Zucchini Bread Whoopie Pies


Tonight’s dinner really allows the ingredients to speak for themselves.  Crunchy and flavorful lettuce, freshly glazed tofu, rice noodles, homemade peanut sauce, carrots, cukes, nuts, berries and herbs… It’s a fun, flexible, and easy veggie dinner that’s perfect for a hot day.  My kids love putting stuff in their lettuce leaves and making their own little sandwich rolls with the lettuce.
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Tonight though, I want to focus on the dessert.  This yummy recipe is adapted from Cooking Light.  
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First, I lined 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. In my mixing bowl, I added 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of brown sugar, and 1/4 cup of coconut oil, 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla, and 2 eggs.  I beat these together until well combined, about 2-3 minutes.  imageMeanwhile, I grated a generous cup of zucchini and squeezed it dry between 2 bowls as seen here.  
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The drier, the better when working with the zucchini.  I added the drained zucchini to the mixing bowl mixture and turned on the beater for another minute.  (This was a good time to start preheating the oven to 350).image
In another bowl, I whisked together 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats, 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon, and 1/2 teaspoon each of baking powder, baking soda and salt.
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Everything was then mixed together and put into a freezer bag with the tip snipped off. I piped one inch dollops of the mixture onto the cookie sheets, making 7X4 dollops per cookie sheet.
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Into the oven they went for 10-12 minutes, until the outer ring of the zucchini cookies just started turning golden brown.   image
As they cooled, I removed them from the paper and started another batch, with 2 batches per cookie sheet total, a little over 100 cookies.
 
Next I prepared the filling.  The original recipe called for 2 tablespoons of softened butter, 6 ounces of low-fat softened cream cheese, and 2/3 cup confectioner’s sugar.  I honestly was content stopping here.  The ingredient list goes on to add 1 cup of melted semisweet chocolate chips, cooled.  
I beat the ingredients together, starting with the cream cheese and butter, and then slowly adding the sugar.  Next the melted chocolate chips were added to the filling, but not before filling a few without the chocolate.  
imageThe chocolate made the filling ultra decadent in a way that I felt overpowered the flavor of the cookie.  If you are looking to lose the zucchini flavor totally, then by all means add the chocolate chips, it’s quite yummy and chocolatey.  However, this household overwhelmingly voted for the cream cheese filling sans chocolate, and next time I’ll be leaving it out.  
imageThere will be a next time for sure, these were quite good!  Also, you can choose to pipe the filling onto the cookies similar to how you piped the batter onto the parchment, however I just used a butter knife to apply the filling.  My less than perfectly round whoopies had a more “rustic” feel shape-wise.
imageI hope you enjoyed making whoopies with me tonight!  Thanks, Cooking Light and Springdell!

About Jess

Jess Anderson is the creator of CSA|365 and is passionate about the local food movement. A long time member of Springdell and a busy mother of two, Jess loves keeping her family fed by honest local food.