March 18, 2009
Whoopie! Cookie, Pie or Cake, It's Having Its Moment
FOR generations, vacationers in Maine and visitors to Pennsylvania’s Amish country have found a simple black and white snack in restaurants and convenience shops and on nearly every gas station counter: whoopie pies.
They were found in other pockets of the country, too, from New England to Ohio. But in most of the United States, people could be forgiven for not knowing that the whoopie pie is not, in fact, a pie at all. (It is sometimes described as a cookie, but that is not quite right, either. The closest description may be a cake-like sandwich, or perhaps a sandwich-like cake.)
Now whoopie pies are migrating across the country, often appearing in the same specialty shops and grocery aisles that recently made room for cupcakes. Last fall, they even cracked the lineup at Magnolia Bakery in Manhattan, which helped turn cupcakes into a national craze thanks to the bakery’s exposure on “Sex and the City.” Under the name “sweetie pies,” heart-shaped whoopie pies showed up in the February catalog from Williams-Sonoma. Baked in Maine with local butter and organic eggs, they sell for $49 a dozen.
In their traditional round form, whoopie pies can be found at Trader Joe’s supermarkets, at Whole Foods in Manhattan and at small bakeries like Kim’s Kitchen in Evanston, Ill., outside Chicago.
Kim’s Kitchen (soon to be renamed Fraîche) was an early adopter, first offering its hockey-puck-size pies seven years ago. The cakes come in chocolate and pumpkin, which remains a popular flavor long after the autumn leaves are gone, according to the shop’s owner, Susan Friedman.
“If we took them away after it stopped being fall, there would be a riot outside,” Ms. Friedman said.
Whoopie pies have been on the rise for several years, and nobody can pinpoint the reason they finally broke into the national consciousness. But the snacks evoke a more homespun era that seems to provide some comfort amid the economic gloom. “Pure edible nostalgia,” the Williams-Sonoma catalog calls them.
“Especially now, when people are so stressed out, they are going back to whoopie pies,” said Emily Isaac, owner of Trois Pommes Patisserie in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Ms. Isaac had never heard of whoopie pies before she was asked to make them as wedding favors three years ago. Entranced at first taste, she put them on the menu at her bakery when it opened in May 2007.
There are dozens of variations on the shape, flavors and fillings. Trois Pommes serves what seems to be the classic version: two round mounds of chocolate cake, about three inches across, with French vanilla cream filling.
The whoopie pie sold since last fall at Zingerman’s Bakehouse, in Ann Arbor, Mich., sports a chocolate glaze on its dense chocolate cake and is filled with Swiss buttercream filling.
The basic elements of the whoopie pie turn up in many other snacks that might be considered its far-flung relatives. Amy Emberling, a partner at Zingerman’s Bakehouse, grew up in eastern Canada eating a similar cookie called a Jos. Louis. Oreo sells a whoopie pie look-alike called the Oreo Cakester, while the Hostess Suzy Q is a square version that vies for space on some store shelves with whoopie-esque Little Debbie snack cakes.
Food historians believe whoopie pies originated in Pennsylvania, where they were baked by Amish women and put in farmers’ lunchboxes.
Tired from a morning’s work, the farmers purportedly would shout “Whoopie!” if they discovered one of the desserts in their lunch pails, Ms. Emberling said.
In parts of Pennsylvania, whoopie pies remain a celebrated sweet. The annual Whoopie Pie Festival at the Hershey Farm and Inn in Strasburg, Pa., features a whoopie pie eating contest and the coronation of the Whoopie Pie Queen.
The whoopie pie would probably be Maine’s state dessert, if the state had one. The filling is generally of one of two types: a thick, sweet frosting made from Crisco shortening combined with confectioners’ sugar, or, more conveniently, a dollop of Marshmallow Fluff.
The cake itself is typically not especially sweet, and is often on the dry side, since the frosting lends plenty of sugar and a gooey consistency, said Sandra Oliver, a food historian and columnist in Islesboro, Me.
How the cookies traveled to Maine is a mystery, however.
One theory holds that whoopie pies were brought north during the Great Depression through the Yummy Book, a recipe pamphlet first published in 1930 by Durkee-Mower, the Massachusetts company that makes Fluff.
Don Durkee, whose father co-founded the firm, discredits that notion. After checking the company’s collection of pamphlets, the earliest appearance of whoopie pies he found was during the 1970s. “I’m baffled,” he said.
Leslie Land, a Maine writer, said her research showed that the recipe might have been popularized by one of the many local radio programs aimed at housewives during the 1930s.
No matter how they arrived, they have been eaten by Maine residents for at least eight decades, said Ms. Oliver, who publishes Food History News, a monthly newsletter. Labadie’s Bakery, in Lewiston, Me., which sells whoopie pies as big as 16 inches across, claims to have sold them since 1925.
Many of the whoopie pies sold in Maine come sheathed in plastic wrap. Generally sold for less than $2, they can be found stacked next to cash registers, the dry cake growing moister by the hour. “If you peel the Saran off and half the cookie doesn’t come away, it’s not a real whoopie pie,” Ms. Oliver said.
Ms. Friedman, in Evanston, agreed that her whoopie pies have a rustic image rather than a luxury one, although they sell for $3 each.
“They’re not as perfect as a lovely cupcake that has a beautiful swirl of icing on top,” she said. “They’re a little more handmade looking.”
At Magnolia Bakery, maple-cream icing is sandwiched between two brown-sugar cakes. Sina Clark-Murphy, the head baker, said that the whoopie pie’s humble appearance may help it come across as less of a dietary threat than a frosting-piled cupcake or a serving of banana pudding. Unfortunately, they are no less caloric.
At the other end of the simplicity scale are the heart-shaped versions baked by the Cranberry Island Kitchen in Maine, which supplies Williams-Sonoma. The pies wound up in the catalog after a friend of one of the company’s food buyers sampled them at Bob’s Clam Hut in Kittery, Me., and recommended that the catalog stock them, said Carol Ford, one of Cranberry Island’s owners.
Cranberry Island’s whoopie pies, which start at $28.75 for six, are made with chocolate cake or vanilla and are available in shapes like scallop shells and pumpkins. Filling flavors include rum, peppermint, Cointreau, raspberry and espresso.
To Ms. Oliver, the food historian, that upscale approach misses the point.
“It’s like making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with almond butter,” she said. “It’s not meant to be fine cuisine.”
retrieved 3/18/09 from: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/dining/18whoop.html
