Daring Bakers 12-13: whoopie pies

Posted on

IMG_1213

Happy belated Christmas! I’m back here with another Daring Bakers challenge. This time it was whoopie pies! I looove whoopie pies, they’re so fun and yummy, so I was pretty excited about this challenge. Since it’s December, I made something with the holidays in mind: a cute snowflake design I had seen on a whoopie book I have.

IMG_1200

The recipe called for cinnamon and ginger which went great with the theme, but I wanted something different, so I went with lemon and anise. Now, I know you may think you don’t like anise. I thought I didn’t, until I tried these amaaazing anise sticks at school (which I should definitely make and post soon!).

Anyway, the anise flavor on these is subtle, it mostly complements the lemon. So you should give them a try!

IMG_1197

I tried a little trick when making these, since it always annoys me to no end how whoopies have round bottoms that don’t lay flat. So as soon as I took them out of the oven, I put a weight over half of them to flatten the bottoms. It doesn’t have to be very heavy (I used an empty cake pan as you can see).

It worked great :)

IMG_1205

Oh, and you can see the recipe calls for one egg yolk. I didn’t want to make a lot of whoopies, so using just the yolk was the perfect way to downsize the recipe without messing with half eggs, and it also left me with an egg white to use on the filling. Perfect match if you ask me.

IMG_1217

Blog-checking lines: 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!”

Anise and lemon whoopie pies

Recipe by Sabor Pastel
Yield: 12 whoopies

For the cakes:

5 oz flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 oz butter
2.5 oz sugar
1/2 tsp anise seeds
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup + 1 tbsp buttermilk

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
2. Mix and sift together the flour and baking powder; set aside.
3. Using a hand blender, process the sugar and the anise seeds for a couple minutes, to break up the seeds and integrate the flavor.
4. Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
5. Beat in the egg yolk and vanilla extract.
6. Add the flour in 3 additions, alternating with the buttermilk in 2 additions.
7. Shape the whoopies into a lightly greased baking sheet, using a small ice cream scoop.
8. Bake for 12 minutes, or until they spring back when touched.

For the filling:

1 egg white
1 tbsp corn syrup
1 tsp lemon juice
1.5 oz sugar
zest of half a lemon

1. Mix all the ingredients and place on a double boiler over medium heat. Whisking occasionally, cook until the mixture is warm and the sugar is dissolved.
2. Beat until the mixture is white and fluffy, and comes down to room temperature.

For the icing:

1/2 cup icing sugar
1/4 tsp meringue powder
1 1/2 tsp water
1/2 tsp lemon juice

1. Mix all the ingredients together, fill a piping bag with a small round tip, and decorate the tops of the whoopies.


9 thoughts on “Daring Bakers 12-13: whoopie pies

  1. Your whoopies look great! Love the snowflake design! Don’t think I’ve ever had the lemon anise flavor combination, but it sounds yummy! And thanks for sharing that trick for the flat bottoms!

  2. Pingback: Dark chocolate and dulce de leche whoopie pies | Sabor Pastel

Leave a Reply to Rebecca Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

CommentLuv badge