Jikana Damaru: Whoopie pies

This Sunday I bring you a selection of pics from my Pinterest board, "Whoopie Pies".

Ever since I saw the title "The cupcake is dead. Long live the whoopie!" in The Times and various other articles like "Move aside cup cakes, whoopie pies are all the rage now" in the Telegraph, I have been intrigued as to what they taste like. I had bought some for my partner to taste but as I have a gluten intolerance the only way I was going to know was to make my own.

A whoopie pie (gob) is a sweet baked item which is a cross between a cookie and a cake. It is made up of two discs of round, pillowy soft, sweet cake-like cushions that are sandwiched together with a sweet, creamy filling.

A firm favourite in the US since the Pennsylvanian Amish baked them as a dessert for their husband's and children's lunchboxes in the 19th century: upon finding them they would shout "Whoopie!"

Traditionally, the cake part is flavoured with cocoa powder and made with brown sugar resulting in a dark brown finish, whilst the filling is very light and fluffy, often made with marshmallow fluff or marshmallow crème and flavoured with vanilla.

I bought the book, "Whoopie Pies" by Sarah Billingsley and Amy Treadwell which contains a vanilla flavoured gluten-free whoopie and a chocolate flavoured gluten-free whoopie amongst other non-gluten varieties. There are also plenty of ideas for fillings so you can mix and match at your pleasure.

I thought I would make the vanilla flavoured gluten-free whoopies with the classic marshmallow crème. But, as it is an American book I needed to translate the ingredients and find them! After a couple of weeks I tracked down the last ingredient, Fluff to make the marshmallow filling. Instead of buying the original vanilla flavoured fluff I bought the strawberry flavoured fluff. It was so pretty in pink, how could I resist!?

So in the end I made the vanilla flavoured gluten-free whoopies and filled them with a strawberry twist on the classic marshmallow butter-cream filling.

For those living in the UK, you can buy Fluff online from Shiny Shack.

Have a sweet day!