Whoopie Pies with Mint Filling and Chocolate Ganache

Date Prepared: 01/15/11

Source: bon appétit magazine, January 2011, p.103

Whoopie Pies with Mint Filling and Chocolate Ganache
Picture taken by D. Detrick

*Recipe:

cookies
2 Cups all purpose flour
5 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/8 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 unsalted butter (optional replacement: nonhydrogenated solid vegetable shortening)
1 cup sugar
2 large egg yolks
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup whole milk

mint filling
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter (optional replacement: nonhydrogenated solid vegetable shortening)
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 Cups plus 3 tablespoons powdered sugar
1/4 cup egg whites
3 to 4 drops green food coloring

chocolate ganache
3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chips
Serves: 15

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 375F. Line 2 large rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and baking soda into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat shortening, sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla in large bowl until well blended, about 2 minutes. Add flour mixture in 3 additions, alternately with milk in 2 additions, beating until blended after each addition.

Drop dough by very rounded tablespoonfuls onto prepared baking sheets, spacing 3 inches apart. Bake 1 sheet at a time until cooks are slightly puffed and spread but are still soft, 8 to 10 minutes. Cool on sheets 10 minutes. Carefully transfer cookies to racks and cool completely. Repeat with remaining cookie dough.

Using electric mixer, beat butter, peppermint extract and vanilla extract in large metal bowl until blended. Add powdered sugar, egg whites, and pinch of salt; beat until light and fluffy. Add food coloring drop by drop for desired shade of green; beat until well blended. If mixture looks curdled, place bowl over low heat several seconds and beat until smooth.

Bring cream to simmer in heavy saucepan. Remove from heat. Add chocolate; whisk until smooth. Cool until lukewarm but spreadable (i.e. ganache).

Spoon 1 teaspoon ganache onto flat side of half cookies. Place cookies, ganache side up, on prepared baking sheet. Spoon mint filling into pastry bag fitted with medium star tip. Starting at outer flat edge of remaining cookies and working toward the center, pipe mint filling in spiral. Place 1 cookie with mint filling together with 1 cookie with ganache, creating Whoopie pie.
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Difficulty: Easy - This recipe is relatively straightforward. The extent of the difficulty lays in making sure the cookies are uniform in size and remain soft when cooked.

Accessibility: Common - The ingredients for this preparation should be readily available at your basic grocery store.

Visual Appeal: The finished product looks very basic. The picture that accompanies the actual recipe looked a bit more enticing than the one in this review. The dark color of the cookie and bright green of the mint filling provides a good contrast. The size of the cookies I made resulted in a large pie and somewhat "clunky." Reducing the size to half dollars might make the presentation a bit cleaner.

Overall Taste: Again, nothing too overwhelming. The use of the mint extract is restrained enough to allow for an enjoyable flavor and combination with the soft cookie and the slight bitterness of the chocolate ganache.

Overall Experience: Whoopie pies seem so basic and the name makes them seem so much less distinguished than, say, a French macaroon. The preparation was simple enough without the need for any special or additional tools. The use of a makeshift piping bag and the basic piping is exciting (for me) and makes me feel the recipe is a bit more complex than it, perhaps, is. Mint and cocoa are favorable aromas to "stink up" the kitchen. Most importantly, the recipe was enjoyed by friends, friends of friends, and myself. It might not be a recipe that I would add to me book as an everyday dessert but it would be one to pull out when trying to impress guests.

Additional Notes: There are a couple deviations I would likely make if preparing this recipe again. First, I would omit the green food color and add fresh chopped mint to the filling. The artificial green color is never terribly appealing to me, even if it is recognizable. Second, I noticed that some of the chocolate chips did not melt completely, which provided some crunch to the otherwise soft pastry. Future preparations would include the addition of coarsely chopped chocolate chips or mini chips between the ganache and mint filling.

*The recipe and instructions for this recipe have been reported to maintain the original instruction and is not an original recipe and belongs to the source indicated. This post has been prepared as a review only and with no intention to take credit for this recipe. This recipe has been reviewed without instruction or influence by the parties or companies mentioned therein.