Baking

I love to bake. I will never be skinny skinny because I love to bake so much. I'm OK with that. Spencer loves to help me bake. He sits on the counter and assists with measuring, pouring, and stirring. He also helps to lick the spoon and the beaters.

Michael's office party was yesterday. It was a potluck and he had signed up to bring dessert. After a thorough internet search and flipping through a bunch of cookbooks I settled on red velvet whoopie pies and mini peppermint mocha cheesecakes. I made the cookie part of the whoopie pies on Tuesday night. I was all done baking (cookies cooling, oven off) and at the point where I was washing dishes when I noticed a chunk of the silicone spatula had broken off. I hadn't noticed it until I scraped the remaining dough off. So. There is a chunk of spatula missing. It's not in the bowl. It's not on the counter. Not in the sink. S-H-I-T. It's IN the freaking already baked cookies. The RED chunk is in the baked RED cookies. &*$#!!

I debated all morning on Wednesday if I should send the cookies with a warning, if I should throw them out and start over, if I should throw them out and give up or just keep them for us to eat. I picked up and visually inspected each individual cookie and poked each one with a toothpick. I decided to go ahead and fill them, still not certain what I was going to do with them. About half way through filling them I noticed a weird lump sticking out of one of them. The spatula! It worked its way out. I seriously credit this as an act of God. He does indeed work in mysterious and delicious ways.

They came out awesome. And silicone free.
The mini cheesecakes weren't half bad either. This is the recipe for the red velvet whoopie pies. I combined 3 different recipes for the cheesecakes so there really isn't 1 that I can share.

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1-oz. bottle red food coloring (2 Tbsp.)

1 recipe Whoopie Pie Filling, below

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment; set aside. In medium bowl combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt; set aside.

2. In large mixing bowl beat butter on medium to high 30 seconds. Beat in brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk, beating after each addition just until combined. Stir in food coloring.

3. Spoon batter in 1- or 2-inch diameter rounds about 1/2 inch high on prepared baking sheets, allowing 1 inch between each round.

4. Bake 7 to 9 minutes for 1-inch cookies or 9 to 11 minutes for 2-inch cookies, or until tops are set. Cool completely on baking sheets on rack. Remove cooled cookies from baking sheets.

Whoopie Pie Filling

In medium mixing bowl beat 1/4 cup softened butter and half an 8-ounce package softened cream cheese until smooth. Fold in one 7-ounce jar marshmallow creme.

To store: Refrigerate in airtight container up to 4 days. Let stand at room temperature 15 minutes before serving.


Note: I also added a little powdered sugar to the filling. It was pretty runny and the powdered sugar made it thicker.