Make Mine Whoopies - Part 2

This is the recipe for the Vanilla Whoopie Pies I made for Make Mine Music. You can find my natter, ideas and reasoning for choosing whoopie pies, and the recipe for the Salted Peanut variety on the original post here. The recipe for the chocolate variety can be found here. I had originally posted all three together, but it made a mega long blogpost of doom which was not useful in any way, shape or form, so I decided to split them.

Besides, Make Mine Music is an anthology of shorts, so it makes sense for there to be an anthology of recipes for this Disney Classic. I couldn't have planned it better!

Note: this recipe called for 250ml Buttermilk. Unfortunately I couldn't get my hands on any buttermilk, so I made my own substitute using 250ml milk and 2 tbsp lemon juice. If you can get buttermilk it's probably best to use that! Also, I followed the recipe and decorated my vanilla whoopies with pink icing/sprinkles, but any colour would look just as well!

Ingredients:

For the cakes:

125g margarine

200g caster sugar

1 large egg

Few drops vanilla essence

450g plain flour

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tsp salt

250 ml buttermilk (or 250ml milk and 2 tbsp lemon juice)

For the Filling:

150g unsalted butter

250g icing sugar

pink food colouring

drop of vanilla essence

For the Topping:

150g icing sugar

warm water

Pink sprinkles/ hundreds and thousands to decorate

1. If you are making the buttermilk substitute, start by preparing this, as it will take 30 minutes to 1 hour for the milk to curdle. Add the lemon juice to the milk and put to one side for at least 30 mins to thicken.
2. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 and line a baking tray with grease proof paper.
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the margarine and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the beaten egg and the vanilla essence and beat until combined.
4. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a separate bowl. Gradually add spoonfuls of the flour mixture and spoonfuls of the buttermilk to the margarine mixture, mixing well each time to create a thick batter.
5. Using two teaspoons to shape the batter into rough balls, dollop balls of the mixture onto the baking tray, leaving adequate space for the to expand. Bake in the preheated oven for around 10-12 minutes, until firm to touch.
6. Leave the cake rounds on the baking tray to cool for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire wrack to cool completely. (Note: I couldn't fit all 24 rounds on one baking tray, so I did them 12 at a time.)
7. Whilst the cake rounds are cooling, prepare the buttercream filling by placing the butter into a bowl and beating until soft. Add the icing sugar to this and continue to beat until combined. Mix in the vanilla essence and food colouring, until you reach the desired colour.
8. Once the rounds are completely cooled, prepare your topping. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add a few drops of warm water. Keep adding warm water a few drops at a time until the icing reaches a thick but spreadable consistency. Spread the icing over the peaked side of half of the cake rounds and decorate with your sprinkles. (Tip: work quickly with the icing and the sprinkles, the icing dries quite quickly!)
9. Spread a generous amount of the pink buttercream filling on the flat side of the other half of the cake rounds, then sandwich the rounds together to make your whoopies!

Happy Thoughts
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