SWEET POTATO WHOOPIE PIES
I love baking with Sweet Potatoes. Sweet dough pies, biscuits, Bundts, or cookies made with Louisiana Sweet Potatoes, now that’s real good y’all! If you don’t know where to start baking with Sweet Potatoes, just substitute a recipe you make using Pumpkin…like Sweet Potato Whoopie Pies.
Simple recipe!
A whoopie pie is a cookie, pie, sandwich, and cake combined. It is made of two round mound-shaped pieces of cake, or sometimes chocolate, pumpkin, gingerbread or other flavored cakes, with a sweet, creamy filling or frosting sandwiched between them.
Some say Amish wives invented the whoopie pie from leftover of cake batter and frosting. So they say, the name originated from the Amish men who, when they found these treats in their lunch boxes, would exclaim, “Whoopie!”
Sweet Potato Whoopie Pie Recipe
Cookies
Ingredients
1 cup sweet potato, baked, mashed, and chilled
½ cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 (15.25 oz) Spice Cake Mix
2 eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
½ cup milk, room temp
Method
Mix cake mix, eggs, and milk together in a medium-sized bowl. Add butter and sweet potato to the cake mixture, mixing just to combine.
Cover dough and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
Line 2 sheet pans with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees while the dough is chilling.
Drop mounds of chilled dough 3 inches apart on cookie sheets.
Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, rotating pans halfway through the bake.
Cool on the sheet pans for about 5 minutes and completely cool on a wire rack.
Filling
Ingredients
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract or spiced rum to taste
4 ounces cream cheese room, at room temperature
6 tablespoons butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
¼ cup chopped pecans, toasted (optional)
Method
Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla, or Rum in a small mixer bowl on medium speed until fluffy. Gradually beat in powdered sugar until light and fluffy.
Spread a heaping spoonful of filling onto the flat side of one cookie. Top with the flat side of the second cookie to make a sandwich.
Roll edges of whoopie pie in chopped toasted pecans if desired.
Store in a covered container in the refrigerator.
BAKERS NOTE: To make Whoopie Pies from scratch, I use the Mini Whoopie Pie recipe from verybestbaking.com. Use as written for Pumpkin or substitute with Sweeet Potato.
The fillings in this recipe are only suggestions. You can add cinnamon, nutmeg, or manybe no cream cheese… it’s up to you!
In Louisiana, we start harvesting in August but then the bulk of the potatoes are harvested in September, October, and November. Once sweet potatoes are gathered and sorted, they are taken to be cured. Curing is the process that helps sweet potatoes to heal from any cuts, bruises, or places where the skin has been removed on accident.Photo: Louisiana Sweet Potato Commission
