!
