Double Vanilla Whoopie Pies with Chai Spice Filling

written by Becky

Paired off! Note the "Grande" sized Whoopie Pie... it was featured in the "How to eat a Whoopie Pie" post!

I doubt anyone has really noticed that there is no recipe for the Whoopies that star as our header on this blog. Or that the Whoopie Pies devoured in our “How to eat a Whoopie Pie” post are not discussed anywhere. Well here it is! And it is a good one! Just writing the title of this post makes me want to drool (well almost). I made these Whoopie Pies a couple months back but I had made a couple batches of Whoopies that week and thought I would save this post for a week when we didn’t have a recipe to post. And since the post on Chocolate Mint Whoopie Pies that Courteney promised has yet to arrive, I figure it is time to post about these delightful Whoopies!

These were made to please some of my fabulous friends from the gym. Now some people figure that gym-friends (as I like to call them) may not like to eat since they are so “health-conscience” and fit but that isn’t true at all! Realistically, we LOVE food! And that is why we love the gym: it allows us to love food! (Although there are also some of us that really love working out for lots of reasons on top of the calorie burn!) Anyways, it was a good thing that I set aside a half dozen of these to take to my taste testers at work as otherwise there would be none left! I won’t mention any names but one of my favourite foodie-gym-friend’s kindly requested to take a couple extra home insisting they were for her “son”… I now know it was a ploy to have extra for herself!

Double Vanilla Whoopie Pies

(makes 16 or so)
adapted from Vanilla Whoopie Pies in Whoopie Pies by Sarah Billingley and Amy Treadwell

Adding the extract.

• 2 1/4 all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 2 Tb milk
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 vanilla bean – scraped to remove the vanilla (see a video here) (not totally necessary but it is what makes it “double” vanilla and it is SO incredible!)
  

  Before baking!

1.  Preheat oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder & salt in a bowl
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter for a minute or so and then add the sugars. Continue beating for another couple of minutes until light & creamy. Add the eggs one at a time.
4. Add the buttermilk slowly with the mixer on low.
5. In a small bowl or measuring cup, add the baking soda and then the vinegar to the milk.
6. First mix in about half the flour mixture, then the milk mix, then finally the rest of the flour. Mix in the vanilla and the vanilla bean “scrapings” (I wonder what that inside part is actually called?)
7.  Drop, scoop or pipe about 1-2 Tb of batter onto the baking sheets. Space them well as these cookies spread!
8. Bake 8-10 min or until the cookies just start to brown. Allow them to cool a few minutes before transferring them to a drying rack.

Baked Whoopies! They look so lovely and poofy!

This is the part called "finding your partner" - the outsides of the Whoopie Pies should be about the same size.

Chai Spice Filling

I feel like I should add a comment here about how reliable the filling recipe is: I made these two months ago, I don’t remember exactly what I did for the amount of spices. Sorry! This is a guess… I should have made notes!

• 1/2 cup butter (room temp)
  

  More Cinnamon Please! I love cinnamon so I added more here!

• 4 cups icing sugar
• 1/4 cup boiling water
• 1 chai tea bag
• 3/4 tsp cardamom
• 3/4 tsp ginger
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 1 tsp vanilla

1. Place tea bag into small container with the 1/4 cup water. Allow to steep for as long as you can wait… and allow the water to cool.
2. Whisk together the spices with 1 cup of icing sugar.
3. Beat the butter then add the  1 cup of icing sugar. Add the water steeped with tea and the vanilla.
4. Add the rest of the icing sugar (and more if needed to reach “piping” consistency). Spread between two cookies and enjoy! Mmm…

Adjust the amount of spice to what you like! If you don’t like it as spicy, reduce amounts! If you like one spice better, increase it! I plan on trying to make this filling with the concentrated Chai tea mix but I haven’t tried it yet.

Mountain o' Tasty Whoopie Pies! Double Vanilla with Chai Filling

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