Actually Making Whoopie (Pies)

We know about woopie pies (note alternate spelling)! Lisa grew up in Maine, where they are an essential component of any bake sale—indeed, not merely were they an important piece of every self-respecting bake sale, they were usually a component of any sale whatsoever. For example, it was not uncommon to see a heap of plastic-wrapped woopie pies next to crocheted doilies, plastic-head dolls, and acrylic yarn poodle doggies with pom-pom tails. Growing up, she looked on w.p’s much like many native New Yorkers look on the Statue of Liberty: omnipresent, but never personally experienced. (Maybe due, in part, to her associating them within a knickknack-church sale-woopie pie triad). Claire grew up in Massachusetts thinking they were only a quirky family treat (fyi: Claire’s family wraps w.p’s in waxed paper, not plastic wrap). The two experiences converged one afternoon at Claire’s grandmother’s home, when Claire provided Lisa the opportunity to taste them, and Lisa enlightened Claire as to their broader cultural significance. Lisa was hooked and since then, becoming prouder of her Maine heritage the further away she moves, takes every available opportunity to introduce them to others.

Other favorite markers of Maineliness are bright red lobster lollipops (of unknown flavoring, purchased from LLBean before Freeport exploded into the Capitalist Mecca it currently is); Zagnuts (similar to Butterfinger bars, but with a toasted coconut coating in lieu of the outer the chocolate layer and a different kind of peanutbuttery), Moxie (a Dr. Pepper-like soda, replacing Dr. Pepper’s beet with gentian? maybe motherwort? I don’t know, something kinda bitter and bad tasting–it is called Moxie, after all), and finally, spruce gum (basically, just the sap of a spruce tree, rolled into a ball, it tastes like you’d imagine and is a killer on your jaw…hmm maybe the original source of Lisa’s TMJ??). Here we’ve given Claire’s family recipe for Woopie Pies (note, this filling is not sickly sweet, maybe not traditional, but yummy nonetheless). If anyone has come across spruce gum recently, Lisa would love to hear—haven’t been able to find it since I was a kid.