Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

My roommate told me these looked like "little pumpkin terds." Then she tried one. Her world was rocked. These little guys are good!

• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, 1 stick melted, 1/2 stick softened
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
• 1 cup canned pure pumpkin puree
• 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon plus 2 pinches salt
• 1-2/3 cups flour
• 4 ounces cream cheese (1/3 less fat)
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
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• 1. Preheat oven to 350 and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
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• 2. Whisk together melted stick of butter and brown sugar until smooth. Whisk in eggs, pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice, vanilla, baking powder, baking soda, salt. Then, fold in the flour 1/2 c. at a time. 
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• 3. Use a tablespoon and drop heaping mounds of dough onto cookie sheets. Smooth out so they appear in little flat rounded balls. Thiner the better. Too thick, they turn out too big because they expand when cooked. 
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• 4. For the middle frosting: Cream the softened butter and cream cheese. Add in powdered sugar a little bit at a time. Add tablespoon of cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice or both! It just gives a little extra flavor. Add in maple syrup and mix all together until smooth and thick. 
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• 5. Wait until cookies are cooled. Then, pile a heaping amount of frosting on the flat side of one cookie. Take another cookie and smoosh on top.
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• 6. Enjoy! But keep refridgerated if not serving
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• *Tip: These can be frozen for up to three days. 

Food For Thought

Some cook for their families, others cook for fun, and most cook out of necessity. We've all got to eat, right? But I cook for other reasons. We live in a stressful, crazy busy world. We are surrounded by timelines, meetings, obligations, and requirements. So how do we escape this part of life? How do we cope with the stresses the world throws at us? Some exercise. Some do yoga. Some disconnect from their iPhone for a while, but I bake. There is nothing in the world that makes me feel more at ease than baking a tray full of homemade cookies, watching them expand into complete yumminess, and then enjoying the satisfaction that comes from watching others endulge in one of my creations. It's a time where I am required to focus completely on the task at hand. If I step away for even a minute or get my thoughts in another place, my project could be ruined in an instant. 


Cooking also reminds me of how much we long for something to fill us up. We eat because we are hungry, and we are satisfied once our bellies are full. As humans we all crave to be filled. We all hunger for something more. The Lord says, "Taste and see that I am good. Blessed is the man that takes refuge in me." The Bible is full of passages that talk about food. Jesus says in John 6:33, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never be hungry." Jesus and his disciples had a last supper where they gathered around a table of food to prepare for what would be the most important day in all of history. We take communion at church where we "eat in remembrance of him." Jesus fed five thousand with a loaf of bread and a few fish. He turned water into wine. Eve even ate from a tree evil! Food is all throughout the Bible, so when I cook, I am reminded of my need for a savior and my bodies requirement for the food that lasts and never leaves me hungry. 

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, 

   for they will be filled." 

Matthew 5:6

"He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD."

Deuteronomy 8:3