Halloween Whoopie Pies

Being home from college means an opportunity to bake for my favorite holiday! I made pumpkin whoopie pies last year, so this year I’m just making traditional ones, colored black and orange. Halloween sprinkles/nonpareils optional.

Have you ever written something down and then read it completely wrong, even though you wrote it? That’s what happened when I was making the cake portion of the pies. I didn’t do the steps in order and the batter came out completely lumpy and unappetizing due to me mixing the cocoa with the flour and then the coffee-water mixture with that. What were you thinking, brain? Granted, this isn’t my usual recipe for whoopie pies, and we didn’t have the full amount of brown sugar the recipe calls for, but oh well. My mom had one and says they taste good. I’m sure the amazing filling makes up for my cake mistake. Seriously. Try not to eat the whole bowl of that stuff before you fill the whoopie pies. It was hard for me not to.

Halloween Whoopie Pies
For the cake:

• 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 cup dark cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup hot coffee (I used espresso powder mixed with water)
• 1/2 cup hot water
• 2 cups light brown sugar, packed
• 3/4 cup canola oil
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1-2 tablespoons black food coloring (depends on how dark you’d like your cake to be)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.

In a large bowl, add cocoa powder. Pour the hot coffee and water over the mixture and whisk thoroughly until powders are completely dissolved.

In another medium bowl, mix together the canola oil and light brown sugar. Add this to the cocoa mixture and whisk until combined. Add the egg, vanilla, and buttermilk, and food coloring and whisk until smooth.

Gently fold the flour mixture into the cocoa mixture with a rubber spatula. Add the food coloring until the batter is as black as you want it. (If you’re using liquid food coloring and the batter becomes too runny, add about 1/8 cup flour.)

Either use a medium ice cream scoop or piping bag fit with a large round tip to measure out the cookies. Release or pipe 2” rounds onto baking sheets, 1 inch apart.

Bake 8-10 minutes, rotating pans halfway through, until the cookies crack slightly on top and spring back in the center when gently pressed. Let cool completely, then remove from sheet with a spatula.

For the filling:

• 1 1/2 cups marshmallow Fluff
• 1 1/4 cups vegetable shortening
• 1 cup confectioners sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• red and yellow food coloring (optional)

Add all ingredients to bowl and mix together. Add food coloring until filling is a noticable shade of orange. Scoop mixture into empty freezer back. Snip one corner off bag and pipe the frosting onto 1/2 of pie. Sandwich to make complete pie.

Halloween Oreo Cheesecake Brownies

I got the chance to bake I was at my mom’s house, picking up a few things. I had to make something for Halloween, since I do every year, and with all the Halloween Oreos I’ve been eating, I figured I might as well incorporate them into something.

Notes: The oreos I took cream out of were the ones that went in the batter. Instead of “coarsely chopping” them, I crushed them in a plastic bag with a rolling pin, until they were pretty much just crumbs, about the consistency of sand. I left a few with cream, chopped into about 1/8in bits to crumble on top before I put them in the oven.

Halloween Oreo Cheesecake Brownies

• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 cup dark cocoa
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
• 3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/3 cups coarsely chopped Halloween Oreo cookies (about one row from a package)

Preheat oven to 350° F. Cover an 8x8 baking pan with tinfoil (this will make lifting the brownies out easier when they’re cool) and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Whisk until combined and set aside.
Melt the butter in a small saucepan, over medium heat. Whisk in sugar and bring to a boil, whisking frequently; boil for 1 minute. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes.

Take the cream out of about six Oreos. In a small mixing bowl, using a mixer on medium speed, beat together cream cheese, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, and Oreo cream until well combined, about 1 minute.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, until combined. Whisk in melted butter-sugar mixture until combined. Stir in flour mixture until just combined, followed by Oreo cookies.

Spread half of brownie batter into baking dish, followed by cream cheese layer; dot the top with remaining brownie batter, and spread evenly, as best as you can. Run a knife through batter to make “swirls”.

Bake for 23-28 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out semi-clean.
Cool on a wire rack to room temperature before slicing.

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

October and December are probably two of my largest baking months. I try to make as many Halloween or Christmas themed desserts as possible. Halloween is my favorite holiday, after all. Pumpkin is my mother’s favorite flavor of anything, ever (I personally hate it). She’ll eat anything pumpkin, and we have to stock up on as many cans of pumpkin puree as possible while it’s in season, in case she craves it in the middle of June. Whoopie pies are also one of her favorite desserts. So for Halloween, I decided I’d decorate them with ganache to look like Jack o’Lanterns. I’ve heard chocolate and pumpkin is a good combination, but I don’t know. My mother didn’t seem to especially like it, and if I ever do it again, I’ll probably make white chocolate colored yellow to decorate them.

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• ½ tsp ground fresh nutmeg
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1 cup canola oil
• 3 cups chilled pumpkin puree
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare to baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and spices. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, whisk sugars and oil together. Add the pumpkin puree and whisk to combine thoroughly. Add the eggs and vanilla and whisk until combined.
Gradually add flour mixture over the pumpkin mixture and whisk until completely combined.
Using a large pastry tip of your choice, pipe the dough onto the prepared baking sheets, about 1 inch apart.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the cookies are just starting to crack on top and a toothpick inserted into the center of a cookie comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool completely on the pan while you make the filling. They will look more like mini cakes then cookies, so don’t panic about that.

Filling

• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 cup marshmallow fluff
• 1 tbsp vanilla

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter until smooth with no visible lumps. Add the fluff and beat until combined.
Add the powdered sugar and vanilla and beat until smooth. Be careful no to overbeat the filling, or it will lose structure.

Chocolate Ganache (to decorate)

• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 4 tablespoons heavy cream, at room temperature

In a double boiler, heat chocolate and heavy cream. Stir together until melted and combined. Pipe or drizzle over tops of whoopie pies.

Candy Corn Cupcakes

Halloween being my favorite holiday, I make a lot of themed desserts during the month of October. I love the idea of rainbow cake, so I thought, why not make a cake the colors of candy corn? I actually don’t really like candy corn (which is why I spent days looking for candy corn Hershey’s kisses), but it’s one of the most traditional Halloween candies.

To make these, I just used a plain white cake recipe (here's one) and divided the batter in half, coloring one half with red and yellow food coloring to make orange, and yellow food coloring for the other half. Before cooking, I placed the yellow batter on the bottom, and the orange on top, making sure they didn't mix.

The frosting is just vanilla buttercream, but you can use whatever frosting you like, especially since white cake doesn't taste like much to begin with.

Easy Vanilla Buttercream Frostingyields enough to frost a dozen cupcakes

• 1 cup (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2½ cups sifted powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Using the wire whisk attachment of your stand mixer, whip the butter on medium-high speed for 5 minutes, stopping to scrape the bowl once or twice. Reduce the speed to low and gradually add the powdered sugar. Once all of the powdered sugar is incorporated, increase the speed and add the vanilla, mixing until incorporated. Whip at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes, scraping the bowl as needed.