Whoopie Pies : Dozens of Mix 'em, Match 'em, Eat 'em Up Recipes

Good, solid recipes

Where I live, we're all about the gobs (what others call whoopie pies). They're in the stores, in the bakeries, sold at the street booths in the foodie sections of town. So I figured that it was time to start making my own instead of spending money on them, and this book had come recommended. All in all, it's a great book - I love that there are so many different flavors in here: chocolate, lemon, pumpkin, even some savory ones. There's also a couple of vegan and gluten-free versions of chocolate and vanilla gobs which is great, as now I've something to make for a few friends when they visit (or to give out as gifts). There's also a plethora of icing flavors, and the book lets you mix and match (so you can make an almost endless amount of gob/whoopie pie combinations).I've tried two gobs so far, the pumpkin and the 'classic' chocolate, and they have turned out tasting wonderful - people have raved over them. I love buttercream filling, so I went with the 'classic' buttercream and the matcha buttercream, and again, simply delicious. The instructions are easy to follow, the ingredients listed out, so a beginner shouldn't have a problem making these.Thing is, I'm not a beginner baker - I've made cookies as easy as chocolate chips and as complex as lady locks/lady fingers. By no means am I a pastry chef, and I don't have a cooking school arsenal in my kitchen, but I'm pretty capable (or so I like to think) when it comes to baking. That said, I really, *really* wish this book had included some pictures more than the pretty ones showing the finished product - because it would help to know just how much of the batter to put on the cookie sheet, and what it was supposed to look like (because let me tell you, my pumpkin gobs did NOT look like the finished product in the book - they came out a bit lumpy and spikey). The authors had a helpful section at the front suggesting you use a melon ball scoop for the smaller gobs (it didn't work very well, I had way more cakes than they told me I would - is there that much size variation on melon ballers or something?) and 2 tablespoons/a small icecream scoops for the larger cakes (I couldn't find a 2 tablespoon anywhere so I used a 1 tablespoon twice, and I ended up w/ less cakes then they said I would). It's annoying to have to buy gadgets to figure out how to get the right 'size' for these cakes.I also had to double the recipe of the matcha buttercream to have enough to fill the chocolate gobs. Granted, I had some extra because of the whole sizing debacle, but still, I wasn't that short of the icing - it wasn't just a few gobs left over, it was about half of the batch. In the future, I'll be sure to have extra icing ingredients on hand 'just in case', especially if the icing calls for half a stick of butter (the classic buttercream called for a whole stick and came w/ enough for the pumpkin gobs).So all in all, the recipes that I've tried are delicious. The instructions are, for the most part, easy to follow and I haven't seen anything too exotic in this book by way of ingredients (when you consider the flavors). There is a lot of variety and you can have a good bit of fun mixing and matching flavors, so you shouldn't get bored for a while. I deducted a star because I wish there were clearer instructions or PICTURES on how to size the batter on the sheets, which is obviously going to take some trial and error to figure out.

This book is absolutely adorable. First of all, its quirky cover and binding look adorable in your kitchen. Beyond the aesthetics of the book, it contains a treasure trove of whoopie pie recipes. I have made dozens of whoopie pies since receiving this and I still haven't even scratched the surface of the recipes.I WILL say that some of these recipes will absolutely never be used. I think that may be a personal choice though. For example, I'll never make candied ginger (my husband HATES ginger), root beer, or the peachy marshmallow cream fillings. Nor will I ever make the jalepeno cornbread whoopie pies. However, this book has enough recipes that you can completely skip over the ones that sound terrible to you and you'll STILL have plenty to choose from.I read the reviews on this book before purchasing it and I would like to address the two negatives I've seen consistently. The first is that the pink lettering is difficult to read because the pink kind of blends into the page as well as being quite small. The pink lettering isn't like a pale pink, it's bright pink and can be read without a problem. Also, while the lettering is on the smaller side, the book itself is only 8.25" x 7.25" and the lettering is about the size of a standard novel's typeset. I really didn't find it a problem.The second issue that keeps popping up is that people complain that there are no suggestions on which filling goes with which pie. I am a bit confused by this criticism because, before you get to the pie recipes, there is a four page portion of the book called "Whoopie Mix and Match" (the pages in the front aren't numbered, but it's on one of the brown pages with white lettering for those that own the book and want to find it). In this section, they provide good filling matches and name them cute things like The Happy Pilgrim (pumpkin whoopies with maple filling) or Fat Elvis (banana whoopies with salty peanut butter filling rolled in crumbled bacon). I will admit, however, that it would be nice to turn to the page for a whoopie recipe and see, "goes great with <insert flavor here> filling", but really, the little section in the beginning is more than adequate to get your creativity flowing and half the fun is figuring out different combinations of yummy!Overall, I definitely recommend this book. It's fairly cheap, it's super cute, and the recipes are really quite awesome.

I just received this book and I could not wait to make something, so I went out and purchased some fresh buttermilk and bananas which are items I normally don't have on hand. I made a chocolate chip cookie with banana filling whoopie pie. They were a little time consuming not as bad as making a cake from scratch but not as easy as making cookies and throwing everything in the mixing bowl but I am a lazy baker.I gave it four stars since the recipe requires 3 1/4 cup at min of powder sugar which make the filling too sweet in my opinion so I added more salt, extract and lemon juice to balance the sweetness. The book says you need nonstick liner or parchment paper but my liner is to to big for my sheets since I use it to make various doughs and I was not going to buy parchment paper so I used my nonstick cookie sheet pans and lightly greased the sheets and used a cookie scoop for the uniform look and it worked perfect. The baking time was 7 minutes for me instead of the 10 minutes the book suggested, they would have burned. NOTE: They will stick, I did not believe that so I stacked a few on top since I ran out of room, so use wax paper to separate when stacking as suggested.As far as the font complaints other reviewers had, I did not have any problems but I am 28 and I am sure I will have a change of heart in 20 years. I thought the layout of the book was great and cute but they could have put suggestions of fillings at the bottom of each page since it would have been easier than fingering threw the suggestion and trying to look for a particular filling or base you want to make.

I loved this book when I got it - loads of recipes, tons of flavours, lovely design & pictures and I really liked the fact it's American as I wanted the authentic flavour. Measuring in US cups not a problem for me as I have them, but if you don't I wouldn't bother, the conversion is a pain.However, I'm sad to say I've only used this book once. The recipes use a vegetable shortening instead of butter for a 'lighter' flavour, altogether more authentic apparently. I just found them to be greasy and a bit flavourless, a bit synthetic tasting. Perhaps this is the authentic way but give me a buttery whoopie any day. I've been meaning to give them another go with butter instead but never have. I wish I'd bought a different book now...

This book is funny written with nice drawings. Not the best recipe book I own, but the stories and humor make up for it.

Great book, recipes are easy to follow and the ingredients are simple

Muy contenta. Vi estos pastelitos en un programa estadounidense de cocina y la curiosidad me pudo, parecían apetitosos, y efectivamente, están deliciosos. Me encanta que las recetas de las bases estén todas juntas por un lado y las de los rellenos por otro, así visualizas todo y decides la combinación completa del pastelitos whoopie. Un acierto

Having an obsession with baking books especially those of the cake variety I eagerly awaited this book. It was delivered very quickly and in excellent condition. I was extremely pleased with the speedy service of the book provider and am looking forward to many hours of Whoopie baking.