Daring Bakers! Chocolate Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies

The December Daring Bakers' Challenge had us all cheering - the lovely and talented Bourbonnatrix of Bourbonnatrix Bakes was our hostess and challenged us to make fun, delicious and creative whoopie pies! Delicious little cake-like cookies sandwiching luscious filling in any flavors we chose... What else is there to say but "Whoopie!"

 I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas, surrounded by loved ones. We had a simple Christmas here, but that's okay. Sometimes simple is best. This house is small, which kind of forces all of us to be together. I have the tendency to want to run off and be by myself, so I'm still trying to find "hiding places", if you will. A kitchen can be a hiding space, but this kitchen is...quite small, like, difficult for more than one person to be in small. Spacewise, it reminds me of a dorm kitchen, but much, much nicer looking. Here, decide for yourself. 

Okay. Realtalk. After this point, when I was writing this post at 10:45 am, something crashed and I lost the rest of what I was writing. It was cutesy, and talked about the origin of whoopie pies, and how Maine holds the record for the world's largest whoopie pie at over 1000 pounds. I have no idea how you would even bake that. Maybe it had lead filling. 

Yeah, yeah, so the challenge was whoopie pies, which was good considering my limited space situation, but I was kind of hoping for something a little more difficult over my winter break, when I generally have access to more resources. C'est la vie. Of course these were tasty, you can't go wrong with chocolate and peanut butter (unless you have a nut allergy, then things could go terribly wrong), but they turned out a little thick for my liking. I prefer this variation. I filled them with a peanut butter frosting I've used in past blog posts, but I'll write it down again here, cause I know how annoying it is to have to flip tabs back and forth. You're welcome. 

Peanut Butter Chocolate Whoopie Pies 

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened  
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar 
1 egg 
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 
2 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly spray cookie sheets with nonstick cooking spray or line with parchment. In large bowl, beat butter and sugar with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add egg and vanilla; beat until well combined.

In another bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add half the dry ingredients into the butter mixture and mix on low speed. When dry ingredients are almost incorporated, stop the mixer and add the buttermilk. Continue to mix on low speed until all ingredients are almost incorporated. Stop the mixer and add the remaining dry ingredients. Mix on low until just combined. Spoon heaping tablespoons of batter onto sheets and flatten a little.

Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the top of the cake springs back when touched. Cool completely before filling. To assemble pies spread filling on one cake and sandwich with another cake. 

Peanut Butter Frosting 

1 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup peanut butter
4 Tablespoons butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup heavy cream

Beat butter and sugar until combined, then add the rest of the ingredients. Beat until frosting has a smooth, fluffy consistency.