Everybody loves a cup cake, especially our wee team of foodies, so much so that we have our monthly cup cake decorating evenings in the cafe. However it seems there are a couple of new kids in town. The Whoopie Pie and the French Macaron!
WHOOPIE
The Whoopie Pie originated from Pennsylvania, America and is the new cake representative of the East coast of America, where it is taking the New York trendy cake eaters by storm! Whoopie Pies have been around since the 1920’s in America, when Amish Farmers’ wives started making them from left over cake batter as a packed lunch treat for their husbands, legend has it that when the farmers opened their packed lunches they shouted ‘WHOOPIE’ which is where the name comes from! A Whoopie pie is quite simply a cake sandwich, two domes of firm chocolate sponge stuck together with a thick spread of vanilla butter cream icing… yummers!.
MACARON
In brief, the Macaron (macaroon) is thought to be brought from Italy to France as early as 1533 by Catherine di Medici and her pastry chefs.
Macaron’s gained fame in 1792 when two Carmelite Nuns seeking asylum during the French Revolution baked and sold macaron’s in order to support themselves. The Macarons they made were just the meringue biscuit… no filling!
In the 1900’s Ladurèe (who is now renound world wide for their macarons) decided to take two of the meringue biscuits and sandwich them together with a delicious genache filling!
However in this day and age the French macaron has now hit the west coast of America where the trend has recently taken off in San Francisco! These different flavoured sweet treats (and they are a treat because they aren’t cheap) look beautiful and come in all the colours of the rainbow and taste sublime, a melt in the mouth experience!
But who will reign, if at all above the cup cake? We are asking you to join in the debate, attached are a couple of recipe’s why not give them a try and let us know how you got on, pictures, tips and testing notes are all essential! Which one would you prefer?
Whoopie Pies
Ingredients
For the pies: For the Filling:
115g soft butter 450g Philadelphia cream cheese
200g brown sugar 150g butter
1 egg 300g sifted icing sugar
5ml vanilla essence 10ml vanilla essence=
225 ml buttermilk
60g cocoa powder
5g bicarbonate of soda
190g plain flour
Method
Preheat the oven to 200c/gas mark 6 and prepare the baking trays with grease proof paper or baking parchment.
Cream the butter and sugar together, then beat in the egg.
Add the vanilla essence to the butter milk.
Sift the cocoa powder, bi carb and flour twice, to remove all lumps and bumps.
Fold half the flour into the creamed butter mix, followed by half the butter milk, until the mix is all combined.
Spoon the cake mixture onto the baking trays, using a metal spoon helps.
Bake for 10-12 minutes.
While they bake, make the icing by creaming the butter and icing sugar together, then adding the cream cheese and vanilla essence until the icing is smooth.
Take the whoopee pies out the oven and leave to cool for 5 minutes, once they are cool, spread with cream cheese icing and sandwich together.
By Kirsty
