Appley Whoopie Pies at Middle Farm

Well it's been a while... in which I have been manically baking whoopies for my soon-to-be-published book, Baking Whoopies: the Seasonal Guide to Whoopie Pies

And in between managing to appear at Middle Farm Apple Festival with Ruth who does cupcakes - great weekend. Lovely people, lovely cider, lovely apples.

I themed the whoopie pies to tie-in with the Apple Festival, so had Apple and Cinnamon (cinnamon whoopie pie with apple and mascarpone filling - buy my book for the recipe!) and Cider and Bacon (see this blog post - a freebie to whet your appetite for all things whoopie - it's an extra, exclusive for the Apple Festival, not included in the book).

I made all of the whoopie pies gluten free - gluten and wheat free flour from Doves Farm is a winner. It didn't affect the flavour in the slightest. They were a little more biscuity than my usual whoopies, but other than that... And went down really well with lots of gluten/wheat allergy sufferers.

So this post is a mini photo-story covering the weekend...

Backstage, cinnamon whoopie pies just baked and awaiting their apple mascarpone filling:

Filled and clothed, waiting to be glammed up with a bit of jewellery:

Now jewelled up and waiting coyly in the wings...

Whoopie pie kebabs!

A five minute breather to take in the sunshine... beautiful day.

The wonderful Boudoir Bliss who kept us in hot water bottles when the chilly North wind blew:

And Tiny Tulips who made us feel so welcome, and designs breathtakingly beautiful baby boots, cushions and clothing:

And finally.... lots of customers!

Some overheard comments that made us chuckle...

(mother to child) "No they're not cakes darling, they're candles"
(other child) "Are they real cakes? They're not, are they mummy?"

Whoopie Pies all the way...

Well it's been a while... and so many things have happened I don't quite know where to start!

First, I was featured in the Sussex Express, then the Evening Argus picked it up, then the Leader. I think I am now officially a W-List celeb...

In between I strayed away from the Whoopie Pies and created a couple of pretty stunning birthday cakes with spotty chocolate collars - the 12" version can be seen here (currently middle bottom photo). Once you've got the hang of it, chocolate cake collars come out pretty well - see my chocolate cake collar post here for what I did (and things to avoid....like doing it on the hottest day of the year)

Then last week was spent manically making tons of Whoopie Pies in preparation for my appearance at the Uckfield Festival Big Day Out, alongside Ruth's of Cooksbridge (fantastic, amazing cupcakes. Comments included "mummy, are those cakes real? they aren't are they?")

I took a break now and then from the kitchen to make some bunting - much easier than I thought. Hopefully see another post about making bunting....

I managed to find a great site for having banners made: Print A Banner - very reasonable price, easy website and very fast. 6ft x 1ft was only £16 - for my own design. And it fitted the stall perfectly.

The day was amazing. I was up at 5.45am picking flowers from the garden to go in vases, along with some borage for on top of the new double chocolate whoopie pies (hopefully see my post on borage for more info). We arrived just after 8am and began setting up the stall, putting out the bunting and the banner and flowers. It looked pretty darn fine once all the Whoopie Pies and Cupcakes were in place...

The sun shone down, we got a mention on Uckfield FM, and shifted a fair few cakes! Then as the man was fishing and the boy was being auntied, I got some Pimms with the proceeds and then dragged myself down to The Ark for a few glasses of wine. A pretty good day all in all!

Lemon Whoopies have Landed

I have spent the morning experimenting... and now have a new Lemon Whoopie Pie. Delicious! The citrussy tang really goes with slightly-strawberry buttercream, and gives a really refreshing flavour. Success! Reviews from tast testers (watch out neighbours!) and pictures will follow shortly...

Next on the agenda are fiddling around to get Mocha Whoopie Pie right, and planning next trip out for icing and other decorating supplies... Such a magpie sucker for the stuff, but it's oh so glittery!

The Wonders of Whoopie Pies in Brighton

And we're off! Preparations are underway for a Whoopie Pie invasion in Brighton this weekend... suppliers have been raided and new recipes are being tested - Polly's Patisserie is all set to spread the Whoopies!

We're going for 4 varieties to start with: original (slightly chocolate); Strawberry and Vanilla Whoopie Pie; Lemon and Blueberry Whoopie Pie; and Mocha Whoopie Pie.

Spent another lovely morning at Chatawak sourcing edible glitter, heart punches, various colour dusts and other treats...

And then returned home and made myself a nifty little spreadsheet to calculate ingredient costs and other bits and pieces. On the nerdy side, but I do so love a spreadsheet!

I was a bit disappointed when I emerged from nerddom to discover the sun and warmth has been eclipsed by a monster of a sea mist, but hey, it cleared up in time for a lovely (nearly) summer evening.

And so... let the baking begin!

Whoopie Pie day

Having finally got round to creating a blog, it's taken me two days to get time to actually write on it... and now that I'm here, what do I write?! Over the last few days I've had loads of times I've thought 'ooh, that would be a good thing to blog' and naturally, now, I've either forgotten or it's not relevant.

Anyway, my day today.... has mostly been spent baking Whoopie Pies. Oh yes, they have well and truly landed (in my tummy anyway). They're great - reasonably simple to make, and very tasty too. Rumoured to be a replacement for the cupcake - and I can see why. No icing-up-your-nose incidents as I've heard cupcakes can cause.

I made the original flavour Whoopie Pies today - quite similar to a sponge cake batter, with buttermilk and salt added. Filled with buttercream, as personally I'm not too sure about the marshmallow filling thing.... then got carried away with icing on top, silver balls, edible glitter and stars and butterflies (from Chatawak, a great cake stuff shop not a million miles from me - spent far too long in there going 'ooh sparkly')

Then once iced I spent hours hanging round the kitchen waiting for the sun to shine to get some decent photos... that was fun. It finally came out about 6.45pm when I was at a 4 yr olds birthday party about 5 miles away.

Results:



Have a look at the website for other Whoopie Pies and a bit about their history.

Will try and pin down the recipe I used and post it here tomorrow.