Chocolate Orange Whoopie Pies

It's not Terry's, it's mine!

The whoopie pie - is it a biscuit or a cake? When I took these into work, the first question everyone asked was, 'What's a Whoopie Pie'? Hmm, its pretty much inbetween a cookie and a cake.... a slightly hard exterior and soft cake-like interior. The best thing is that they're quite small, so you don't feel you are indulging too much. They're typically American, but becoming more common in the UK as with macarons but I don't think they're going to replace the faithful cupcake just yet...

Ingredients for the whoopie pies:-

250g plain flour
1 tsp bicarb of soda
1/2 tsp salt
125g unsalted butter
200g sugar
1 large egg
175ml buttermilk
5tblsp cocoa powder
juice and rind of half an orange

Method:-

Preheat oven to 180°C or gas mark 4.

Line two trays with baking or greaseproof paper.
In a separate bowl, mix together flour, cocoa powder and bicarbonate of soda. Stir in salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat well. Add the grated rind of one orange, being careful not to add the white pithy bits, this doesn't taste pleasant.
Measure the orange juice and buttermilk into a jug and then add half of it to the butter mixture. Slowly add dry ingredients, mixing until just incorporated. Add the remaining buttermilk. Cover and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes. Note: if you don't have buttermilk, you can make it yourself, one tsp lemon juice for every 100ml milk. Leave to sit for about 5-10 mins et voila!

Use a teaspoon or if you have a 4cm ice cream scoop with a trigger (for large whoopies) or a mini scoop or melon-baller (for small whoopies), well, aren't you lucky. One teaspoon full is enough for the smaller pies, thats what I used. Portion out the batter about 5cm apart onto the prepared baking trays.

No rude remarks please!

Bake for on the top shelf for 10–12 minutes. You can tell they are ready when the touch of a finger leaves a slight depression in the cake.

Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

For the buttercream filling:-

75g butter
150g icing sugar
juice and rind of half an orange

Trying to do the presentation thingy #winning?

Decorate with dusted icing sugar.

Enjoy these very more-ish little treats!Beat together the icing sugar and butter and add slowly the juice of one orange and add the rind. Spread a generous scoop of buttercream filling on the flat surface of a cooled whoopie. Top with another whoopie. You could also add the icing on the top of the whoopie pie, but I think that's a bit overkill.