17 April 2009

Whoopie Pies for Carifta Volunteers

Success!

I hadn't had a whoopie pie before, but the innumerable descriptions and recipes and pictures that have bombarded the culinary creative commons of the internet gave me a pretty good idea. So, of course, I decided to make my own. And, of course, I put my own West Indian (and cheap-skate) twist on it.

:D

So I used the same recipe for my candy molasses cookies, omitting the candy and nuts, adding perhaps just a touch more sifted flour to ensure they were super soft and cakey. Several methods of portioning out the dough (two rounded tablespoons, one rounded tablespoon, using a simple cookie cutter) led me to believe that the best prep for the dough just before it goes into the oven is to round a consistent amount (either 1 or 2 tablespoons, depending on your desired size) into balls in your hands, then pat them down a little bit flat on the cookie sheet. Give them plenty of room, since they spread.

Then I used a very simple recipe for the icing, which made a much larger quantity than my one-egg batch of cookies (so definitely go with the full batch of cookies for the right amount), and added several scrapings (up to a teaspoon, by taste) of fresh nutmeg. Make sure your cookies are completely cooled before spreading and sandwiching the icing.
...that doesn't look like good icing.
...but that does!

Encase them well in plastic wrap, walk two miles to the George Odlum Stadium with whoopie pies in your ever-present blue Peace Corps tote, and deliver them to weary Carifta volunteers.


One last bit of advice: the icing starts to stiffen after a day, so make sure there are people around to gobble them up the day you make them ;)

1 comment:

Karen's Planet said...

oh my gosh Melaney - these look amazing!