Easy Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

 

 For those of you who don't know, whoopie pies are kind of the humble, more homey cousins of cupcakes--delicious creamy frosting/filling sandwiched by two, big, soft, cake-like cookies. According to Wikipedia:

Amish women would bake these desserts (known as hucklebucks at the time) and put them in farmers' lunch pails or lunch boxes. When farmers would find the treats in their lunch, they would shout "Whoopie!"

I recently saw a recipe for chocolate whoopie pies using a cake mix on Pinterest. Why couldn't I make pumpkin whoopie pies that way? I thought about trying to make my own adjustments but although I am great at following recipes, I don't have a lot of technical know how when it come to formulating my own. A quick google search helped me out.

The batter was easy to make. I just threw all the ingredients into my Kitchenaid and mixed it according to the directions.

 Then I used an ice cream scoop to drop the dollops of batter onto a silpat lined jelly roll pan--nine cookies to a batch.

 When they came out of the oven I transferred them to cooling racks and let them cool completely before filling them with velvety maple cream cheese filling.

 

 

Then I ate one with a cold glass of 2%. Somehow it just seems wrong to me to drink skim milk when I am already consuming so many calories.

 

 

Don't forget to get all the crumbs.

They are big enough and rich enough that you can definitely get by with only half of one.

They were so easy to make and just the pumpkin fix I have been craving. So should I share the recipe?

1 cup pumpkin puree (canned pumpkin)
1/2 cup (one stick) butter, softened
1 spice cake mix (I prefer Duncan Hines)
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
 Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter until fluffy, add in the pumpkin puree and mix just until smooth. Add the cake mix, eggs and milk. Stir until blended. Scrape the sides of the bowl and then mix on medium speed for one minute.
Scoop large dollops of batter onto a Silpat or parchment lined baking sheet, three inches apart. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely on a cooling rack before filling with maple cream cheese filling (recipe below).

1/2 cup (one stick) butter, softened
8oz cream cheese, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons pure maple syrup (or 1/2 tsp maple extract)
1 teaspoon vanilla
Cream butter and cream cheese together. Mix in the powdered sugar half a cup at a time until well blended. Gradually mix in the maple syrup and vanilla. Allow to chill in the refrigerator while your cookies are cooling. When you are ready to assemble the pies, fill a ziploc bag with the filling and snip a corner off the bag to create a pastry bag. Flip half of the cookies over and pipe the filling onto the bottom of  the flipped cookies. Top with  the remaining cookies, gently pressing down on the top cookie until the filling just reaches the edges. Eat them right away or store in the refrigerator. They are fantastic either way.

 

I was pretty bummed when our greyhound climbed up on the table and ate most of them when I left the room after I took my pictures. Actually I was more than bummed, I was mad. All the boys were mad too since they didn't get their share, but they are so easy I will probably give them another go before the season is over.

Since I want to be sure to give credit where credit is due, I used the cake recipe from user stacylu on food.com and the filling recipe from Eat Drink Pretty. You can check out more favorite recipes at All of Our Twists.

Do you have an autumn dessert that you have been craving?