This past weekend S and I went apple picking! There is a farm in Northern Massachusetts we love grabbing apples and pumpkins from each year. If you’re local, it’s called Parlee Farms. If you have a family, it’s the perfect spot to go because they have hay rides, some farm animals, fresh baked apple donuts and more.

They also have breathtaking sunflower and flower fields. By luck we visited on the right weekend since pick your own flowers and some sunflowers were still alive! We will definitely visit prime season next summer to take advantage of those.

But on to the real star of today’s show – APPLES! We picked a big ol’ bushel of Cortland’s to bake away with. While you can bake with any apple of your choosing. I was taught that Macintosh and Cortlands are the ideal baking apples.

One of my favorite memories growing up was baking. In our house, we didn’t bake from boxes ever! Not even pie crusts. Always from scratch. Whenever S reaches for a box mix in the grocery store, I side eye and sneak it back.

I’m no expert by any means, but the experience I had growing up provided me with a great baking foundation that I’m thankful to have. Then on our honeymoon in Paris, we took a Parisian baking class and learned SO MUCH of the science behind baking and tricks! While there were many Paris highlights, this was my favorite activity for sure. We loved it so much that for our one year anniversary, I surprised S with a local Parisian cooking class. We are so excited!
Anyways, for today’s recipe I combined a whoopie pie recipe I have had on hand in my recipe box from a few years. Whoopie pies were one of the items we always baked up in my house growing up, so they are my favorite thing to bake to this day. I spent a lot of my childhood camping and to feed our family plus family friends, we’d bake them up in batches before heading to camp.

Whoopie pies are so fun to cook because 1. everyone gets excited when you hand them a whoopie pie and 2. you can switch up the flavors so easily if you have a great foundation recipe for both the whoopie pie cakes and filling!

That’s exactly what I did! I diced up some apples, added them to the cakes and tweaked my buttercream frosting recipe with a bit of cinnamon.

While I love baking, I don’t like having sweets in our house. I don’t have self control [who else?!], so now having sweet neighbors I can bake and get the sweets out of the house! We made these apple cinnamon whoopie pies for five of our neighbors to say thank you for welcoming us to the neighborhood 🙂

I hope you enjoy making these year round, but especially if you go apple picking this fall season. If you do, please tag me, @amixofmin, so I can see your creations!

*disclaimer for my fellow germaphobes – the whoopie pies I touched for  blog images were not gifted lol. 

THE BEST APPLE CINNAMON WHOOPIE PIE RECIPE

Whoopie Pie Apple Cake Directions

• 2 medium cortland apples, diced
• ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 2 ⅓ cups flour
• 2 ½ tsp baking powder
• ⅛ tsp salt
• 2 tbsp water (or as needed)

Whoopie Pie Cinnamon Buttercream Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 ½ tbsp cinnamon (or to taste)
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• ⅛ tsp salt
• 3 tbsp milk

Whoopie Pie Apple Cake Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grab your nonstick baking sheet. This is my set.

Peel, core and grate the apples (you should have about 3 cups of grated apple). Add the lemon juice to the apples and toss.

Mix the butter, sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add the egg.

Sift together the flour baking powder and salt and add to the batter. Add the grated apple and stir until combined.

Use a medium cookie scoop to scoop the batter on to the prepared baking sheet or two heaping tablespoons full. Ensuring the cakes are each around the same size is key.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until firm to the touch. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool.

SHOP MY KITCHEN

Whoopie Pie Cinnamon Buttercream Directions
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and salt on medium speed until smooth and creamy – about 2 minutes.

Slowly add 2 cups powdered sugar and beat until combined. Add another 2 cups and beat until completely smooth.

Add milk and vanilla and beat on high speed for 2 minutes until fluffy. Beat in more sugar as needed, until desired consistency.

Once the cakes are completely cooled, add two small scoops of filling per whoopie pie. Enjoy!

RECIPE NOTES
If the butter cream is too sweet, add an additional pinch of salt of a teaspoon of fresh lemon juice. Both of these options will reduce sweetness.

If you do not have a stand mixer, use an electric mixer. In order to really cream the filling, you want to use some sort of electric option whether a stand mixer of hand held. Whisking with a hand whisker will more than likely not cut if.

There is a trick I learned in Paris that has made the BIGGEST different in my baking… check back next week as I’ll be sharing this, along with other bits of knowledge we learned from the Parisian pastry chef at La Cuisine Paris. 🙂

Xo Mindy

SHOP MY KITCHEN