Whoopie Pies

My next attempt from the Hummingbird Bakery book was the Red Velvet Whoopie Pie recipe. This was one of my not-so-successful baking stories. The actual bake itself was fine, it was more the taste and flavour that was the problem here. This was down to a combination of things: the buttermilk and the amount of red food colouring. Buttermilk is not that readily available in the U.K. (or at least not where I live), so I had to create a buttermilk substitute (a mixture of milk and lemon juice), which will not have been as good as the actual thing. I also feel that 30ml of food colouring is far too much for the amount of cake mixture produced. 30ml does not even create the depth of red shown in the recipe photographs, and even makes the Whoopie Pies taste a bit strange, in my opinion anyway. The filling, however, was very nice indeed. It was extremely sweet (being full of Marshmallow Fluff, which is now easily available in supermarkets over here), but in small amounts makes for a perfect filling.

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies

Undaunted by the problems I came across, I attempted the recipe for a second time, with less food colouring. The results, however, were the same, but with less depth of red colouring. As with the Red Velvet cake, it may be worth trying powdered food colouring instead, and trying to hunt down some real buttermilk. Any ideas on where to get hold of some?

Beckie.