Two chocolate, cake-like cookies with a sweetened peanut butter filling. These Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies are individually sized desserts that are perfect for sharing!
Kid Desserts
When my in-laws have my family over for dinner, they regularly have whoopie pies for the kids for dessert. My kids go through phases where they love them and want as many as they can eat, and then phases where they would rather have something else.
During one of their recent “I want whoopie pies all the time” phases, I decided to make them myself. After some experimentation, I came up with a recipe that we all loved!
Whoopie Pies
Cake
Step one of making a whoopie pie is to make the cake layers. I wanted a light, airy chocolate cake. For this I used:
- Light Brown Sugar
- Granulated Sugar
- Eggs
- Vegetable Oil
- Vanilla Extract
- All Purpose Flour
- Cocoa Powder
- Baking Soda
- Salt
- Buttermilk
You can make these as big or as small as you would like. I wanted each whoopie pie to be about 3 inches in diameter. For this, I used ~3 tablespoons of batter for each cake layer.
If you want to have larger whoopie pies, you can use more batter, but will likely need to add an extra minute or two to the baking time.
Filling Varieties
There are so many options for whoopie pie filling! You can use a buttercream frosting, cream cheese frosting, a mousse, marshmallow cream, or a roux based filling.
I personally prefer a roux based filling as I want lots of filling in the whoopie pies and find that many of the other options are just too sweet. A roux based filling has the perfect amount of sweetness. You can load up the pies with as much as you want!
Filling Flavor
For these whoopie pies, I used a peanut butter filling. However, you could also substitute the peanut butter with Nutella (I have used that with great results), a different type of nut butter, or cookie butter. So many delicious possibilities!
The only thing I would recommend avoiding would be an oily nut butter (like natural peanut butter). With an oily butter it is likely that the filling would be too runny to stay in the pies.
These Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies are perfect, individually sized desserts that the whole family will love!
Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies
Ingredients
Cakes
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 2 large eggs
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 2/3 cup cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
Filling
- 1 cup milk
- 1/4 cup all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter softened
- 1/2 cup smooth Peanut Butter
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup powdered sugar
Instructions
Cakes
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
- Use electric mixer to beat brown sugar, sugar, and butter until lightened and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
- Mix in eggs, one at a time, scraping down sides as needed. Then, mix in vegetable oil and vanilla extract.
- In a small bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.
- Alternate mixing in flour mixture and buttermilk in 3-4 additions each, beginning and ending with flour mixture.
- On prepared baking sheet, drop about 3 tablespoons of batter in a circle shape. Make sure that edges of circles are at least 2 inches apart.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until tops of cakes have a cracked appearance and a toothpick inserted into the center one of the center cakes comes out with just a few crumbs.
- Let cook on pan for 2-3 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Let cool completely before filling.
Filling
- Heat milk in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Whisk in flour. Whisk continuously until the mixture turns in a thick paste that resembles glue.
- Remove from heat and let cool completely.
- Once mixture has cooled, use electric mix to mix in butter, peanut butter, salt and vanilla until smooth and creamy.
- Mix in powdered sugar. Continue mixing until frosting is smooth and creamy, about 1-2 minutes.
- Spread mixture evenly over one side of a cookie. Place a second cook on top of mixture.
Disclaimer: All nutritional information provided on this website is an estimate only and is not guaranteed.
If you enjoyed these Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies, you may also enjoy these other SugarSpicesLife recipes:
Chocolate Eclair Puffs
Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies
Peanut Butter Stuffed Cookie Cake
Instant Pot Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheesecake
Buckeyes (Peanut Butter Chocolate Candy)
