30 Whoopie Pies

To celebrate my general love of baking this X-mas, and to let everyone know who is truly important in my life and who I wish would go die in a fire, I decided to make whoopie pies for my friends and also for those co-workers that I don't want to murder on a regular basis.  Since I've written about whoopie pies here before, I'm going to gloss over most of what went down.



This was my first experience with attempting to increase a recipe on this scale.  Unfortunately, before I even started baking, I was running into problems.  It was uncomfortably close to the holidays and my local chain grocery store had somehow managed to run completely out of flipping unsalted butter.  The had miles upon miles of salted butter, but when it came to the unsalted stuff, they only had super-expensive organic shit.  I was in a time crunch and so, after a wrestle with my inner cheap-face, I went ahead and picked up the more expensive stuff.



Above:  A dangerous amount of boiling sugar.  Seriously guys, this much molten-lava sugar was completely frightening the shit out of me.



Above:  What four quarts of meringue looks like. 

Below:  What ten pounds of buttercream frosting looks like.  I had to use both hands to lift this delicious disaster.



I'm a little proud that the only item I over-bought on for this recipe was the buttermilk. 

Which is still in my fridge. 

Almost three months later.

Maybe I should combine it with my left-over creme de menthe and they can form a disgusting monstrosity that will never ever be eaten.



And this is roughly half of my whoopie pie bounty laid out across my kitchen counter.  I wrapped each one in plastic wrap and then placed it inside a small holiday-themed gift bag.  That day I was the weirdo carrying a tote-bag stuffed with cake into work.  I felt like Santa.  Santa in the bizarro-world where he only gives people cake.



I've not got much more to say about whoopie pies.  They're delicious.  They're not too difficult.  People like them.  I love them.  I've been encouraged to try out different flavors of whoopie pie, but this is such an all-around perfect recipe that I'm not sure I want to mess with it at all.