Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

I'm back! Hope you all enjoyed yesterday's post from JenFinn. If you're reading this now, the Blogger gods are smiling at me and have let me schedule my post while I do something highly embarrassing this morning which I may or may not tell you about in the coming weeks. I spent the majority of the day yesterday in bed. I wasn't sick, I just overindulged the night before and decided to have a lazy Saturday, but I don't feel so bad about it since I had cooked a whole spread for Halloween. Here's one of the treats I made for my friends. Whoopie pies have been popping up all over the food blogosphere and of course pumpkin whoopie pies are especially popular right now. These are really easy to make and my friend Tony helped frost them while I got everything else together (thanks honey!). These seemed to go over really well...or else my friends were lying to me. I only made a couple of changes to the original recipe. I used a little less sugar in the cookies and frosting and added a few dashes of cinnamon to the frosting and a little more to the cookies. Hope you are all having a wonderful Sunday. I look forward to bringing you some more treats from the Halloween gathering over the next few days.


Pumpkin Whoopie Pies
(From Sweets By Sarah)

For the cookies:

2 1/4 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 stick butter, softened

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup sour cream

3/4 cup canned pumpkin

For the filling:

6 tablespoons butter, softened

4 ounces cream cheese at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 3/4 cups powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottoms of your baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine the flour, powder, soda, salt and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Set aside. Put the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat for 30 seconds. Decrease the speed to low and mix in the sour cream and pumpkin until just combined. Add the flour mixture and blend until it is incorporated. Drop tablespoons of batter three inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. The batter is thick enough to hold its mound shape on the sheets.

Bake cookies for about 12 minutes, or until the tops are firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cookies comes out clean. Cool the cookies for 5 minutes on the baking sheets before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the frosting:
Put the butter, cream cheese and vanilla in a large bowl and with an electric mixer, beat on medium for about 1 minute until the mixture is smooth and thoroughly combined. Decrease the speed to low and add the powdered sugar in 2 additions and add the cinnamon. Beat until it is incorporated and the frosting is smooth.

Use a thin metal spatula to spread a slightly rounded tablespoon of icing over the flat bottoms of half of the cooled cookies. Press the flat bottoms of the remaining cookies on the cream cheese frosting. Chill until the frosting is firm, about 30 minutes.


Me with some queens at the WeHo Carnivale:

Tony scaring a cute little boy: