Football playoffs and whoopie pies

Our team has had a great regular season and won their playoff game on Saturday (in a snowstorm!) 37-0. 

source

When I saw these about a month ago I wanted an excuse to make them really badly.  Post season was the perfect time! 

Loved it!  Cake mix?  Cute?  Easy?  Count me in.  So I asked if I could do game treats last week.

I made the recipe twice (recipe printed below) and for the filling I made one batch of butter cream and added a tub of vanilla icing and a small jar or marshmallow creme.  It was wonderful!  I used royal icing to make the writing.

The shape was tricky and the cookies vary a lot from each other.  But I figured since the players each would be getting their own, it's not like they'd really be comparing them.  Strider was my cookie-pair-matcher-upper so I could make them into sandwiches.  I packaged the finished whoopies in clear cellophane treat bags.

I was able to make 25 HUGE whoopie pies out of the double batch.  That was awesome because I had enough to do the coaches and the two team moms. 

The photos were taken at about midnight, so I know they're crappy lighting paired with old used cookie sheets.  But I wanted to document.

Here is the original recipe:


Whoopie Pies
from a cake mix

1 chocolate cake mix
3 eggs
1/2 cup of water
1/2 cup of vegetable oil
........

2 sticks of butter, softened
3-4 cups of powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a mixer, combine cake mix, eggs, water and oil. Whip together for 2-3 minutes.

On a parchment paper or Silpat lined baking sheet, scoop out batter into round mounds. I used a small ice cream scoop that measured 1 2/3 inches in diameter. Use the back of a spoon to round out scoops of batter into perfect circles.

Bake for 7-8 minutes. Cool.
For the icing, in your KitchenAid with the paddle attachment, whip together butter and sugar (start with 3 cups of powdered sugar, then add more if necessary for thickness). Whip for 5 minutes until light and fluffy (the extra time makes all the difference!). Scoop into a pastry bag with the end cut with a 1/2 inch opening.

To fill, pipe icing (you can frost with a knife but it's hard!!) onto the bottom cookie (wrong side up), then top with another cookie (right side up).

~~Obviously for a football cookie (instead of round) you use a spoon or knife to pull the batter onto a more oval shape on the cookie sheet.  The batter is quite thick, so it behaves pretty well.  But they get enormous in the oven, so go smaller than you think you need!  They come out fluffy and light and yummy.~~

I totally loved doing it.  And I bet you could adapt them for other things.  Maybe valentine hearts in Feb? Baseballs in the summer?  Hmmm.

Next Saturday is the championship game!