Peppermint Whoopie Pies Recipe

In honor of my mom’s birthday yesterday (Happy Birthday Mom!), I’m going to share a super fun holiday dessert she and I made a few weeks ago: Peppermint Whoopie Pies!

Aren’t they pretty?! And they’re as delicious as they look!

The cookies only take about 10 minutes to cook, but they have to cool completely before you can turn them into whoopie pies, so make sure you leave yourself a few hours to make these.

Peppermint Whoopie Pies

(There’s a printable version at the bottom of the post.)

Here’s what you need for the cookies:

• 1 box of chocolate cake mix
• 3 eggs
• ½ C water
• ½ C oil
• ⅓ C Mocha Peppermint coffee creamer

And for the filling:

• 1.5 sticks of butter (softened)
• 1 jar of marshmallow fluff
• ¾ C powdered sugar
• 2 oz cream cheese (softened)
• 1 t vanilla
• ¼ t salt
• ½ t peppermint extract
• crushed peppermints or candy canes for rolling

Start by preheating your oven to 400 degrees F.

Pour all the ingredients for the cookies into a bowl and beat for 1-2 minutes. Then use a tablespoon to drop small circles of mix onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper (or a Sil-Pat). Make sure the circles are small (1″-2″) and equal-sized. This will make it easier to make them into sandwiches later. (The circles in this picture were a little bit too big and the pies ended up huge! The next time I made these I used just less than a flat tablespoon of batter for each circle and that seemed about perfect.)

Pull out the cream cheese and butter just before you put the cookies in the oven so that they can start to soften.

Bake the cookies at 400 degrees F for 8 to 10 minutes. You can use the toothpick test to know when they are done. Over-done is better than under-done, so if you’re not sure, give them another minute or two.

Pull the cookies off the pan and let them cool completely on a wire rack.

Once the cookies are cool, mix up the filling. Combine all of the ingredients in a bowl (except the crushed peppermints). Spread the filling on the “back” of one cookie, then stick the “back” of another cookie on top. Make sure to use enough filling that it goes all the way up to the edges of the cookie, but not so much that it gets goopy and falls over the edges.

Once you have your “sandwich” made, crush up your peppermints or candy canes. We used mini candy canes because they came individually wrapped, making it easier to deal with all the crushed up bits afterwards. We stuck the candy cane packets on top of a hot pad and whacked them with a meat tenderizer a few times and it worked great! (A hammer or any other blunt, smash-y device will work fine too.)

Pour your crushed peppermint bits into a shallow bowl and roll the edges of the pies over them. If you got your filling close enough to the edge of the cookie, the peppermint will stick to it, making the edges look pretty. 🙂

Now enjoy your peppermint whoopie pies!

(Just one note: This recipe makes a LOT of pies! I think we ended up with about 50 cookies! And the filling gets kinda liquidy after a while, so be warned. Don’t let them sit too long or the cookies will get soggy. You can pare down the filling recipe and “fill” the pies in small batches, or maybe try putting your extras in the freezer to keep the filling from soaking into the cookies too fast.)

What are your favorite holiday desserts? Have you ever had peppermint whoopie pies (or any other flavor) before? My mom has a few other whoopie pie recipes and they’re all delicious!!!

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