Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

A BIG hello to my fellow sweet eaters!!!!!! Once again it's the most yummy day of the week.....

TREAT YOUR SWEET TOOTH TUESDAY!!!

This week's dessert is just plain FUN!

Save up your calories though because it is mighty delicious!

Am I telling you to skip a meal just to delight in this fluffy piece of heaven?

Yes. Yes I am.

It's like an oatmeal creme pie of steroids!

This week's sugary treat is an absolute must make. But before I give you the directions let me just give some advice after having made these larger than life pies. They turn out HUGE! As I was spreading the frosting and laid them out all pretty on the plate I didn't notice how monstrously large they were. I'm not saying that I couldn't toss one of them back in less than a minute....but it probably would be a tad bit excessive. The recipe only makes six whoopie pies. The next time I make these I will probably attempt to make twelve small pies. It might even be adorb to make 18 mini whoopie pies!

Ingredients:
*1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter (1 stick melted, 1/2 stick softened)
*1 cup packed brown sugar
*2 large eggs, at room temperature, slightly beaten
*1 cup canned pumpkin puree
*1 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice
*1 1/2 tsp vanilla
*1 tsp baking powder
*1 tsp baking soda
*3/4 tsp plus 2 pinches salt
*1 2/3 cups flour
*4 ounces cream cheese, chilled
*1 cup confectioner's sugar


Directions:


1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with waxed paper


2) In a large bowl, whisk together the melted butter and brown sugar until smooth. Whisk in the eggs, pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice, 1 tsp vanilla, baking powder, baking soda and 3/4 tsp salt. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the flour.

Pumpkin spice: my new love

Creamy and delicious

3) Using an ice cream scoop, drop 12 generous mounds of batter, spaced evenly, onto each baking sheet. Bake until springy to the touch, about 12 minutes (if you make smaller pies cut the time in half) Transfer to a rack to cool completely (I skipped this step because the cookies just peeled away nicely from the waxed paper after cooling)

4) Meanwhile, using an electric mixer, cream the softened butter with the cream cheese. Add the confectioner's sugar and the remaining 2 pinches and 1/2 tsp vanilla; mix on low speed until blended, then beat on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes.


5) Spread the flat side of 6 cakes with the cream cheese frosting and place another cake on top to make your whoopie pie!

So light and fluffy

Eat them soon because they are tastier right out of the oven after cooling and frosting. On the frosting front, I think it would also be fun for Halloween to use some orange food coloring for the frosting! Here's my confession. After I whipped up the frosting I was so sure that it couldn't possibly be enough.....so I doubled the amount of frosting. It turns out that Rachel Ray knows what she's talking about and I don't. I had a lot left over and ended up really stuffing those puppies full of frosting. Amazing frosting....but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. The hubs was able to inhale half of the pie in two bites. This is after I told him to please not eat the cakes cooling on the counter. I was pretty impressed when I returned from a walk to find all twelve cakes still intact. This treat got the best reaction so far from him. I had plenty of taste-testers for this recipe because I took the six monster pies to the fish fry at Nanny's house on Sunday night. We each ate a fourth of one pie if that tells you how big they are.

Just one last little tid bit and I'll quit my rambling....

.....as I was browsing the aisles for my ingredient list this weekend I was stumped when I saw "pumpkin spice" was one of the items. Who the heck has heard of pumpkin spice? Not this girl. I did happen to find one lonely container in the very back of the shelf....and thank goodness because I'm convinced that pumpkin spice was sent straight from heaven for our tastebud's enjoyment. WOW!!!!

Oh yeah, and one more thing.....ENJOY!!

GOT MOTIVATION?