Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

Valero Pumpkin Whoopie Pie

I was only returning a redbox at Valero when a pumpkin whoopie pie sign and "limited time only" started all this.Their's was pretty good - the cake was incredibly soft, and lightly spiced with cinnamon but the cream cheese filling was overly sweet. Time to replicate.

I did consider Bobby Flay from his whoopie pie throwdown but he made ginger and I wanted pumpkin. Martha Stewart's recipe had a ton of good reviews and had pumpkin.

I smelt the strong aroma, but decided to overlook it. I should remember this from now on... if you grind your own spice, use less. We only had whole cloves so I had to grind it myself (using the blender) - and there were some bits that didn't grind up to a fine powder so the cake came out spicier than I expected. If it was cinnamon, I would have liked it, but cloves are strong for my taste.

Also, I kept debating whether to use the dark brown sugar. Next time trust my instincts. Dark brown sugar tastes alot like molasses and even though I decided to go with half dark and half light, it still came out strong. The whoopie pies tasted alot like gingerbread cookies, overwhelming the pumpkin flavor.

Over all, the cake is very moist. I put the batter in the fridge to chill and they baked up in great shape. They become even more moist over night.

For the filling: I tried two. Marshmallow vs. cream cheese. First I made the marshmallow and thought it was incredibly fluffy and flavorful from the maple syrup. Then I made Martha's cream cheese filling and added 4 tablespoons of maple syrup.

Because my cookies were quite spicy and molasses-y, the cream cheese was a better pair. It gave it that extra sweetness needed to balance the cloves.

I made these again for a UTSA MSA bake sale, making a few adaptations. I used 4 tablespoons ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, and 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves (already ground). I also used light brown sugar. Now, I can taste the pumpkin. 

You can taste the butter in Martha's frosting, so for the UTSA pies, I used only 1/3 cup butter because I like to taste the cream cheese alittle more.You need to double Martha's frosting recipe. It says it makes 12 whoopie pies but when using a rounded teaspoon to drop the batter, I got 86 cookies (43 whoopie pies).