4th of July whoopie pie....

Being from Minnesota, I had never had a whoopie pie before visiting Hope in Baltimore in April. They were just the right blend of a cake and cookie combination filled with a frosting like substance but not too sweet. It all adds up to YUM!

When deciding on what to bring to the 4th of July BBQ we attend, festive patriotic whoopie pies seemed like a good fit. Something sweet, but different, an easy finger food with a good party vibe. How hard could they be to make, right?

I found this "authentic" recipe and followed it fairly precisely with the addition of red food coloring so that I would cover the red in red, white and blue. More on that later.

The texture came out perfectly and I was pleased as punch to get it right the first time around!

I went on to use her recipe for the filling as well. It came out a smooth, rich, buttery white and Chloe and I went right to work filling our pies.

We added blue and red sugar around the edges to give it a festive touch. Then it was time for sampling our little treasures. The pie itself was yummy, but the filling had a strong flavor of shortening. It was just too much. After putting them in the freezer for a bit to harden them up, Chloe helped me unwrap each whoopie pie and scrape off the filling. We headed to the store to buy marshmallow fluff to try this filling recipe for our pies since it had quite different ingredients than our first try.

We made another batch of filling and after re-filling each and every whoopie pie we did another taste test. They came out with the perfect! They had a blend of smooth, sweet and rich without tasting too much like frosting.

So this northern girl, with a little trial and error, learned the art of making whoopie.