Jan 2012
26
“What happened to the whoopie pies? Marcel asked.
“Nothing. Why?” I said.
“A bite’s been taken out of each one.”
“What?”
“A bite.”
“You’re joking.”
I walked into the bedroom where I’d stashed the dessert of cream-filled sandwich cookies because my kitchen is small. Thinking I was being clever, I’d placed 4-year-old Ivan in charge, reasoning that if he shouldered the responsibility of protecting the whoopie pies, they’d be safe not only from his older brothers and sister, but, most importantly, from him.
Whoops.
Now, I stood before a baking sheet filled with sandwich cookies boasting bite marks. Four were spared.
“Ivan!”
“You shouldn’t have put them down low where he could reach them,” Marcel said.
“Well, it’s too late now for that,” I said.
I yelled again for Ivan as he walked into the bedroom.
“Yes, Mom?”
“What happened to the whoopie pies?”
“Sorry.”
“But what happened to them? They’re for our guests and now there’s a bite taken out of each one.”
“I was starving,” Ivan said.
“But why did you have to take a bite out of every one of them? Why not just take an entire cookie and eat that one?”
“Okay.” He smiled.
“No, no, no. You can’t have any more! Tell me what happened.”
“Well, I was starving and I went in and took a bite and got a drink of water and watched the ‘puter game and then I got starving again.”
Whoopie pies are not quite a cookie and not quite a cake, but fall somewhere in between, according to ”Whoopie Pies” by Sarah Billingsley and Amy Treadwell, whose cookbook runs wild with possibilities like:
- Fat Elvis (banana cake, salty peanut butter filling),
- Lemon Triple Threat (lemon cake, lemon curd and mascarpone filling),
- Happy Pilgrim (pumpkin cake, maple filling), and
- The Stoner (chocolate cake, marshmallow cream, drizzle of chocolate syrup, with the edges rolled in crushed Fritos).
The two constants in all these happy combinations are the generous amount of creamy filling and the pies’ soft, rounded shapes. I looked at my half-eaten pies resembling half moons and sighed.
“You were hungry fourteen times?”
“Uh-huh.”
Teeth marks were cut away, the whoopie pies stacked and the four untouched ones served to our guests, who went on to request seconds, fully aware they’d been vetted by our young taste tester — who developed a stomachache later that night.
Classic chocolate whoopie
Adapted from “Whoopie Pies” by Sarah Billingsley and Amy Treadwell
Makes about 48 two-inch cakes
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
4 tablespoons vegetable shortening
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cup milk
Position rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 375-F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in one bowl and set aside. In another bowl, beat together the butter, shortening and brown sugar on low speed with an electric mixer. Increase speed to medium and beat until fluffy and smooth, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and beat for another 2 minutes.
Add half the flour mixture and half the milk to the batter and beat until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the remaining flour mixture and milk and beat until smooth.
Using a spoon, drop about 1 tablespoon of batter on to the baking sheets, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Bake one sheet at a time for 10 minutes or until the pies spring back when gently pressed. Remove from oven and let the cakes sit on the sheet for another 5 minutes before moving them to a rack to cool completely.
Classic marshmallow filling
1 1/2 cups marshmallow cream
1 1/4 cups vegetable shortening
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
With a mixer, beat together the marshmallow cream and shortening until smooth and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add powdered sugar and vanilla and beat about 3 minutes longer.
Assembling whoopie pies:
Spread the filling onto the flat side of one cake using a knife or spoon. Top it with another cake, flat side down. Repeat. Alternatively, you can use a pastry bag with a round top to pipe the filling onto the cakes.
Call me an art ignorass
to wonder aloud why glass,
smudged and specked,
in need of Windex,
gets gallery lighting and pass.
+++
The weather was crummy so my family went to see the photographs of Isaac Layman, a Seattle artist who turned his lens inward, studying the small and unoriginal pieces of his home. It was the final day of the Frye Art Museum’s exhibit “Paradise” and we passed one room lined with empty frames. In another room, a large photograph filled one wall with its soft, luxurious folds of gray, but as we walked closer we discovered it was used tissues from when the photographer’s family had been sick. Here is art, then. One of life’s banal mementos transcending its base and contemptuous origin and, for a brief second, becoming beautiful, right? Maybe.
“Isaac Layman’s photographs are hyperreal visions of the mundane spaces and objects found in his Seattle home. … They are ultimately unremarkable scenes, but Layman feels an affinity to them as they are endearing representations of all he has,” according to the Lawrimore Project.
We returned to the room with its blank walls and discovered that this was intentional. The empty frames held glass removed from the windows of the photographer’s home. I stood and stared, shifted my perspective, puzzled over what I should appreciate about these squares of dirty glass and decided to be grateful that it was not lint found in Layman’s navel.
I left the museum feeling annoyed with such a wide, forgiving definition of art, and that night I woke with the limerick in my head. But today — as the sun threw into high relief my own smudged and specked glass from which I view all that I hold dear — I decided to not disparage what I failed to appreciate by throwing rocks through another’s windows. After all, I might be more like Layman than I wish to admit in searching for the significant in what is dull and commonplace, he with his camera and me with my pen.
A week of snow, of broken routines and sledding before sunrise. Of early nights, and being surprised that I’m hooked by the space western Firefly. Drinking The Duke’s Hot Chocolate with pepper and all spice, as snowmen infiltrate the backyard. Learning to identify the Bewick’s wren, black-capped chickadee, gray-headed junco, and red-shafted flicker at the bird feeders. Wishing I could do this.
