Let’s talk Whoopie Pies! The previous two versions I’ve blogged about were both from Baked: Red Velvet and Pumpkin, both with cream cheese filling. I was interested in trying these ones mostly because of the filling, a Swiss Vanilla Meringue Icing that I’ve always been too intimidated to try before.

They’re notorious for “breaking” and I was nervous it wouldn’t work with my hand mixer. Danielle advised that it should be okay without a stand mixer, so I jumped right in. And….it was gross. For this icing you’re basically making a marshmallow type mixture with egg whites and sugar, and then beating in an obscene amount of butter. I can’t get on board with this. I felt like I was just eating whipped butter. Blah. I think I would love these with an espresso buttercream in the middle or cream cheese icing instead.

The whoopie cookies were great though, rich and chocolatey, helped along by some coffee and espresso powder added to the batter. After pondering this for a while, I realized that these are basically homemade Jos Louis: a lunchbox treat I used to trade for when I was little. They just needed a little dip into chocolate ganache.

One more note: I made a half recipe of these which yielded 12 huge whoopie pies. I would definitely make them smaller next time!

You can find the recipe here!