How to Make Halloween Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

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Here's a sweet treat just in time for your Halloween parties! In this video, Chef John shows you how to make Halloween pumpkin whoopie pies, a fun twist on the classic Amish treat and perfect for the spookiest season of all. Two pumpkin-flavored cookies, made with pure pumpkin puree, sandwich a delicious cream cheese filling, making for an irresistible treat. Refrigerate after assembling for a firmer filling, and enjoy!

Transcript

00:00Hello, this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with Halloween Pumpkin Whoopie Pies.

00:08That's right, these stuffed cookie sandwiches would be an amazing treat even if we didn't decorate them.

00:14But once I show you how easy that is to do, I hope you give it a try.

00:19And no, you don't need any artistic skills, as you'll see me prove in this video.

00:24And to get started, we'll put together an extremely easy cookie batter that starts with some all-purpose flour,

00:31to which we will add some salt, some baking powder, and its good friend baking soda.

00:37And then we'll finish up our dry ingredients with some cinnamon, some ground ginger, and some ground clove.

00:44And then what we'll do is take a whisk and give this a thorough mixing for about a half a minute,

00:49just to make sure everything's evenly combined.

00:51And once it is, we'll set that aside, and we'll move on to the wet ingredients,

00:57which is going to start with some pure pumpkin puree,

01:00which is definitely not the same thing as pumpkin pie filling, so don't use that.

01:05And then what we'll do is toss in some brown sugar, one large whole egg,

01:10plus a generous amount of vegetable oil.

01:12And then we'll take a whisk and give this a mix,

01:15until it's evenly combined and perfectly smooth.

01:17And then once that's been accomplished, before we add our dry ingredients,

01:22I'm going to squeeze in two or three drops of optional orange food coloring,

01:26since I would love it if these cookies are a nice pumpkin orange after they're cooked.

01:30I know the batter does look kind of orange now, but once we stir the flour in,

01:35it's going to lighten up, and after it bakes, it's going to be more of a tan than an orange,

01:40which is not going to be ugly.

01:41It's just not going to be pumpkin colored, which is what we're going after here.

01:46But either way, we'll whisk our dry and wet ingredients together,

01:49to form a fairly loose cookie batter, which is now ready to transfer onto a lined sheet pan.

01:55And for that, I'm going to use one of these sorbet scoops.

01:58So hopefully I can portion the same amount of batter per cookie.

02:02But you could do the same thing by transferring on rounded tablespoons.

02:06And since our batter isn't very thick, these are going to kind of form round shapes anyway.

02:10But to do a little fine-tuning, we can always take a wet finger and move that batter around a little bit.

02:17And besides maybe making these a little bit rounder,

02:20it's not a bad idea that these get flattened out a little bit,

02:23since I think that improves the shape of the cookie.

02:25And when we do the side with our Halloween design,

02:28we'll have a little more surface area to work with.

02:31Oh, and don't worry about the bumps and depressions.

02:33Those are going to smooth out when these bake,

02:36which is what we're doing next,

02:37by transferring these into the upper center of a 350-degree oven

02:42for about 18 minutes,

02:44or until the outside edges start to turn barely golden brown,

02:48and they hopefully look like this.

02:51And then what we'll do is let these cool on the pan for about 10 to 15 minutes

02:54before we eventually transfer those onto a cooling rack.

02:57And once we've done our undesigned cookies,

03:00which are going to be the bottoms,

03:01we will prep another pan that are going to be the tops.

03:05And these will be the ones that get our Halloween designs,

03:07no matter what those might be.

03:10And all we need to do for that is to take some extra batter

03:13and squeeze in a generous amount of brown or black food coloring.

03:17And we'll go ahead and give that a mix,

03:19and then transfer it into a piping bag

03:21with a very fine tip attached.

03:24And if you don't have piping bags, you know the trick.

03:26Just transfer it into a plastic zip top bag

03:29and snip off a tiny bit of the plastic from the corner,

03:32and you'll be able to do this exact same thing.

03:35And as far as my Halloween design repertoire,

03:38I'm pretty good at doing a spider web,

03:40which is what I'm going to use for half of these.

03:43And then as you'll see, once my spider webs were done,

03:46I attempted a jack-o'-lantern pumpkin face,

03:48which I'm not going to say I was good at.

03:51In fact, I was definitely not good at it.

03:53But the good news is, as you'll see,

03:56no matter how bad our design looks on the raw cookie,

03:59once they're baked,

04:01you're going to be pretty shocked at just how good they look.

04:04And of course, there's so many different designs you could do.

04:07All right, ghost shapes, vampire fangs,

04:10maybe a witch on a broom,

04:12or a good old-fashioned devil's pitchfork.

04:15But anyway, you decide.

04:17I mean, you guys are after all the coastal elites

04:20of these Amish treats.

04:21But no matter what you go with,

04:24once those are piped,

04:25we will bake these at the same time for the same time.

04:28And as promised,

04:30despite my questionable artistic skills,

04:32I think these come out looking really nice.

04:35In fact, my scary jack-o'-lanterns

04:37might be a little too terrifying.

04:39But anyway, we'll let our cookies cool,

04:42at which point I transfer them to this rack,

04:44where we will let them cool completely,

04:46and then we'll proceed to the filling and sandwiching step.

04:50Oh, and by the way,

04:51I actually had enough batter to make 10 of these,

04:53which means 20 cookies total.

04:56So make sure you're following the directions in the written recipe.

04:59Since I found out through this experiment,

05:01we can get more on the pan than eight,

05:03and still have enough batter left over for the design.

05:06And that's it.

05:07Once our cookies are set,

05:09we can move on to our cream cheese frosting filling,

05:12which is nothing more than cream cheese,

05:14that will combine with some room temperature unsalted butter,

05:17as well as a little bit of milk,

05:19some pure real vanilla extract,

05:21and then last but not least,

05:23a little touch of powdered sugar,

05:26and then we'll take our electric mixer,

05:28or a whisk if we want a little bit of a workout,

05:31and we will mix this up until it's smooth and creamy.

05:34And once it eventually is,

05:36I highly recommend you chill this a little bit,

05:38so it firms up a touch before you try to pipe it,

05:42which I may or may not have actually done,

05:44but it really does make it easier to work with.

05:47Oh, and by the way,

05:48another production note,

05:50this is actually a double batch of the filling,

05:52since I had plans to use it for something else.

05:55So the ingredients in the recipe will be halved,

05:57so don't let the amounts you see here throw you off.

06:00And then to finish up,

06:02we'll transfer as much of the filling as we want

06:03on one of the bottom cookies,

06:05but don't go all the way to the edge,

06:07and you'll see why in a minute.

06:09And that's it,

06:10we'll top it with one of our design cookies.

06:13Oh, and this moment of hesitation, you see,

06:15was me trying to figure out

06:16which top perfectly matched this bottom,

06:19but if you portioned yours evenly,

06:21it is really not going to matter,

06:22so just pick one.

06:23And once the top's on,

06:26what we'll do is give these a gentle squeeze

06:27until that filling pushes out just to the edge.

06:31And that's it,

06:32we've formed a perfect-looking

06:33pumpkin whoopie pie,

06:35Halloween edition.

06:37And that's it,

06:37we'll go ahead and do the exact same thing to the rest.

06:41And then even if you did successfully fill these

06:42without chilling the frosting,

06:44I highly recommend you refrigerate these finished cookies

06:47before you try to serve them.

06:49But did I take my own advice?

06:51No, I did not.

06:52And I went ahead and served these up as is,

06:56because I could not wait,

06:57and I was starving.

06:58Plus, one of the voices from the jack-o'-lanterns

07:00was in my head telling me to eat them.

07:03Oh, and fair warning,

07:04if you pile these up on each other,

07:06they tend to stick a little bit,

07:08which I guess is technically a problem.

07:11But I think we'd all agree,

07:12cookie problems aren't like regular problems.

07:14And even though that filling wasn't chilled

07:17and it was too soft,

07:18these still really were amazing.

07:21Okay, besides looking super cool

07:22and terrifyingly adorable,

07:25the cookie itself is very light and tender

07:27and tastes like pumpkin pie.

07:29And while you could just do a simple filling

07:31like a whipped cream,

07:32I think the cream cheese frosting

07:34is a perfect pairing.

07:35But like I said,

07:37for best results,

07:38you definitely want to refrigerate these

07:39before you serve them.

07:41So after getting my fix with this first one,

07:43that's exactly what I did.

07:45And once chilled,

07:46I enjoyed another one.

07:48And I know,

07:49nobody wants a way for cookies to chill

07:50before you can eat them.

07:51But if you do,

07:53both the taste and texture

07:54will be significantly better.

07:56So do your best to get that done.

07:58But no matter what temperature you serve these

08:00or what holiday designs you go with,

08:03this is an absolutely delicious,

08:05easy to make,

08:06visually appealing treat,

08:08which is why I really do hope

08:09you give these a try soon.

08:12So please follow the links below

08:13for the ingredient amounts,

08:15a printable written recipe,

08:16and much more info as usual.

08:19And as always,

08:21enjoy.

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