This year I wanted to get into Hallowe’en properly. We’d been invited to a children’s party, my daughter had been doing arts and crafts at school (pumpkin mosaic and ‘friendly’ ghost collage) and it was going to fall during the school holidays, so there’d be time and scope for an activity or two.

As ever, I wanted a food element to mark the day. Real pumpkins have popped up all over Paris this year so buying one to carve wouldn’t be an issue but what to make to eat …?

I bought a sugar pumpkin and made some basic but delicious soup and roasted some chestnuts to eat alongside it but I also wanted to bake something sweet. Whilst my daughter is still too young for real sweets and trick-or-treating, I didn’t want to be too puritanical, especially after she rejected my homemade seasonal soup …

Somewhere at the back of my mind, a little voice whispered that I’d seen a recipe for pumpkin spice whoopie pies and a search confirmed that this indeed did exist on the Guardian online – a Hummingbird Bakery recipe.

Incidentally, I had asked for a whoopie pie tin for Christmas about 7 years ago and had sadly neglected it since an initial flurry of baking, so this would give me a chance to revive it. (Note: this recipe is entirely achievable, and, in fact, easier, without a whoopie pie tin so don’t be put off from trying it if you haven’t got a tin at home)

Note: If you haven’t encountered a whoopie pie before, it is akin to 2 drop sponges sandwiched together with a filling. The shells are more sponge cake than cookie (much to my husband’s disappointment) but the proportions are much like a cookie than a fairy cake, i.e. flattish.

Tinned pumpkin is hard to come by in France and I had leftover roasted pumpkin from my soup endeavours so I used this. I had also run out of light muscovado sugar and had to use a pretty lumpy, unrefined sugar approximation to muscovado so my whoopie pies turned out a little more rustic and ‘informal’ than the photo on the Guardian website.

However, they were absolutely delicious and I was as keen (if not more so) on the un-iced, un-filled shells than on those I sandwiched together with a cream cheese and marshmallow fluff filling. They are somewhere between carrot cake and a pumpkin pie, satisfyingly substantial thanks to the real pumpkin and just sweet enough, with those desirable autumnal spices of ginger and cinnamon shining through.

If you can’t find or don’t fancy using the marshmallow fluff, you could just as easily use the cream cheese buttercream without the addition of the marshmallow fluff and these would be even more carrot-cake-esque. I find that using the fluff adds some American authenticity and does make for a lighter filling,

Spiced & satisfying real roasted pumpkin whoopie pies

Adapted from the Hummingbird Bakery recipe, published in The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/oct/28/pumpkin-whoopie-pies-recipe

Ingredients

Whoopie pie shells

• 120ml vegetable oil (I used grape seed oil)
• 200g muscovado sugar (preferably light muscovado sugar but dark will do)
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup measure mashed roasted pumpkin (or 100g tinned pumpkin puree)
• 250g plain flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger

Filling

• 85g soft unsalted butter
• 150g icing sugar
• 80g full-fat cream cheese (such as Philadelphia)
• 100g marshmallow fluff

Icing

(if you want to decorate with pumpkin faces!)

• icing sugar
• water

Method

Whoopie pie shells

If you want to use real pumpkin, this recipe needs just under a quarter of a medium-sized sugar pumpkin. Cut the pumpkin into quarters, scoop out the seeds and stringy interior and throw away and rub the inside of the pumpkin flesh with a little oil before putting in a roasting tin in an oven at 180°C for 30 mins or so, until soft. Leave to cool, then scoop the flesh off the skin and mash roughly with a fork. (You can use the rest to make a really simple soup with vegetable stock and a couple of spoonfuls of creme fraîche or coconut milk. Roasted pumpkin also freezes really well so you can save some to make a real pumpkin pie with around Thanksgiving)

Switch your oven on to 170C and either grease your whoopie pie tin indents with butter or line two baking trays with baking paper.

Mix together the vegetable oil, sugar and vanilla essence with an electric mixer until combined. Tip in the egg and mashed pumpkin (or tinned pumpkin purée) and continue mixing until all the ingredients are incorporated.

Sift together the remaining ingredients and add these to the liquid mixture in two batches, mixing together thoroughly on a medium speed until you have an even batter.

Using a teaspoon, spoon the mixture into the whoopie pie tin or onto your baking tray. I used about 1 and a half heaped teaspoon for each but you can go bigger or smaller.

Pop in the oven for 12 minutes until the sponge bounces back when touched. Leave to cool completely before filling.

Filling

Make a butter cream by mixing together the butter and the icing sugar with an electric mixer or just a wooden spoon. Add the cream cheese and beat well. Finally, add the marshmallow fluff (if using) and put in the fridge for 30 minutes to set slightly.

Sandwich together two whoopie pie shells with the filling and set aside to firm up.

Icing

If you want to decorate the tops of your whoopie pies, mix a little water into icing sugar until you get a stiff but not solid paste. I used a tiny nozzle and piping bag for fine icing but you could drizzle, dip or do anything else!