recipe // easy cream cheesy whoopie pies

Cake
1/2 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg, room temperature

1 tsp vanilla

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour

2/3 cup cocoa powder

1 cup milk

1 tbsp vinegar

Cream Cheese Filling

1 pkg (8oz. or 1 cup) cream cheese

1/3 cup butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla

2-3 cups of icing sugar, sifted

Gel paste food colouring (optional)

♥ Preheat your oven to 350°F (180°C).

♥ In a medium sized bowl combine flour, cocoa and baking powder and whisk until well combined. In a seperate small bowl, make your buttermilk by adding the vinegar into the milk and stirring. Let sit while you do the rest so it can thicken up. You can also use regular buttermilk, but this is a great substitute as most people don't just have buttermilk laying around. You can also use lemon juice if you don't have vinegar.

♥ In your stand up mixer, or in a large bowl, beat butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy (about two minutes). Crack open your egg in a separate bowl or cup and then add to mixture. Add vanilla. Beat until just combined. Alternating the flour mix and buttermilk, add it to the butter mixture. Start with the flour mix and end with the flour mix (3 additions of flour, 2 additions of buttermilk).

♥ You can drop by 2 heaping tbsp on a greased baking sheet, but I like to pipe it into mounds with a Wilton 1A piping tip. You be the judge of size. For 12 to 16 whoopie pies, I'd make them about the amount of 2 tbsp but you can make them bite size or large if you'd like!

♥ Bake for about 12-13 minutes, or until tops spring back when lightly touched. Let cool on a rack.

To make filling:

♥ Beat together butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add vanilla once it's smooth. Sift icing sugar one cup at a time into the bowl and beat on low-medium speed. (Tip: I cover my stand up mixer with a tea towel while doing this to avoid a big cloud of sugar dust!) Add the next cup of sifted sugar. This should be more than enough icing sugar but if you like your fillings really thick you can add another half a cup or a whole cup. I don't like my icing that sweet though, so I stick to less as possible.

♥ You can add gel paste food colouring at this point if you'd like. I used Wilton Violet gel paste for mine to make a nice pastel purple, but you can use any colour you want. You could even mix it up and make a few different colours for extra fun! I wouldn't suggest using liquid food colouring as it will tamper with the texture of your filling and make it runny.

♥ After the cake has completely cooled, you can either blob the filling onto the flat sides of the cake cookies and smush another one into it like a sandwich. Or, again, you can pipe the filling on with a 1A piping tip for a smoother, more pretty look.

Show off your cute little desserts and share with your friends and family. Come back and tell me what you think!

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RECIPE // EASY BAKED FRENCH FRIES

Ingredients

• 2-4 large or medium sized russet potatoes
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 or 2 tsp course sea salt (or more depending on preference)
• 1 tsp cracked black pepper
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp cajun (optional)

Directions

Preheat your oven to 450F. Line or grease a large baking sheet. You can also use a cooling rack to lift the potatoes up out of the grease for more crispy fries.

Slice your potatoes into even strips. Leave the peels on, it tastes better that way!

In a large bowl, combine the oil and seasoning and whisk well. Toss the potato slices in the mixture until well coated. Spread fries onto rack/baking sheet. Keep remaining oil/seasoning. cook for 30-40 minutes until done, turning fries every 10-15 minutes and use a pastry brush to add more seasoning until done. 

We made homemade chicken tenders and a tomato and cucumber salad with ours and it was soooo yummy! 

Tips

You can actually season your fries how ever you'd like, but this is a classic seasoning that tastes great. Add the cajun if you enjoy a little spice.

Use the cooling rack trick. My first try I didn't use it and my fries seemed oil logged and mushy. They definitely become more crispy when raised out of the oil. But you have to make sure you keep adding the seasoning to keep the flavour. 

You could slice your potatoes anyway for this recipe too, for example, slice the potatoes into wedges, julienne style or round slices - yum!