marilynpeight
These gob-smackingly good, sugar cookie whoopie pies (or gobs) are the perfect treat to decorate with colored icing and candy canes for Christmas. You can even add your favorite Christmas sprinkles onto the sugar cookies before baking them! These sugar cookies originate from several Amish recipes and are soft and cake-like, the perfect texture for making these holiday whoopie pies! For the icing I like to use my homemade Amish whoopie pie frosting but if you prefer a sweeter frosting you can also use a basic buttercream frosting *see more notes on frosting below the recipe.
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Amish sugar cookie whoopie pies (holiday version)
Equipment
- baking sheets (linked below)
- Mixing bowl (linked below)
- Whisk (linked below)
- hand mixer (linked below)
- Piping bag and tips (linked below)
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup softened butter
- 1/2 cup vegetable shortening (Crisco)
- 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs (room temp)
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 4 1/2 cups flour all purpose
Toppings and Filling:
- Amish whoopie pie frosting or buttercream (*see notes and links to recipes below)
- Red and/or green food coloring
- Brown sugar (optional)
- 6 crushed candy canes (regular size)
- Christmas sprinkles (optional)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350.
- Cream butter, shortening and sugars together until smooth and well combined. Add room temperature eggs (see note below), buttermilk and vanilla or almond extract. Whisk (or mix with a hand mixer) the wet ingredients until well combined.
- Add the dry ingredients and stir into the wet ingredients until the flour is completely incorporated and no lumps remain.
- Drop the sugar cookies (with a tablespoon or ice cream scoop) onto parchment lined baking sheets. Sprinkle the tops of the cookie dough with brown sugar or press holiday sprinkles onto the tops of the cookies.
- Bake the Amish sugar cookies in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes, until the center of the cookie is set and the cookies have lightly browned on the edges. Allow the cookies to cool, then frost one side with colored or white frosting and sandwich with another cookie. Press crushed candy cane onto the edges of the frosting and sprinkle the tops with more crushed candy cane (optional) See more notes and photos on frosting below.
Notes
Equipment needed for these Holiday Amish Sugar Cookie Whoopie pies.
- Cookie sheets having a good cookie sheet is so helpful in getting an even bake on the sugar cookies. The brand linked is the only one I use and hasn’t let me down yet!
- Mixing bowl I recommend investing in a good set of mixing bowls. I use my mixing bowls for so many things and definitely recommend using stainless steel bowls over plastic or ceramic.
- Whisk I prefer to use a large whisk with a wire handle for these sugar cookies, the dough can get more of a stiff cake batter texture, so it is worth having a bigger whisk.
- Piping bags Using a piping bag makes frosting these whoopie pies so much easier! I also prefer to use a 2D tip to get the prettiest edges in the whoopie pie.
Storage: I prefer to wrap these whoopie pies individually with saran wrap and then keep them in an airtight container for up to a week. They can also be frozen for several months for longer storage.
My preference for these whoopie pies is certainly the Amish homemade whoopie pie frosting, this frosting is light and fluffy and not as sweet as traditional buttercream. But the homemade whoopie pie frosting is also a little more time consuming, which is why you can take a shortcut and make a traditional buttercream frosting for these whoopie pies if you wish. If you do use a buttercream frosting you may need to make a double batch of frosting to have enough for the batch of sugar cookie whoopie pies. To color the frosting red or green, simply add drops of red or green food coloring until you get the desired color. Crushed candy cane and sprinkles are optional, but fun and festive if you wish to make your whoopie pies holiday themed. Keep scrolling for step by step photos and more notes.
Step 1: Cream the butter, shortening and sugars together until smooth. Add eggs and whisk until the mixture is fluffy.
I prefer to use salted, sweet cream butter in this recipe, it is also best to have the butter just slightly softened just to where you can cream it into the sugars, but not too soft or the cookies will end up spreading too much.
Step 1 continued: Add the buttermilk and extract and mix again until combined.
The batter may begin to separate at this point. This is normal and doesn’t seem to change the texture of the cookie, but you can give it another good mix before adding dry ingredients if you wish.
Step 2: Add the dry ingredients and mix well until the batter is a cross between cake batter and a fluffy cookie dough as shown below.
Step 3: Scoop the cookie dough with an ice cream scoop or drop by tablespoon onto a large baking sheet. Keep the cookies several inches apart as they will spread some while baking.
I personally do not chill my sugar cookie dough before baking, but if you wish to do so for a fluffier cookie (or if you live in a higher altitude) you can chill them for an hour or two and then scoop and bake them as directed in the recipe.
Step 4: Allow the cookies to cool, then frost and decorate to preference.
I did not have high expectations for these sugar cookie whoopie pies, maybe because we were having a chaotic morning (with two toddlers I should say every morning has a form of chaos, ha!) and maybe because the idea of sprinkles on a whoopie pie sounded a bit extra…. But, I took one bite of the whoopie pie with a candy cane coating and was totally in love with it! The soft mild flavored sugar cookie is completely perfected with the fluffy frosting and bit of peppermint crunch from the candy cane coating. Once again I humbly say “Thank you Lord, for blessing my bake in the middle of our imperfect morning!”
Feel free to pin for later and show off your festive creations by tagging me on Instagram at thismom.cooks.
