Cocoa-Nut Whoopie Pies with Whipped Pink Peppermint Filling

I have been wanting to put together a whoopie pie for some time now.  Just the thought of a soft, moist, bite-sized cake paired with a creamy light center filling is enough to get my sweet tooth pining.  With the flurry of Christmas still fresh on the calendar, my home has inevitably become littered with the likes of candy, candy and more candy.  In particular, there seems to be a fondness towards mini candy canes.  They can be found everywhere from my children’s school goodie bags to the sweet filled gingerbread houses we constructed at our first annual gingerbread decorating party this year.  Check out a sampling of the masterpieces the kids put together:

I’m sure you can agree that there was some serious talent amongst our young culinary artists.  Gingerbread genius aside though, I needed a resourceful idea for ousting all those surplus red and white sugar sticks from my house.   Bring on the cocoa-nut peppermint whoopie pie.

These round beauties are made using coconut milk which adds a subtle yet unique flavor to the cocoa flavored cake.  They’re moist and light; trust me when I tell you it’s a challenge to eat just one.

Putting a batch together is fairly straightforward.  Start out by whipping up a few eggs along with a couple scoops of sugar.  When the spinning subsides, you want it to look light and frothy.

Stir in a few more wet ingredients including the coconut milk, olive oil, and a couple different extracts.

Next up, you’ll need to mix together a smattering of dry ingredients and sift them into the wet.

Once combined, pour the batter into a greased whoopie pie tin.  My tins are for mini whoopie pies, but this batter would work with regular sized whoopie pie tins as well.  It also works well for cupcakes and even for layer cake so get creative if the mood strikes you as it often does me.

Bake them up at a respectable temperature and pop them out to cool.  Aren’t they adorable?

But what’s a whoopie pie without the sweet cream filled center?  It’s just a plain old cake my friend and Mommie simply doesn’t do plain.  Grab up a hunk of cream cheese, a pile of powdered sugar along with a handful of crushed candy canes and spin it into sugar blissed submission.

Just a note that I like to run the candy canes, roughy crushed, through a food processor along with the powdered sugar before adding it to the filling.  This will yield a fine grained peppermint powder that will leave you with no large candy cane chunks.  If you like the chunks, then just proceed with a rough crush and move onward.

Once you’ve swirled your ingredients into a smooth flurry of flavor, you’ll add in the cream.  You can whip the cream before adding it if you prefer, but I’m lazy and add it straight into the bowl along with the filling.

If you add it straight in, you’ll turn the mixer on low to incorporate it into the frosting and then turn it on high for a minute or two to air up the cream until it’s all smooth and delicious-like.

I want to throw out a note of caution here; if you add the cream straight to the filling and then whip, it will be a bit too heavy and wet to be pipable.  I actually spooned it onto my whoopies.  If you are planning to pipe as frosting for a cupcake or otherwise, you may want to cut out the milk altogether and whip the cream before adding it to the frosting.  This should render a firmer and more shapable (is that even a word?) filler/topper.

Snatch up a handful of the cooled cakes, slice them in half and dollop a healthy spoonful of the filling onto the bottom half.

Drop the top back on the filling and presto chango, pretty pink peppermint pies appear as if on command.

Repurposed candy never tasted so good.