Making Whoopie

So far I have managed to resist the urge to make Whoopie Pies.

Partly, because they are a bit fashionable but also because a lot of the recipes didn’t make sense to me.

Then I saw Mowie’s recipe for red velvet Whoopies with orange buttercream.

Here are the factors that led to me making them:

• I’ve always been a bit intrigued by the American’s love of red velvet cake
• I didn’t know what made red velvet cake red…or velvet
• The recipe made sense
• It only uses 1 egg
• I only had 1 egg
• Mowie manages to make all food look beautiful, I like beautiful food
• I thought they looked good for putting in packed lunches
• It uses buttermilk which I’d read can be replaced with plain yoghurt
• I still have a shedload of Greek Yoghurt
• I was stuck in the house on a rainy day with 3 dogs for company
• I wanted to make something nice for a friend who was having a bad day
• I like cake

I started on my Whoopie based mission, but then had a moment when I couldn’t remember whether baking soda was baking powder or bicarbonate of soda. So in a flash of inspiration I remembered Mowie had just been on Twitter to I twittered him the question.

Luckily he was still online and continued to give me a few tips and confidence about how much ‘red’ to put in. He even confirmed, from a Twitpic that I posted that the mixture looked just how it should.

How fabulous!

I loved having the baker himself on hand to give me help as I was baking. Thanks Mowie.

Oh and by the way, the red is from 1 whole teaspoon of red food colouring paste and I guess the velvet is that they are flavoured with cocoa. I filled mine with a buttercream made with half butter and half Philly cream cheese and I added fresh vanilla bean seeds.

The Whoopie Pies have gone down very well with everyone and fascinated the kids (and teachers) at George’s school when he turned up with them in his lunch bag.

Yay for Whoopie Pies and Live Twitter help!

Here is Mowie’s original recipe: Red Velvet Whoopie Pies.