I can’t believe I did an entire year of food blogs last year and never mentioned whoopie pies, other than to note that I’d swim through crocodile-infested water to get one. So this is long-overdue.

I read an article once, claiming that whoopie pies came from some town in upstate New York. This is a lie. Whoopie pies are Pennsylvania Dutch from the top of their over-the-top chocolate cookie-cake to the bottom of their sweet fluffy filling. Only the Pennsylvania Dutch would make a cookie with this much chocolate and sugar, then decide it should be stuck to another cookie with more sugar, whipped into a roux, like some bizarre sweet gravy. Nobody else would then decide that this cookie should be made in vast quantities and provide a recipe that used six cups of flour.

New York…HAH!

Growing up, whoopie pies were the cookie for bake sales. They were a summer cookie. A cookie for farmers’ markets and family picnics. They were one of the things I missed when I left home and moved to the whoopie-pie-less Midwest.

And so, here, without further ado is the whoopie pie recipe my mother gave me when I left home. I admit that, these days, I make a half batch unless I’m making them for an event.

1 ½ cup shortening (I use butter)
3 cups granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 ½ cups sour milk (I use buttermilk if I have it)
3 tsp. vanilla
6 cups sifted flour
1 ½ cups cocoa
3 tsp. salt (use less if you use salted butter)
3 tsp. soda

Cream sugar and shortening. Add eggs and beat. Add sour milk and vanilla. Sift flour, cocoa and salt. Add to first mixture. Add water and soda. Drop by teaspoonful on [greased] cookie sheet and bake 8-10 minutes at 375°F. Cool and fill with filling.

Filling

5 Tbsp flour
1 cup milk
1 cup powdered sugar
½ cup margarine (I use butter)
½ cup butter
1 tsp. vanilla

Cook flour and milk together until thick. Cool thoroughly. Cream shortening and sugar. Add vanilla and flour mixture, beating until the consistency of whipped cream. Put two cookies together with filling.

I bought cream earlier this week, thinking I’d make pumpkin pie this weekend—you can’t possibly eat pumpkin pie without whipped cream, right?

But my husband wondered whether pumpkin pie would be even better with cinnamon ice cream, so he and my daughter used the cream to make cinnamon ice cream.

The ice cream is quite nice, and the pie is delicious.

But for my part, I still think plain old whipped cream is best.

I made up this recipe this morning because I had a hankering for cranberry and orange, but was too lazy to search for a recipe. They were so good I thought I’d share.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 ½ Tbsp baking powder
¾ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
3 eggs
zest and juice of 1 orange
approx 1 ¼ cup plain yogurt (see instructions below)
½ cup brown sugar
8 Tbsp melted butter
1 cup dried cranberries

Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, orange zest, orange juice, yogurt, and butter. To measure the yogurt, squeeze the orange juice into a measuring cup, and add enough yogurt to make 1 ½ cups.

Combine wet and dry ingredients, plus cranberries in a few swift strokes.

Fill greased muffin tins, and bake at 210°C (400°F) for 15 minutes. Makes about 21 muffins.

I should have known it would be disappointing.

Nothing can compare to a good cream cheese frosting.

That’s what these delicious pumpkin cupcakes needed, but I had no reason to leave the house yesterday, and couldn’t justify going out simply to get cream cheese.

Surely, I could use yogurt, right? I had yogurt in the house.

A quick search online uncovered a variety of yogurt frostings and glazes. Many were, frankly, disgusting-sounding attempts to make a fatty, sweet confection with no fat or sugar—soy yogurt sweetened with stevia was the worst. But my thought was to just mix yogurt and confectioner’s sugar to a spreadable consistency, with a little vanilla for flavour.

It certainly worked. Two cups of sugar, half a teaspoon of vanilla, and about 3 tablespoons of unsweetened yogurt made a reasonable frosting.

But it wasn’t cream cheese frosting—too sweet and not sour enough. Not enough fat, either. It was less like cream cheese frosting, and more like a sugar and lemon juice glaze. In fact, with more yogurt and less sugar, it would probably make an excellent thin glaze for sticky buns.

Next time I make pumpkin cupcakes, though, I’ll make sure I have cream cheese in the house first.