Chocolate whoopie pies

With 4 th July coming up I thought I'd make a American treat today.
Whoopie pies are the new cupcake, they haven't taken off as well in Ireland yet but all the famous cupcake bakeries are making them and they are flying off the shelves. They are a spongy biscuit like sandwiches with a soft icing in the middle.They are lush with a cup of tea or just munched on their own. I'm making chocolate flavour but once I play around with the recipe I'll post different flavours.

Donna

Makes 10-12 sandwiched whoopsies. 20-24 halves.

Ingredients:

For the Sponge

1 large egg

150g Caster Sugar

125g Plain yoghurt

25ml whole milk

¼ tsp vanilla essence

75g melted unsalted butter

200g Plain Flour

80g Cocoa Powder

¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda

¼ tsp baking powder

Filling:

170g unsalted butter

280g icing sugar

Drop of food colouring

Drop of vanilla extract

Method:

If you have an electronic mixer you may use it I don't so I used a whisk and they turned out just as good, cream the egg and sugar until pale and fluffy.
Pour the yoghurt, milk and vanilla essence into a jug and stir together then add to the beaten egg and sugar. Add the melted butter and mix in thoroughly on a medium speed.

Sift the remaining sponge ingredients together, then add to the creamed mixture in two batches, mixing well after each addition. Place the batter in the fridge to cool and set for 20-30 minutes.

Grease two flat baking trays and line with baking paper.
Once the batter has cooled down, spoon it on to the prepared trays, dividing the mixture into 20-24 rounds (8-10 per tray), each 3-5 cm in diameter and spaced 2-3cm apart.

(I used a piping bag but you can use a spoon instead a lot of home cooks don't have piping bags so don't worry if you don't ).

Bake in the oven for 10-13 minutes or until springy to touch. Remove from the trays and place on a wire rack, allowing them to cool completely before sandwiching together.

While the sponges are cooking you can make the filling

Method for filling:

Beat butter and icing sugar together until light and fluffy
Add vanilla extract and a drop of red food colouring

Sandwich the cooled whoopies together with the icing.

Enjoy.