Chocolate Whoopie Pie Cookies with Caramel Filling Makes 10 whoopie pies
A favorite of Lisa’s adapted from Williams-Sonoma Home Baked Comfort cookbook by Kim Laidlaw, Whoopie Pie Cookies with Dulce De Leche.
Ingredients
Cookies:
6 tbsp unsalted butter, room temp
½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg, room temp
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
¾ cup natural cocoa powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp kosher salt
Filling:
4 tbsp unsalted butter, room temp
¾ cup confectioner’s sugar
2 tbsp heavy cream
¼ tsp kosher salt
1/3 cup jarred caramel sauce of your choice (good choices: favorite day brand Brown Butter Caramel; Stonewall Kitchen Sea Salt Caramel Sauce)
Instructions
Start with cookies, in a bowl of a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until combined. Add egg and vanilla and beat until blended. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt into the bowl and beat only until blended. Cover the bowl and refrigerate the dough until firm, about 2 hours.
Space 2 racks evenly in oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
With dampened hands, shape tablespoonfuls of dough into balls. Place them on the prepared pans, spacing them slightly apart and squishing down a little. You should have 20 balls of dough. Bake until the cookies are puffed and slightly firm, 8-10 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through the cooking time. Let the cookies cool on the pan for about 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
Make the filling: In a bowl of a mixer with paddle attachment, beat the butter and confectioner’s sugar on medium-high speed until lightened. Stir in cream and salt, on low speed, then stir in the caramel sauce until the filling is smooth.
Spread the flat side of half of the cookies with a big dollop of filling. Top each with a second cookie, placing the flat side on the filling. (There might be more filling than you need, but that isn’t a problem in our house!) Refrigerate the cookies until the filling set, at least 1 hour, I usually try for 2 hours.
Variations: I’ve used Alton Brown’s Dulce de Leche recipe for the filling before, if I have loads of time and want to be extra.