WHOOPIE!!!

I don't know if anyone outside the Pennsylvania Dutch expanse has ever heard of or tasted whoopie pies, but around here they are as common as chocolate chip cookies or cupcakes. My friend Lorili from Dover called me (she was the one I was going to stay with the weekend before but Ainsley got sick). She was planning a day trip to Lancaster with her husband and wanted to include the kids and I. She had looked up things to do in the area and asked if we'd like to attend a whoopie pie festival. Of course that sounded good (and yummy) to me. Incidently, a whoopie pie is basically devil's food cake in a round mold with thick creamy white icing in the middle followed by another round of devils' food cake. It's sort of looks like a giant cookie. Sometimes they use other types of cakes, like red velvet, or pumpkin. Sometimes they use other fillings which we discovered at the festival. We didn't know we had so many options.

Much to our dismay, we got delayed leaving the house that morning and arrived to the festival about 12-15 minutes late. We were planning on being there early to participate in the "whoopie pie hunt" (like an easter egg hunt). But by the time we had arrived ALL the whoopie pies had been found. They had a whoopie pie relay race and a whoopie pie catapult. The boys really wanted to do the catapult so we waited in a long line and they got to put whoopie pies in a giant sling and whirl them through the air and into a field. (My parents thought that was a great waste of whoopie pies). They had pumpkins in the field every yard or two so you could measure your distance. There was a prize for the farthest flung pie. They were also allowed to fling apples and MacGregor's apple went just past the END of the field. He was very excited. He achieved this feat because Chase held him by the waist and pulled him to the ground before he let go of the sling and the extra weight caused his pies and apples to FLY! I forgot my camera at this event but Lorili is supposed to email me some pictures she took. When she does, I will post those. The event lasted all day but we only stayed for about 2 hours. We are sorry we missed some of the other activites, such as watching the amature whoopie pie eating contest or seeing the largest whoopie ever made (they were trying to beat last year's record of 225 pounds), but there was too much idle time between activities.

We ended up buying some different flavors to try. Sunday afternoon we went to my parents house to share our findings. We had six different pies which I cut into 8 wedges each. Everyone got a wedge of each flavor and the leftovers were split up by those who still had room. The flavors we had were: Raspberry filled, Mint Chocolatechip filled, Peanutbutter filled, Chocolate cream filled, Pumpkin cake with cream cheese filling, and Chocolatechip cookie with vanilla filling. I think the winners were the Pumpkin cake and the chocolate cream filled.

***SSSHHHHH - we sealed 2 with a food saver (which mostly just squished them) and sent them to Daniel in his last package. I have no idea what condition they will arrive in. He might be eating squished pie with a spoon but it will still be a little taste of home.