I talked about whoopie pies almost exactly a year ago, and oh the difference a year makes!  In that time, whoopiee pies have become the "it" dessert among food bloggers, and are aimed to surpass cupcakes as the fashionable dessert of choice across the land.

Whoopie pies still aren't very common here in the Northwest, and I often find myself explaining them.  I say that they are what the Oreo cookie is distantly referencing.  And some people understand the "homemade Moon Pies without a chocolate coating" reference.  Not that Moon Pies are terribly easy to obtain out here, but still.

Last weekend I made a batch of whoopee pies, or whoopie pie-like objects at any rate.  A big part of the appeal of the whoopee pie is that it is so flexible.  Both the cookie part and the filling can be made from just about anything you can imagine.  The variations are literally limited only by your imagination, your patience, and the items you have at hand.  (Matcha whoopie pie with white chocolate filling!  Pumpkin whoopie pie with maple cinnamon cream cheese filling!)

Personally, I was short on patience, and the only items I had on hand were a box of cake mix and a tub of vanilla cream cheese frosting.  Pre-packaged, both!  (And don't tell, but I had bought both items on sale ages ago, for about a dollar each, and stockpiled them against just such an occasion.)  Oh the shame!  But truthfully, they were delicious.

At its simplest, just put together the cake mix as you ordinarily would.  Instead of pouring it into a cake pan, drop the mix in fat globs on a cookie sheet.  I recommend ungreased if possible - when I greased a sheet, it caused the mix to spread out too fast, and my cookies ended up very thin.  Many people bake them successfully on parchment paper, but I have ethical (such a waste!) and frugal (that stuff ain't cheap) objections to baking on parchment.  Either way, bake them at 400 degrees for 6-8 minutes.  

Spackle these babies together face-to-face with frosting, and have a couple shots of insulin on hand just in case.  As you might expect, you have to wait for the cookies to cool completely before you frost them.  That won't prevent you from frosting two together and eating them fast as the frosting melts and the whole thing turns into a goopy sticky mess, of course.  It just means I get to say "I told you so" afterward.

Although the traditional whoopie pie is made with chocolate cookies, red velvet is another popular variation.  The truly ambitious bakers whip out a pastry bag and pipe the icing onto the cookie, to give it that beautiful "I'm ready for my close-up" allure.  Then they post the pictures to TasteSpotting, for all to envy.  

Whoopie pies are messy, even if you make them small and dainty.  They also don't keep well once they have been assembled.  If I needed a batch to travel, I would probably try to bring the cookies and frosting separately, and assemble them on site.

Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user joyosity