Red Velvet Cake Whoopie Pies

Our dear, dear friend, Cindy, has a big birthday this Tuesday.  She and her Dad are down from Worcester, pronounced “Wuh-stah”.  Her brother, Jimmy Kal,  and his fire-cracker wife, Sally, invited us over to watch the Superbowl with them today.  I wanted to take a little pre-birthday surprise, my way of making one of those BIG birthdays more tolerable.  I love Red Velvet cake and thought how can I make this more portable?  Whoopie pies are the answer!  Moon Pies have marshmallow in the center…I don’t do marshmallow.  I do Whoopie pies.  I started the cake part yesterday as some cakes are actually better the next day, Red Velvet being one of them.  I took inventory of my ingredients, pulled out three or four cookbooks to compare recipes and notes I had written in the margins, and sort of got lost in my thoughts.  When Jimmy took me to Boston to meet his family and friends, Cindy stood out.  Always laughing and smiling, absolutely radiating with that peaches and cream skin, I knew that girl was true.  And she was.  As there are always people who enjoy getting to know others, people who truly bring newcomers into the circle and feel sincere affection, there are also those a little more provincial who can’t wait to pounce on the first misstep, the first faux pas, that first humiliating embarrassment.  Not my Cindy.  She always had my back.  We joked and laughed, she included me in the insider stories that only one with history would understand and appreciate.  So giving!  When James needed a high chair, she lent us a vintage McDonald’s high chair with all the characters romping on the food tray along with dancing hamburgers and french fries.  She was saving it for her grandchildren who were yet to be conceived.  Brought it over, set it up and watched my boy make a great, big, baby mess.  My boy, James, loves his Thea Cindy.  She has ALWAYS given him time and never brushed him off.  When James first started on Facebook he came to me and said, and I’m quoting, “Don’t even ask.  You will never be a friend of mine on Facebook.  Never.  So don’t even ask.”  Me, “but Thea Cindy is.”  James, “SO?”.  For the 25 years I have known and loved her she has done nothing but give of herself.  Cindy’s the one who always remembers birthdays, Name Days, the day your mother or father died, your anniversary, everything.  A truly special person.  So, I can’t give her a moon but I can give her a red velvet Whoopie Pie.  S’ agapo, meli mou.  Kai Xronia Polla.

This is a super cake recipe.  It’s been tweaked a bit,  the original recipe is from David Guas’ “Dam Good Sweet”.  Great cookbook, by the way.  It’s an easy cake, better the next day, and is long on looks. The only cake that might be more Southern is a Hummingbird cake.  We’ll talk about that some other time.  Most recipes call for one to two tablespoons of cocoa… I’ve always added a half cup.  Jes’ like David Guas, so I must be doing something right.  That much cocoa makes a rich, dense, chocolatey cake.  The icing can be used as the filling for the Whoopies or the icing for the cakes.  I use a whole, scraped vanilla bean for the filling but have also used pure vanilla extract.  Both are excellent.  Oh, man.  I almost forgot.  For those using a vanilla bean, don’t throw it out after it’s been scraped.  That stuff is precious.  So stick the cut bean, bury it, in a bowl or jar of sugar.  Make sure it’s covered well.  That makes vanilla sugar, great for baking or to flavor tea or coffee.  And for those of you who like vodka, and I know there aren’t many, drop the whole bean in a bottle of vodka and let that steep a while.  Vanilla flavored vodka.  As Martha would say, “it’s a good thing.”