Category Archives: Pies and Tarts

Honey Whoopie Pies {recipe}

Cookies, Pies and Tarts, ,

Honey Whoopie PiesAround this time every year, there are tons of honey desserts floating around.  Two years ago I shared a recipe for chewy sugar encrusted honey cookies.  Last year I shared a recipe for a rolled honey sugar cookie.  They are very different recipes with completely different textures and flavors, but both delicious and sure to put you in the high holiday spirit.  This year I was not planning to share a new honey recipe, I wasn’t feeling inspired.  My sister in law asked me what new and exciting dessert recipe I would share for Rosh Hashana.  I already shared an apple pie bundt cake and was content with that.  But after visiting with her and her new baby girl, I got the idea for these honey whoopie pies.  She and my brother in law love my traditional whoopie pies, so why not make a honey version.  I searched for a recipe and came up empty, so I made my own.  The original recipe is for old German honey cookies that I found on allrecipes.com.  I adapted the cookie recipe, then sandwiched the cookies with my favorite marshmallow filling.  Perfection and a happy dance followed! Happy Holidays!

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Honey Whoopie Pies
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Prep time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 3½ dozen
 
Ingredients
Honey Cookies
  • 1 cup shortening
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 cup honey
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp. baking soda
  • ¼ tsp. salt
  • ½ tsp. cinnamon
  • ½ tsp. fresh grated nutmeg
  • 4 cups flour
Marshmallow Filling
  • 1 cup shortening
  • 2 cups confectioners sugar
  • 2 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1 cup marshmallow cream (such as Marshmallow Fluff)
Instructions
Cookies
  1. In a medium sized saucepan, heat shortening, sugar, and honey until melted. Allow to cool.
  2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
  3. Line some cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
  4. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix the eggs, vanilla, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
  5. Add in the cooled honey mixture and mix on low until combined.
  6. Add in the flour and mix until combined.
  7. Using a teaspoon or small cookie scoop, scoop mounds of dough evenly spaced on the parchment lined cookie sheet. Leave enough space for the cookies to spread.
  8. Bake for about 7 minutes until the edges are just barely golden brown. They will still look under baked, but allow them to cool on the pan before transferring. They will finish baking out of the oven and lose the puffiness. Do not over bake or they will be hard.
  9. While the cookies cool, prepare the filling.
Marshmallow Filling
  1. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the shortening and sugar until smooth.
  2. Mix in the vanilla.
  3. Add in the marshmallow cream and mix until combined.
  4. Using a piping bag, cookie scoop, or a knife, fill one side of cookie with filling and sandwich another cookie on top.

Non-Dairy Speculoos Cheesecake {recipe}

Pies and Tarts

Non-Dairy Speculoos Cheesecake

Just because you might not be able to have dairy, doesn’t mean you have to miss out on all the fun.  I have a great recipe for non-dairy cheesecake that I have been making for so long that I don’t even know where I got it from.  All I know is that it is yummy; and I can use it as a base for many variations of non-dairy desserts including this speculoos cheesecake with a speculoos cookie crust.

Speculoos Cookie Cheesecake

This recipe starts with ground speculoos cookies mixed with margarine pressed into the bottom of a springform pan.  Then some delicious homemade speculoos spread gets mixed into the cheesecake batter.  If you think a cookie filled cheesecake with a cookie crust is cookie overload, you can just choose one; but I think you might be missing out. You can go with a straight graham cracker crust and just swirl your spread inside the batter, or just make the cookie crust with a classic cheesecake filling, but why would you want to when you can have both!

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Non-Dairy Speculoos Cheesecake {recipe}
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Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 12
 
Ingredients
Crust
  • 24 speculoos cookies, ground
  • 4 Tbs. margarine, melted
Cheesecake
  • 2-8 ounce tubs non-dairy cream cheese (I use Tofutti Brand)
  • ½ cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp. lemon juice
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • ½ cup speculoos cookie spread (homemade or store bought)
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
  2. In a food processor fitted with the blade attachment, grind the cookies until fine. You can also place the cookies in a zip top bag and crush with a rolling pin.
  3. Once the cookies are crushed, mix with the melted margarine and press into the bottom of a 9 inch springform pan or on the bottom and up the sides of pie plate.
  4. Chill in the fridge or freezer while you prepare the cheesecake filling.
  5. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese with sugar until smooth.
  6. Add in the eggs and mix until smooth.
  7. Add in lemon juice and vanilla and mix until combined.
  8. Mix in the speculoos cookie spread.
  9. Pour into the prepared crust and bake for 35-40 minutes until set.
  10. Chill until firm and serve chilled.

Football Whoopie Pies {Recipe}

Cookies, Pies and Tarts,

Football Whoopie Pies

It’s Super Bowl Sunday!  To celebrate, I wanted to make a cute and simple dessert that anyone can try to recreate at home.  Last year I shared some pretty detailed iced sugar cookies because the New York Giants were in the Super Bowl.  I felt like I needed to do my part as a New Yorker and celebrate my hometown team.  This year, I just want to celebrate a fun football Sunday with friends.  So I’m bringing these football shaped whoopie pies for dessert.

Stack of Football Whoopie Pies

These football shaped whoopie pies are super cute and really easy to make.  I mixed up my delicious and non-dairy recipe for whoopie pies.  Instead of using my small cookie scoop to make the cookies round, I piped them into football shapes.

How to Stencil and Pipe Football Shapes I used my football cookie cutter as a guide and traced the cutter onto parchment paper.  Then I placed that stencil under a clean piece of parchment paper and piped the batter into football shapes.  You can also print out your football shape if you don’t have a football cookie cutter.  If you are bad at piping or don’t have the proper tools, you can also spread the batter into cute little footballs.

Football Whoopie Pies with Marshmallow Filling

Since this batter puffs and spreads a little while baking, they come out better if they are spread on the thinner side.  Once the footballs are piped (or spread) and baked, I filled them with marshmallow cream filling.

Football Laces Piped on Whoopie Pies

Then I used some white royal icing to pipe the laces on the footballs.  You can also use the same marshmallow filling for the decorations but I like using royal icing because it dries hard and won’t smudge.  Here’s the printable dairy-free recipe.  Happy Super Bowl Sunday!

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Whoopie Pies
Author: 
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 2-4 dozen
 
Ingredients
Cookies
  • ⅔ cup dutch process cocoa powder
  • ¾ cup hot water
  • 1 tsp. baking soda
  • ½ cup non-dairy sour cream (such as Tofutti Brand)
  • 1⅓ cup brown sugar
  • ¼ cup margarine
  • ¼ cup shortening
  • 1 large egg
  • 2 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • ¾ tsp salt
Marshmallow Filling
  • 1 cup shortening
  • 2 cups confectioners sugar
  • 2 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1 cup marshmallow cream (such as Marshmallow Fluff)
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Make sure to use a new piece or parchment paper for each batch because some crumbs will stick to the paper.
Cookies
  1. In a small bowl whisk the cocoa powder with the hot water until dissolved.
  2. Stir in the baking soda and sour cream and set aside.
  3. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the brown sugar with the margarine and shortening until light and fluffy.
  4. Add in the egg and vanilla and beat until combined.
  5. Add in the flour, baking powder, and salt and beat on low speed for a few seconds.
  6. Pour the cocoa mixture into the mixer and mix until smooth and combined.
  7. Pipe the batter into shapes or scoop batter into small round mounds using a small cookie scoop.
  8. Bake for 8-10 minutes until the cookies are set and spring back to the touch.
  9. While the cookies are cooling, make the filling.
Marshmallow Filling
  1. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the shortening and sugar until smooth.
  2. Mix in the vanilla.
  3. Add in the marshmallow cream and mix until combined.
  4. Using a piping bag, cookie scoop, or a knife, fill one side of cookie with filling and sandwich another cookie on top.
  5. To make them look like footballs, pipe the laces using some royal icing or some marshmallow filling in a pastry bag fitted with a very small straight piping tip. I used a #2 PME brand piping tip.