You know how some things come to you in visions? Imagine a soft, spicy appley whoopie pie, filled with sugar and spice marscapone.

It’s like having dessert that you can hold in your hand. It’s totally comfort food, but it has just enough of an apple punch to make you think you’re eating something healthy.

Simple things are sometimes the best. All the flavours of apple pie inside all the cute of whoopie pies. The cakey cookies are made with dark muscovado sugar, apple puree, lots of spice, and tiny diced bits of apple. Then they have a sugar n spice sprinkle over the top. Oh, and marscapone on the inside.

So good. Eat them freshly made, and there is a sugary crunch to them. Eat them a day later, and they are soft and unctuous. Win-win.

Apple Pie Whoopie Pies

makes about 20

Apple Whoopie Cookies

ingredients

2 granny smith apples, peeled and cored
125g butter
1/2 cup muscovado sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp each of cinnamon and mixed spice
1/4 tsp each of nutmeg and cardamom
about 1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup white sugar and 1 tsp mixed spice, combined, for the sugar n spice sprinkling mix

mixing

Peel and core both apples. Cut one apple into pieces, place in a saucepan with about 2 tbsp water. Cook until the apple is soft, then puree until smooth. Let cool. Cut the other apple into 5mm dice. Be quite precise, as the mixture needs to fit through a piping nozzle, and you don’t want bits of apple to clog the nozzle.

Beat the butter and sugars until creamy, beat in egg. Add the flour, salt, baking soda and spices. Tip the apple puree into a one-cup measure, and top up to one cup with the milk. Add to the mixture, along with the diced apple. Blend all ingredients together until smooth and quite thick.

Load the mixture into a large piping bag fitted with a 10mm round nozzle. Pipe 4cm “cookies” onto a baking sheet lined with bake paper. Sprinkle with sugar n spice sprinkling mix, reserving about half for the filling.

Bake the whoopie cookies at 175 degrees for about 10 minutes or until just firm. Cool on wire racks.

When the cookies are  completely cool, line the cookies up in pairs which are roughly the same size. Load the Sugar n Spice Marscapone Filling into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle, and pipe whirls on top of one cookie, then top with the other, pressing gently. Repeat the process for the rest of the whoopie pies.

Sugar n Spice Marscapone Filling

300g Marscapone
reserved sugar and spice mix

Gently combine marscapone and sugar and spice mix with a spatula. Chill.

Enjoy!xxx