Peppermint Whoopie Pies

A holiday favorite in my family is whoopie pies.  I always remember being afraid to eat too many because they are my dad's favorite.  I finally got the recipe a few years ago from my aunt and have been making them every Christmas ever since.  Several years ago, for one of my kids' birthdays, I had a bag of Candy Cane Hersey Kisses lying around leftover from Christmas and stirred up this delicious peppermint version of Whoopie Pie.

For the month of December, I decided each week to do make some sort of peppermint recipe for our dessert.  Last week it was these Whoopie Pies.

Have you seen these in the stores? I usually stock up with like 6 bags for the year, I have used them as add ins for ice cream, toppers for chocolate cookies, and crushed up to make peppermint icing.

These are dangerous so to avoid eating the whole batch yourself, you should not make them unless you have a party to go to.

Whoopie Pies:  
OVEN:  350'
1/2 cup Crisco
1 cup Sugar
2 egg Yolks (I only had one egg, so I used 1 whole egg)
1 cup Milk
2 cups Flour
1/2 cup Cocoa Powder
1 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Vanilla

Icing:
2 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
1/3 bag Candycane Hersey Kisses (wrappers removed and chopped up- I did mine in my food processor)
1/2 tsp peppermint extract
2-4 TBSP milk
6 TBSP butter

For the whoopie pies, cream the sugar and crisco until fluffy. Mix in egg.  Add in cocoa and vanilla, mix.  Mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in separate bowl.  Alternate additions of dry ingredients with milk.  Spoon dough onto baking sheet, bake for about 10 minutes in preheated oven.  The tops will crack slightly.  You can carefully insert a cake tester in the top to see if it comes out clean.  If they are cooked too long, they will just be slightly hard.  Let cool for a few minutes before moving from baking sheet to cooling rack.

For the icing, cream the butter with about 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar.  Add in peppermint extract and 1 TBSP milk.  Add in crushed candies.  Continue alternating milk and sugar additions until you reach desired consistency/flavor.  I wanted the icing thick, but spreadable, slightly thicker than pudding (so it won't leak out the sides).  To make it more festive, I added some green food coloring to the icing.

After the cakes cool, scoop a heaping spoonful of icing in the center of one and press another cake on top.

Look at the center, can you see all the pieces of candy in the icing?:

May you find an excuse to make these soon :)