Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

I ♥ the fabric in the background.

Or, 'The Return of the Martha Metricator'.

I don't know about you, but I think both titles have their charms.

This is another recipe that I have been meaning to write about for ages. Truth be told, the reason I haven't done so is that I don't like the photo I took of them, but after the Mushroom Cookies, it seemed like a natural thing to do. Sharing the American recipe love with the rest of the world, I mean.

Whoopie Pies aren't popular at all in the UK. They should be though; they're basically cake sandwiches at the end of the day. And if a cake sandwich cannot be popular in the country that brought you the sandwich in the first place (thank you, John Montagu!), there is something terribly wrong.

I saw Martha make these on television when I was in New York once (I was towelling my hair not really paying attention, and at that point didn't even know who Martha was, but there's only so many times you can hear somebody repeating the word 'whoopie' in an odd voice before you sit up and take notice), and immediately decided to make them for Halloween the following year. Which was this year and also my friend Bridie's birthday - she had the cake stand. More than enough cause for a baking session, I'm sure you'll agree. I don't suggest you wait for such a reason though. Just get in the kitchen and get going right now!

Incidentally, Lynda, who I know reads this (Hi Lynda!), told me when we were staying at her place in Melbourne, that in her neck of the American woods (so to speak... She's not an Aussie), they call these cakes 'Moon Pies'. I think that's a much better name! So that's what I am going to call them from now on.

I halved the recipe by the way. You don't need to feed an army.

Pumpkin Moon Pies

You will need:

200g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp ginger
200g dark muscovado sugar
125ml vegetable oil
400g pumpkin purée (one can - you could just steam and mash a butternut squash, and then weigh 400g of it)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

200g cream cheese
100g icing sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Sift the dry ingredients together. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C. Line a baking sheet.
2. In a large bowl, mix the oil and sugar, using a wooden spoon.
3. Then add the eggs, vanilla and pumpkin, and stir until smooth.
4. Fold in the flour mixture.
5. Using an ice-cream scoop, place dollops of mixture onto the prepared baking sheet, well spaced apart.
6. Bake for about 12 minutes or so, until a tooth pick inserted into the centre of the cakes comes out clean.
7. Cool on a wire rack.
8. When cool, sandwich the cakes together, flat sides facing, with cream cheese frosting, which you make by mixing all of the ingredients together in a bowl until smooth.
9. Eat! They make great sharing food. But I won't judge you for having a whole one to yourself.

I have a problem...

...I'm a pumpkin addict.

I can't stop cooking with them, baking them (just made pumpkin whoopie pies for a birthday), or even buying them. I've tried growing them (I don't talk about that. When they don't ripen it's like a kick when you're already down), and now it seems I even photograph them. Obsessively. I came across this fella in the window of The Yankee Store on Wellfield Road, in (fabulous) Roath, and walked all the way there just to take this picture.

And the minute I saw what Coby, who posts on nigella.com, and blogs here, had done with a cantaloupe melon, I knew I had to put a copy of it here. So creative! I think it's my favourite of all.


Are they not amazing? They are.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Cookies

I'm getting a bit Halloween crazy this year. Considering I'm actually going to be at a concert on Saturday night though, and won't be celebrating by dressing up either, I am giving myself free-reign to do some Halloween baking a tad early.

And more importantly, last year, there was a November sale of Halloween-themed cookie cutters in Rossiters, and I have been waiting a whole year - a whole year - to use them. But I think the wait has been worth it. I had such fun making these! Although, actually, I think I could have made the faces look better. But I'm not going to beat myself up over it. Life is too short for that.

Now, whether you celebrate Halloween or not (most people in Britain see it as a nuisance) is up to you, and I don't mind if you have no intention whatsoever of making cut-out cookies this weekend (although you should). But I'm putting these up here because I think my method of decorating them is the best of all.

I've tried doing it the proper way, as described by Peggy Porschen in her books (which incidentally are the shizzle when it comes to cake decorating - she makes you want to put glitter on everything), beating egg whites and icing sugar to get just the right consistency of royal icing, then adding colour, piping an outline, filling it in, etc. etc... And you know what? It was exhausting. And I hated the results. I couldn't do it neatly enough, because I'm rubbish at piping (A case in point: the faces on these biscuits!)

So when it was my sister's birthday, I changed track and came up with this method to make some New York-themed cookies. And I'm not going back.

The point is, anybody can colour and roll fondant icing. And if you use the same cutter you used to cut your cookie to cut the fondant, you'll have a perfectly sized piece of icing to top it with. Foolproof. There is no need to bother with piping at all.

It's important to use the right biscuit recipe. And that recipe is Peggy Porschen's. It's perfect because it doesn't spread in the heat of the oven, so your fondant cut-outs fit their cookie bases like Cinderella's glass slipper. Her recipe was in the Daily Mail, so I am not going to feel bad about putting a link here. You can still buy her book if you want to!

So here we go. Mr. P's renegade method for cookie decoration. Enjoy! And if you've decorated some cookies for Halloween, please leave a link to them. I'd love to see. Happy Halloween!

You will need:

baked cookies, plus the cutters you used to make them
ready made fondant icing (or marzipan - you get a brighter colour than with fondant)
food colouring paste - available here
icing sugar
jam
sprinkles, tubes of squeezy gel icing and the like (optional)

1. First of all, knead your fondant icing with some food colouring (go easy at first - it's strong). Marzipan will give more vivid colours than icing, but some people don't like it (weirdos). When you're happy with the colour, roll it out on a surface sprinkled with icing sugar. You can make it as thick or thin as you like.
   
2. Wash and dry your cutters if you haven't done so (they might still have crumbs of dough on them - not desirable). Cut as many shapes as you need.
3. Then, heat a few spoons of jam (any flavour) and a few spoons of water in a pan, and pass it through a sieve. This is your glue.
4. Brush the tops of the cookies with jam glue, and carefully place the icing cut-outs on top. Press down gently.
5. Decorate as you like! If you have any annoying white icing sugar left on the surface of your fondant icing, brush with a little boiled and cooled water to dissolve it.

(For the pumpkins, I made some green fondant icing and used the cutter as a template to make stems. But then I remembered I had some green sugar, so used that instead with some more of the jam glue. You are limited only by your imagination! Get busy.)

Halloween Pumpkins!

Couldn't wait any longer. I know it's not Halloween until Saturday, but the pumpkins were so cheap at the market today...

What do you think? I am really proud of him!