I have always used the Mennonite Community Cookbook peanut butter cupcake recipe in the past. It makes a good, peanutty cupcake.

I had my mind on peanut butter cupcakes yesterday, but I had pulled out several cookbooks, to see if anything else caught my eye. I ran across this recipe in the 1997 edition of Joy of Cooking, and had to try it. It was perfect for my needs—I was only starting my baking at 9 pm, and needed something quick to make. But surely, this couldn’t work—no separate mixing of wet and dry ingredients, no beating air into the butter, just throw it all together…

Combine in a food processor:

1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup brown sugar
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¾ cup milk
1/3 cup peanut butter
1 egg
1 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
¾ cup chocolate chips

Pulse for a few seconds to mix. Scrape the sides of the bowl. Pulse until smooth. Fill cupcake tins two-thirds full (I poured the batter directly from the food processor bowl) and bake at 350°F for 25 to 30 minutes.

I was dubious, but the result was fantastic—pretty cupcakes that taste great! Of course, cleaning the food processor takes a lot longer than cleaning a mixing bowl and beaters, but the speed at which I got the cupcakes into the oven was worth the extra cleaning.

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.