Classic Whoopie Pie

Do you remember the last time I made a red velvet cake? There were few times, red velvet whoopie pie recipe came up on the first of the search result page when I googled for the red velvet cake recipes. Then I wondered, what is a whoopie pie? It looks like a macaron or a yo-yo, but edible kind of yo-yo.

Wikipedia describes Whoopie Pie as two round mound-shaped pieces of cake with a sweet, creamy filling or frosting sandwiched between them. Pennsylvania, Maine and New Hampshire claim to be the birth place of the Whoopie Pie.

According to food historians, Amish women would bake these and put them in farmers' lunch boxes. When farmers would find the treats in their lunch, they would shout "Whoopie!" (hence the name). It is also thought that the original Whoopie Pies may have been made from cake batter leftovers.

Whoopie Pie is alternatively called a black moon, gob, black-and-white, bob or Big Fat Oreo ("BFO"). I think I prefer black moon, it sounds cool doesn't it?

Since this was my first time making the Black Moons, I chose the classic Whoopie Pie with marshmallow fluff filling. We don't have marshmallow fluff in the place that I live in at the moment, but I am lucky because I  just bought Marshmallow Fluff when I travelled to Sydney last month. I thought it will comes in handy. And it's true! :D

I was a bit hesitant to be honest, because I have never seen it with my own eyes before. Never tasted it before. So I didn't know what to expect out of these cakes. But I put aside my worries and did my best to follow the recipe to the T.

And Voila!

I think I did ok. The Black Moons were dense, moist and delicious! I am definitely going to make these again.

Chocolate Cupcakes

I was craving for a good chocolate cake last week, so I thought to myself why don't I make one. So I baked my first chocolate cupcakes ever.

To be honest, I am not really a huge fan of chocolate. I can't even eat pure chocolate bars, I found them to be too bitter for me. But I do love chocolate cakes (cupcakes in this case), especially the moist ones.

So I browsed through the Internet for chocolate cake recipes, I found several recipes with good reviews... with eggs and without eggs, with brewed coffee and without the coffee, with buttermilk and just using milk. It was hard to pick which one is right for my taste buds, there are so many variety ways to make chocolate cakes!

So I decided to make my cupcakes from Beatty's Chocolate Cake, I thought what could go wrong with this 5-star rated & 1,500 reviews recipe. And it's true! The cupcakes were moist and delicious! Even though I have trouble with the thin batter but I will sure to refer back to this recipe again for any chocolate cake in the future.

Chocolate Cupcakes

Butter, for greasing the pans (I just used cupcake liners)
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cups good cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup buttermilk, shaken (I don't have buttermilk, I used milk + vinegar instead)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 extra-large eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee (I used instant coffee mixed with hot water)


Directions:
♥ Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line muffin tin with paper liners.
♥ Sift flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add sugar to the dry ingredients in the bowl of electric mixer fitter with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined.
♥ In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla.
♥ With the mixer of low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry.
♥ With mixed still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine (batter will be thin at this stage). 
♥ Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 20-25 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.
♥ Cool in the pans for 5 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting I chose Cream Cheese Frosting. I don't know why I really love cream cheese frosting, I found them to be a perfect match to most type of cakes.

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

1 stick butter
8 oz. cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar (I don't really like too sweet frosting, you can add more sugar if you prefer sweeter taste)
1 to 3 tablespoons heavy cream

Directions:
♥ Place the butter in the mixing bowl beat until fluffy. Add cream cheese and beat until combined.
♥ Add vanilla extract and gradually add powdered sugar whilst tasting it (if it's not sweet enough, feel free to add more)
♥ Slowly add the heavy cream, 1 tablespoon as a time, stop adding the heavy cream when you reach your desired consistency

I chose to make three frosting techniques on my cupcakes with only using 1M tip! For the above picture, the top one was rosette, second one was swirl, and the last one was drop flowers technique. It was surprisingly easy and pretty to look at. I just wish to add colours on the frosting to make it even prettier. ♥