Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Cream Cheese Filling

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Cream Cheese Filling
Makes 12-14

Pie Ingredients

·         3 cups All Purpose Flour

·         1 Tbsp. cinnamon

·         1 tsp. baking soda

·         1 tsp. baking powder

·         1 tsp. ground ginger

·         ½ tsp. salt

·         ½ tsp. ground nutmeg

·         ¼ tsp. ground cloves (or allspice)

·         1 cup brown sugar

·         1 cup sugar

·         1 cup canola oil

·         1 - 15 oz. can of pumpkin

·         2 large eggs

·         1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

1.      Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2.      Beat together brown sugar, sugar, oil and pumpkin. Add eggs one at time, mixing well after each addition, followed by the vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet until just combined.

3.      Using a pastry bag with a round tip, or a big zip top plastic bag with one corner snipped, squeeze out concentric circles of batter, starting from the middle and working outward until the circles are about 2 inches in diameter.

4.      Bake for 11 minutes and cool on a rack.

Cream Cheese Filling Ingredients

·         1 - 8 oz. package of cream cheese, softened

·         1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature

·         1 - 16 oz. package of powdered sugar

·         about a capful of vanilla extract

·         1/8-1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon (to taste)

Directions

1.      Beat together cream cheese and butter. Add powdered sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. Frost flat side of half the pies and top with another piece.

2.      Enjoy right away or chill overnight.

My husband sent me this recipe and asked me to make them. I am not sure of the source.  The only adjustment that I made was using canola instead of vegetable oil and upping the cinnamon in the cream cheese filling (my husband loves cinnamon).  I am not a fan of whoopie pies or cinnamon, but they were for him and his family for Thanksgiving.  I didn’t have a pastry bag and I’ve found that Ziploc bags can get messy with this type of work, so I just used a spoon to dollop the pumpkin mixture on the baking sheets.  That may have been a mistake - These were huge!  I’m talking bigger than my hand huge.  Oh well.  Everyone that had them enjoyed them and I even tasted one.  It was pretty good, even with my aversion to cinnamon.  I recommend going for it!