About 8 months into my relationship with Tom, I was invited by his mother and him to celebrate is father’s (who passed away 3 days after Tom and I started dating) memorial up in Bar Harbor, Maine. I jumped at the chance to visit the North Atlantic seaboard and in exchange I got to meet the rest of his gazillion family.

We flew into Portland, Maine and then took the 3 hour drive to Bar Harbor.And totally fell in love with this town on Mount Desert Island. Full of picturesque cottage homes, inns, shops, taverns and restaurants all at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean was all I needed to know for me to announce to Tom that I wanted to move there. By the third day there, I informed Tom that this is where we would get married, buy a home, remodeled it to a cute B&B and spend the rest of our lives living by the water, eating the lobster, whale watching, kayaking, hiking the Acadia National Parkand stuffing ourselves with the popovers from the Jordan Pond House Restaurant.

He simply said: “ok” (smart man, catering to my every whim, even then).

Then one of his brother’s (the one that lives in Bar Harbor) informed me that during the winter they get temperatures in the 20’s and sometimes in the 10’s, with, a lot of snow. He then showed me proof with a picture of his house, where the only thing you could see was his rooftop – because everything else was hidden by a blanket of white snow.

I mentally moved my B&B dream, living by the water, lobster eating and whale dolphin watching to a coastal town in Florida.

One of the many activities during the week’s trip was to have breakfast in different cute café around town. One day, as we were leaving one of these cafes, Tom’s mom announced that we needed to get some Whoopie pies.

Some whopi-what?

And right there and there, I was introduced to Maine’s best known and favorite comfort food.

Once I saw them, I was like “Pie”? That is not a pie! There’s no crust, no fruit, that’s not a PIE! Instead these "pies" were really two sides of a mini chocolate cake pressed together with a cream filling. When I asked who came up with this, I was told by the cashier that history suggests that these were baked for generations by the Amish and it was a special treat made from leftover cake batter. (Got to love someone that knows how to not waste cake batter).

I took a bite and knew they were not going to be a favorite of mine. They were way too sweet - and we know how I feel about overly sweet desserts. So, I gave mine to Tom to finish off and that was that.

So, when I saw this weeks choice, I was like, let’s see if Rose’s can prove me wrong about how sweet these can be. I had not much hope once I read that part of the ingredient line up had Muscovado sugar. Now, I’m not a huge fan of Muscovado sugar, mainly because of the strongly flavored trait. Even thought it’s considered more beneficial than pure white sugar (who knew?). Nevertheless, I have learned that when it comes to Rose’s recipes that sometimes all is not what it seems.

The rest of the ingredients are pretty straight forward. Chocolate, flour, cocoa, an egg, oil and butter. The batter was pretty easy to put together, and upon tasting it (What? don’t you dare tell me that you do not lick the batter… yeah I’m looking at you Internet) I thought we were on the clear with the sweet factor. The texture of the batter was another thing all together.

I thought the batter was not thick enough for scoping it and then dropping “round circles” unto the baking sheet, and of course the "second guessing" mode started. At this point I was sure that I had just jinxed myself – keep that in mind.

I took my ice cream scooper and was ready to measure out the batter when I realized that I had no clue if I was using the right size scooper. Ice cream scooper have numbers - news to me!

Oh oh! I went back and read that it should be about 2 tablespoon, so I decided to eye ball it. I started to pour the batter and as I was on the fourth portion, I realized that I was going to be short. I read the recipe again and notice that it was suppose to yield 6 pies. So that meant I needed to have 6 rounds per sheet.

Recipe 1, Monica 0 *Sigh*

I had to pour the batter back in the bowl, wash the baking sheet and start over. This time, paying attention to the amount, so I could have a total of 12 not so rounds of batter. The first 6 went into the oven, the next six when into the freezer, since I was afraid the batter was going to suck up all the humidity in the air and end up one big blog mess.

When I open the oven at the 6 minute mark to turn the sheet around, my batter had spread considerable all over the baking sheet. At this point I gave up hope for them to be perfect puffed up rounds as the picture in the book. Mine looked like oval aliens - not good.

Since I needed to continue the already jinxed free fall, I stared on the marshmallow cream. I had to make the sugar syrup (remember my last attempt at this)? Yeah, well let’s just say that I’m a sticker for repetition – not the good kind. I totally know that my candy thermostat MUST BE BROKEN. Because, I stopped cooking the sugar at the 250 degree mark. But once I started to pour into the egg whites, the sugar syrup started to caramelize on me and once more I had pieces of hard sugar all over the egg whites.

Recipe 2, Monica 0

I was too defeated to start over, so I dug up the bigger pieces, and stuck it in the refrigerator to cool and started on the butter/powdered sugar mixture. Then I added the cooled meringue and started to assemble the pies.

After I finished I had a drink and patted myself on the back for not going totally crazy.

Verdict:

Tom: “They are good; I think they are a bit too sweet. I wonder how these taste replacing the cream with Ice Cream.”?

Me: I like them, they were not as sweet as the one I tasted in Maine, but the cake had that molasses taste from the Muscovado sugar, which keep turning me off. I may make them again with regular brown sugar and use ice cream for the filling.

I know, I know... then they will not be Whoppie pies, but ice cream sandwich.

But, who is keeping track?

Disclaimer: No recipe are shared in my Heavenly Cake Baker posts, due to our rules of the bake-along. Unfortunatly, we are restricted in sharing the recipes by the publisher of Rose's Heavenly Cakes. You can purchase it here.