Pumpkin treat with junior high memories

There are certain tastes, scents and sounds that will take you back to another time in your life. Me and my sweet tooth will always remember a delightful pastry.

I baked a dessert this weekend that took me right back to my junior high home economics class in Calgary, Canada. Our class was tasked with baking finger food for an evening assembly, and we made these mouth-watering moist pumpkin cookies filled with a creamy icing. At the time, I think they were about the most-delicious sweet I’d ever tasted.

Pumpkin 'whoopie pie' cookie sandwich filled with cream cheese icing

I held onto the recipe for a while, but at some point in the course of moving cities, which we did shortly afterward, I misplaced it and, well, forgot about those cookies. Once in a while I would think about trying to find the recipe, but we didn’t have Google back then to make the search easy.

A few weeks ago, my sister asked me if I remembered those pumpkin cookies from middle school; she had also baked them in home-ec, and turns out she also never quite forgot about them either. 

She found a recipe online for ‘mini pumpkin whoppie pies’ – cream cheese icing sandwiched between two very moist mini pumpkin cakes.  I’m not sure if these are exactly like the sandwich cookies I had baked middle school, but they’re close and they’re incredibly good, blending pumpkin, cinnamon and ginger flavours.

These are about double the size they should be but just as yummy!

She was very excited to bake them for me when I visited her earlier this month, and I thought I would give the recipe a try this weekend. I made them a bit too big (follow the instructions when it says to put only a heaping teaspoon of the batter onto the baking sheet). Definitely worth a try and very easy!

I love eating and sharing desserts. Recipe makes around 30 cookies.

The recipe below is from cooks.com, although I modified the icing recipe because the one on the website includes too much butter.

COOKIES:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
1 cup LIBBY'S® 100% Pure Pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Lightly grease or line four baking sheets with parchment paper.

COMBINE flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and salt in medium bowl. Beat butter and sugar in large mixer bowl on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add pumpkin and vanilla extract; beat until smooth. Stir in flour mixture until combined.

Drop by heaping measuring teaspoons onto prepared baking sheets. (A total of 72 cookies are needed for the recipe.)

BAKE for 10 to 13 minutes or until springy to the touch. Cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

CREAM CHEESE FILLING:

3 tablespoons cream cheese
2 teaspoons butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2-2 cups powdered sugar

BEAT cream cheese, butter and vanilla extract in small mixer bowl on medium speed until fluffy. Gradually beat in powdered sugar until light and fluffy.

SPREAD a heaping teaspoon of filling onto flat side of one cookie; top with flat side of second cookie to make a sandwich. Repeat with remaining cookies and filling. Store in covered container in refrigerator.

Estimated Times: Preparation - 20 minutes; Cooking - 10 minutes.

Yields 3 dozen mini pies.


Enjoy!!