Peppermint Whoopie Pies

Preheat the oven to 375ºF.

Mix all wet ingredients (the first 5 on the list – see? I made it easy for you!) in a mixer or by hand in a large bowl.

In a separate bowl, combine all the dry ingredients (the last 4 items on the list) and then add slowly to the wet mixture until combined. Drop 1 tablespoon of mixture at a time onto an ungreased cookie sheet. One tablespoon makes fairly large cookies (they puff up!), so if you want to go smaller, go for it.

Bake at 375F for about 8 minutes until cookies have puffed up and no longer look “wet” on top. Don’t overcook until they’re browned! Remove from pan onto a wire rack and cool completely before adding the cream filling.

For the cream filling, add all the ingredients (except the milk) to a mixing bowl. Add milk slowly and beat for about 5 minutes until creamy. You may not need all the milk – just add most of the milk, and then mix, mix, mix away until you can tell what the texture is like. If it’s too dry, add more of the milk.

The cream filling is a little thin when you first make it – if you want to make it a little easier to use, stick it in the fridge for an hour before using it. Apply liberally to your cookies (apply to the bottom of one cookie, then top with another cookie) when making your whoopie pies! There’s a lot of cream filling to go around, and you wouldn’t want to waste it, would you? Blasphemy!

Go ahead and store these babies in the fridge – the peppermint is great cold, and it’ll help keep the filling together.