Peanut butter whoopie pies

Have you ever had a day in which there was no special reason to bake? Maybe you didn’t have all the motivation and enthusiasm in the world? A day in which you just took one of your cooking books, pointed at a recipe and said ‘I will make this.’? I had that kind of day when I made these peanut butter whoopie pies. It was a not-too-special-but-nice-enough day off without much to do for me. So I took one of the newer baking books I have, opened it at a page I marked at some point and decided: this is it. Today, we’ll be making peanut butter whoopies.

Ingredients:

225 self-rising flour

50 grams cocoa powder

250 grams butter
100 grams dark caster sugar

7 grams (1 bag) vanilla sugar

2 eggs

125 ml milk

Peanut butter, powdered sugar and butter

1. Sift the flour and cocoa powder together.

2. Mix the butter with the sugars until creamy.

3. Mix the eggs into the butter, one by one.

4. Add the flour mixture and lastly the milk. Mix until no lumps are left.

5. Use spoons or a pastry bag to make circles on a baking sheet. Flatten the circles a bit. Watch out them too closely together as they will rise and set out a bit.

6. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius or 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake the whoopie pies for about 15 minutes, until fluffy but firm.

7. For the frosting between the cakes I used butter cream frosting I had laying around and added peanut butter. I believe I ended up with 1 part butter cream and 1 part peanut butter mixed.

8. Take two whoopie halves of about the same size and dump a lot of peanut butter frosting in between. 

Okay, perhaps not THAT much! You’ll notice as soon as you take a bite, the frosting will squeeze out from between the layers of chocolaty cake. But no need to worry: this only adds to the joy of eating whoopie pies. These whoopie pies, slightly dry because of the amount of cocoa powder, really made me crave milk. At the same time, the peanut butter filling made me just crave more, especially more peanut butter filling. I’m sure it’s not that strange to want milk after chocolate cakes or to always want more (peanut) butter cream. I really hope you enjoy this fluffy cake with its soft filling, because even on those days that don’t seem special at all little things can make the difference. Just like for me, on that not-too-special-but-nice-enough day off, the knowledge of baking something right and secretly being able to nom one chocolate cake sandwich filled with peanut butter sin after the other made it all worthwhile. Forgive me my language, but I’m pretty sure peanut butter is one of the eight sins.

I hope you enjoy this recipe and, considering the date I’m posting, I wish everyone a Very Happy New Year!!! (may we find many more sins and uncover secret recipe treasures!)