Hey all, it’s Alexis. Today I found my first comment on the beef stew recipe! Oh man, that was exciting. After I finished doing a victory dance, I went oh crap, now I need to get my butt in gear and post some recipes! So this next recipe is from the beginning of October when we were having an open house for the group. The open houses are a chance for new graduate students could come and visit us and see what kind of research we do and spend some time getting to know the current group members. Since we were trying to coax some students to join our group I thought I should be on my baking “A game”. Because if they weren’t a hundred percent sold by the research at least they would know that deliciousness happens in our group and it is the place to be. Also Lena and I had just been to the apple orchard so I had a few pounds of apples that I needed to use up. These things put together got me thinking that apple whoopie pies with cream cheese frosting are what I should make.
Whoopie pies are kind of little cake sandwiches. I have made a pumpkin version before and so going to apple wasn’t straying too far. This particular recipe was adapted from Taste of Home and was ok. I think the oil flavor comes out a little strong and would try to substitute some of the oil out for applesauce in the future. Also I thought the apple flavor could have been stronger…but the whoopie pies were the first dish to go and people came back for seconds so overall I guess it was still pretty tasty. Plus it is a really simple and quick recipe that will please the crowd.
Apple Whoopie Pies
Ingredients:
4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 tsp cinnamon, plus ¼ tsp for dusting
1 ½ tsp nutmeg
2 ½ cups dark brown sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 cups peeled and grated apples
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp white sugar for dusting
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (163 degrees C). Combine ¼ tsp of cinnamon and 2 tbsp of white sugar and set aside.
- Combine the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.
- In a separate bowl mix together brown sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla. Once that is thoroughly combined stir in the apples.
- Mix in the dry ingredients.
- Drop rounded tablespoons onto a cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes. The cake will spring back and should pass the toothpick test.
- After the cakes are completely cool, find two pieces that are roughly the same size and sandwich with a healthy dollop of cream cheese frosting! If you want to jazz it up a little bit add a few tablespoons of cinnamon to your cream cheese frosting before sandwiching and making the whoopie pies.
- Dust with the cinnamon and sugar mixture and enjoy.
So there are a few adjustments that I would make to the recipe in the future but overall they were enjoyed. In fact I am not even sure I got one at the open house. Good thing I had snitched some while I was making them! Hmmm…now I am thinking what other flavors of whoopie pie can I make? There is the classic chocolate…but what about sweet potato with a brown sugar frosting? Could be pretty tasty.