Shoo-Fly Whoopie Pie

It is great to be part of the Cake Slice Bakers. This is my very first entry to this baking group of bakers as well as our very first bake from the Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson.

To be honest, when I first learnt about the recipe they are going to bake for the month, I was like, Shoo-Fly Cake?! In my part of the world, I've never in my life heard of a Shoo-Fly Cake. Only when I googled (whoever invented internet, God bless you for that), then only I realised that it is a molasses pie that originated from the Pennsylvania Dutch who were immigrants from southwestern Germany and Switzerland and settled in Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries. Anyhow, the name 'Shoo Fly' was probably obtained as a result of the molasses that attracts flies which needed to be shooed away.

(Source: The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink (ISBN 0-86730-784-6), by John Mariani)

Honestly, if you do a google on the different pictures of how shoofly cakes and pies look like, you would probably understand how I feel. I wasn't very enthusiastic about it, seriously.

However, since I've decided to join Cake Slice Bakers, regardless of the type of cake or bake, I feel it would be good to challenge myself to at least try - success or failure. Afterall, life can be simple or complicated, it's a matter of how we see things don't we?

To make this bake easier and more exciting for me, I've decided to bake Shoofly Whoopie Pies instead. This brilliant idea was sparked by cupcakesandotherstuff. I thought it was a good one for the main reasons that 

• it is a shoofly cake recipe
• I've never made a whoopie
• it is a cake nevertheless

What a win-win situation!!

By way of introduction, whoopies are otherwise known as Big Fat Oreo which consists of two round mound-shaped pieces of chocolate cake with a sweet creamy filling sandwiched between them. 

Without further ado, let's bring on the Shoo-Fly cake recipe from Julie Richardson:

Cake ingredients:

1 cup sugar
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup blackstrap molasses
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup warm coffee 

Crumb topping:

1/3 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

My alterations:

• halved the whole recipe above as I wasn't sure if anyone is keen to eat it with me :(
• instead of cake, I made whoopie pies
• didn't put warm coffee as I didn't have any and I'm not prepared to use unhealthy 3-in-1 coffee which is the only coffee that I have
• totally didn't use crumb topping as I couldn't have survived all the sugar from the cake plus the sugar in the crumb topping (you might have figured out that sugar is fine with me but excessive is totally no-no)

My alterated cake ingredients (what I used exactly):

56g sugar

85g unsalted butter,melted

75g molasses

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 egg

156g all purpose flour

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

Obviously, my Shoofly cake batter looks weird from the above picture because I forgot to take a picture before it went into the refrigerator to freeze @@ oh wellz.

And there is my whoopie pie getting ready to be baked or to get a good ol' suntan ;)

As it's a weekday after work, I've decided to use vanilla n cashew nut ice cream as my filling as a quickie Shoofly whoopie pie which does fit into the Shoofly cake's theme of a hasty cake :):) 

I was in a haste to see how my shoofly whoopie pie would turn out that I piled on the ice cream when the ice cream is not totally frozen so hence the almost dripping ice-cream @@ 

Note to myself: according to hummingbirdbakery, my cracked whoopie pie probably just needs to be more uniform and more practice. More whoopie pies anyone?

I promise next bake, I'll do better. For now, this has got to do. However, do check out my fellow bakers here.

Mr G's verdict is it tastes nice with ice cream but the aftertaste of the spices and molasses don't go well with him :( As for me, I've tasted it and find it ok but I doubt I'll re-bake this anytime soon.

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