Another Whoopie Wednesday has come and gone, maybe with the most compelling Whoopies yet! This week we have Coffee Toffee Crunch Whoopie Pies. Tender cardamom spiced coffee Whoopie “cookies” are filled with creamy (crazy oldschool) coffee butter cream with an edge – the buttercream is packed with crunchy granules of coffee praline.
They are seriously moreish.
Seriously.
I was saying about the oldschoolness of coffee flavouring in cake. There was a melt n mix coffee cake with coffee frosting that I used to love making back in the 80’s (thanks Australian Women’s Weekly). Somehow the pleasure of having a latte and a piece of cake is magnified a billion times over when there is also coffee in the cake. Somehow the coffee’s caramelized bitterness impregnates the cake with the very spiritual essence of COFFEE.
I remember having an amazing coffee gateau in NZ on one trip to stay on the Coromandel Peninsula. Mum and I had taken the espresso machine with us, and we went up to the tiny settlement of Colville one day to discover there was an incredible french-trained pastry chef turned dopehead in charge of the Colville Cafe. We obtained many patisserie objects to take back to our motel. The coffee gateau was one of them. One of these days, I will attempt a re-creation. But today, we have soft cardamom-y coffee Whoopie Pies.
The other awesome thing about these Whoopie Pies is the filling. I have to say that the coffee praline is a stroke of utter genius. Don’t be scared to try making it – it sounds much more complicated and time consuming than it is!
Coffee Toffee Crunch Whoopie Pies
This recipe makes about 25 -30 whoopie pies
Coffee Whoopie “cookies”
ingredients
125g butter
1 cup brown sugar, well packed
1 egg
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cardamom powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup strong espresso (about 3 short blacks!), cold
1/2 cup milk
mixing
Beat the butter and brown sugar together until very pale and creamy. Beat in egg. Add flour, baking soda, salt and cardamom, along with the milk and coffee and beat on high until the mixutre is pale and fluffy. Load into a large piping bag fitted with a 10mm round nozzle.
Pipe 4cm rounds of the mixture onto baking sheets lined with bake paper, leaving at least 3cm between each “cookie” for spreading. You will need to do two baking sheets of approximately 20-24 “cookies” each.
Bake the cookies at 180 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes or until slightly firm to the touch. The cookies will still be “whispering” when you take them out of the oven. Let cool on the tray.
When cold, fill with the buttercream (about 18g of buttercream per Whoopie Pie) using a piping bag fitted with your favourite nozzle, or, if you are brave or like the rustic look, you could just dollop the filling onto one cookie then close the other over. Dust with gold powder if desired.
Coffee Praline Buttercream
ingredients
50g caster sugar
1 tsp good quality instant coffee granules (I used Moccona)
200g salted cultured butter, softened
150g icing sugar
2 tsp strong espresso
1 tsp good quality instant coffee granules, extra
24 k gold powder, for decoration
mixing
To make the praline, place the caster sugar in a heavy bottomed saucepan. Heat sugar over high heat, shaking the pan to help the sugar melt. When the sugar starts to bubble at the edges, remove pan from heat and allow some of the sugar to be absorbed into the melted mass. Return to the heat for a few seconds and repeat the process. The sugar should turn a golden caramel colour, but the key is to prevent it from burning, which can happen very fast. When all the sugar is melted into caramel, remove from the heat. Immediately pour onto a baking tray that has been lined with bake paper. Sprinkle evenly with the first measure of the coffee granules, and fold the excess bake paper over the top, so that the caramel is encouraged to completly encase the coffee. Let cool completely, then crush into a coarse “soil”. Set aside.
Beat the butter until creamy. Add the icing sugar and beat 2 minutes until very pale and fluffy. Dissolve the extra coffee powder in the espresso, then add to the buttercream mixture and beat for another minute. Tip in the coffee praline and beat until well distributed.
Enjoy!xxx
