Mini Pumpkin Whoopie Pies (October Cookie Carnival)
This month’s Cookie Carnival recipe is for pumpkin whoopie pies. When I saw the email, I thought they’d be Pumpkin with a cream cheese filling. I’ve seen quite a few recipes floating around for those. But these are chocolate cookies with pumpkin filling. That way they’re black and orange for Halloween 🙂 The recipe is from Martha and you can even watch her make them with Cookie Monster here.
I’ve never made whoopie pies before so this was fun for me. The chocolate cookie batter is very chocolatey and delicious 🙂 The filling is also great. It only uses 1/4 cup of pumpkin, so it looks like I’m going to be making something else pumpkin-ey soon. I’m looking forward to that! Next time I’ll definitely make a double batch of the filling. I thought the cookie somewhat overwhelmed the pumpkin filling. But overall, these were great and I’ll definitely be making these again. Probably very soon.
Mini Pumpkin Whoopie pies – from Martha Stewart – makes ~20
For the Cookies1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-process)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed dark-brown sugar
1 large egg
1 cup whole milk – I used soymilk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
For the Filling4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/4 cup canned solid pack pumpkin
Pinch of cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg
Prepare cookies: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl; set aside.
Place butter, shortening, and sugars into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on high speed until smooth, about 3 minutes. Add egg; mix until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Mix in half the flour mixture, then the milk and vanilla. Mix in remaining flour mixture.
Drop about 2 teaspoons dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing 2 inches apart. Bake until cookies spring back when lightly touched, 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer baking sheets to wire racks and let cool 10 minutes. Remove cookies from baking sheets and transfer to wire racks using a spatula; let cool completely.
Prepare filling: In the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, whip together cream cheese, butter and confectioners’ sugar on medium speed until smooth, about 3 minutes. Add pumpkin, cinnamon, and nutmeg; whip until smooth, scraping down the bowl as necessary.
Pipe or spoon about 2 teaspoons filling on the flat sides of half the cookies. Sandwich with remaining cookies, keeping the flat sides down.
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
This is the perfect recipe for all of the leftover ingredients I have! Hubby made me buy a 3-pound bag of cranberries because he loves them, but you only use 12 ounces for cranberry sauce so I’ve got about 2 pounds of cranberries left to use, plus lots of pumpkins and pecans. This is definitely being made this weekend!
Oh man. That does sound good. And I know it must be if you’re repeating it because I am the same way. I’m going to make a cranberry maple pecan cake on Friday… but this is really tempting too.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Oh, man! If I only had more time for Thanksgiving dessert table – this is certainly one I would try.
Oooh this cake looks so ooey gooey and delicious! I wish there weren’t already so many desserts coming to my Thanksgiving table because I’d totally make this!
Sues
This looks super delicious and your photos look great too! Happy Thanksgiving to you and hubby!
ooooh, my, i must try this 🙂 happy thanksgiving!!
What a fabulous recipe! All the flavors sound delicious to me.
This looks amazing! It looks so moisty yum, I should try to make this sometime, Love your blog! this is my first comment for you so I thought I’d show some appreciation for your blog, because I’ve been drooling over all your recipes for a while
Shandra-http://shandrita.tumblr.com/
Your photos are beautiful! The pictures I took of the actual cake didn’t look to appealing, the photos I took of the bite sized cake bites looked pretty though lol
Good job!!
What a great recipe! You totally had me at caramel/pecan/cranberry topping.
Just finally made this cake and it is astoundingly good! Truly the best dessert I’ve had in…oh, a very long time. Thank you for your post!
I tried to be good, I really did! This cake was so delicious, I not only had seconds, I had a piece for breakfast the next day and for a snack later that day. This one goes on my Christmas menu!
beantownbaker — December 1st, 2013 @ 6:52 pm
I doubled the recipe this time and you’ll remember the middle didn’t quite bake through. It also spilled over a bit, so next time, I’ll put a pan under the cake in the oven.