Teno's Christmas face

We don’t hold too many holiday traditions sacred in the Slater household. As an adventurous baker, I love that about us. I don’t get stuck making the same old pumpkin pie or Christmas cookies year after year. I literally do whatever I feel like every single December. This year we spent Christmas day at my mom’s eating pizza and watching Star Wars, so Christmas Eve was as close as we got to a traditional holiday dinner. I made lasagna with farmers cheese, and for dessert, Tony requested by Bike Messenger Brownies in whoopie pie form.

I didn’t exactly fulfill his request as what I ended up making was more of a spice cake with coffee filing, but he knew better than to complain about it. I basically tweaked the vanilla whoopie recipe from Whoopie Pies with the spices from the chai cupcake in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and threw in some birthday cake kefir for good measure. Then I made a pretty basic coffee buttercream and filled them with that.

To make these whoopie pies you’ll need:

• 2 & 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 & 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground cardamom
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 Tbs unsalted butter, room temperature
• 4 Tbs non-hydrogenated shortening
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup kefir (plain or vanilla, or use buttermilk)
• 2 Tbs milk
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

 Then you:

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and prepare your whoopie pie pan (this can be an actual whoopie pie pan, or a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.) In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, spices and salt.

In your stand mixer (or with an electric hand-held mixer) beat together the butter, shortening and sugars until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs and kefir (or buttermilk) and beat until combined.

In a small measuring cup, mix together the milk, baking soda and vinegar. Add the milk mixture, along with the flour mixture, to the butter mixture and beat on low until just combined. Add the vanilla and beat on medium for about 2 minutes.

Drop onto prepared baking sheets (I use a 2 Tbs scoop with my whoopie pie pans, or you can use 1 Tbs to make about 48 2″ cakes.) Bake for 10 minutes, then cook on the pan for 5 minutes before moving them to a wire rack to cool completely. Sandwich together with the filling of your choice.

If I was making these for a less picky crowd I might use a splash of anise in place of the vanilla and call these Turkish Coffee Whoopie Pies.