WHOOPIE PIES

If you never heard of or have never seen a WHOOPIE PIE, I was with you until I started dating a North Easterner!!!! They are indigenous to the Northeast - especially Maine and Amish regions in Pennsylvania.

The name, according to lore, comes from Amish schoolchildren who would open their lunchboxes and find these treats and shout "whoopie!" I am sure North Easterners have their own claim to fame on the name and the invention.

The Whoopie Pie is really not a pie at all. It is two plump, round usually chocolate cakes that sandwich a white WAD of sweet, sometimes marshmallow, frosting. They are kind of like Hostess Ding Dongs without the hard chocolate outside.

My husband used to talk about them all the time and how he got them in his lunchbox. My first encounter with them was in Maine and you find them everywhere. They are usually wrapped in plastic and in baskets near cash registers in gas stations, small grocers and many local restaurants.

There is a cook book out that suggests altering the fillings to include salted caramel, bacon-chive goat cheese, and even a ganache filling which would certainly be sacrilegious to the original 13 colonies!!!

When you travel throughout the Northeast these are a must try!

ENJOY!