Time to eat humble pie about our Whoopie Pie

Did you happen to try the Whoopie Pie recipe, which ran on the Monitor food page April 30? If so, we must apologize for the jaw-breaking texture of the cakes. We do test all Monitor recipes, and this one seemed fine to us, but we're not Whoopie Pie experts. Thankfully, one of our readers is. After calling to express her disappointment, Jackie Anderson of Sun Lakes, Ariz., offered to send an alternative recipe, one that she's been making for years.

Mrs. Anderson came across this recipe in a cookbook from Southport, Maine, where she spends summers. So that she'll always have Whoopie Pies on hand, she puts some of every batch in the refrigerator and freezes the rest.

"Try it, you'll like it," she writes, adding: "Kids always love them - thus the name, I guess."

Cake:
1 cup shortening (she suggests 1/2 cup margarine, 1/2 cup Crisco)
2 cups sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1-1/2 cups buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla
3-1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup cocoa

Beat together shortening and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla, and mix well. Add flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa, and mix well. Chill 1 hour. Use a 1/4-cup scoop to shape the chilled batter into 28 cakes. Drop cakes onto greased cookie sheets about 2 inches apart.

Bake at 400 degrees F. for 8 to 10 minutes or until cakes bounce back when gently touched with a finger.

Filling:
1-1/2 cups shortening (she suggests Crisco)
3 cups confectioners' sugar
3/4 to 1 cup marshmallow creme (she uses Marshmallow Fluff)
6 tablespoons milk

Mix all ingredients except milk in an electric mixer. Add enough milk to make the mixture soft but not too thin so it will pile onto the cakes nicely and keep its volume. Spread filling on one cake, and then place another cake on top. Wrap in plastic wrap or foil. Keep some in the fridge and freeze the rest.

Makes 14 (3-inch) pies.