Green up your St. Patrick's Day celebration with these fun Green Velvet Cookies for all your little Leprechauns!
What a fun way to make St. Patrick’s Day a day of celebration for all that’s green. Combine your very own favorite soft sugar cookie recipe sandwiched with chocolate buttercream frosting inside and mint them up with Andes candies sprinkled inside.
They’re easy and fast to make! You can even make them ahead, and freeze. Then when you need them, defrost them, frost and assemble.
What is a Whoopie Pie?
Well, the stories abound and many lay claim to when and where the first Whoopie Pie appeared in the 1930’s. I think we can all agree that the fun to eat Whoopie Pie is made of two soft cookies sandwiched around a fluffy frosting. Many variations of the Whoopie Pie keep appearing, from the claimed chocolate soft cookie to chocolate to red velvet to the Green Velvet Cookie I’m offering you here.
Prep your pans:
Line your cookie baking sheets with parchment paper.
Make your favorite soft sugar cookie recipe:
- Make your own soft white sugar cookie recipe and add green gel food coloring to the cookie dough until you attain the degree of green your little Leprechauns like the best. Remember that the green will probably deepen in a few hours. I’m told that’s due to the magic of the Leprechauns. The final cookie will look like green velvet.
- Soft cookies work best in making these Whoopie Pies. Crisp cookies will be more apt to break apart as you assemble them or eat them.
- If you need 20 Whoopie Pies, make 40 cookies since you will be sandwiching two of them together to make one Whoopie Pie.
Assemble the Whoopie Pies with your little Leprechaun’s help:
- Once your cookies are baked, to a tender softness, cool them completely on a rack.
- Make the fluffy frosting, in white or chocolate. I’ve included a delicious frosting recipe below, for a delicious chocolate or white buttercream frosting.
- Spread a nice layer of frosting onto the flat sides of two cookies.
- Sprinkle a generous layer of broken up Andes Mint candies or green mint flavored M&Ms on top of the frosting of one of the frosted cookies.
- Put the two cookies together so the mints and frosting are sandwiched between the two cookies. M&Ms will give the cookies an interesting inside crunch.
- Repeat with the rest of your cookies.
- Thin about 1/2 cup of the frosting and drizzle it over the top of each Whoopie Pie.
Fudgy Buttercream Frosting
- You can make this frosting as a fudgy chocolate frosting or a creamy white* version.
- This recipe will frost about 30 Whoopie Pies.
Ingredients:
½ C Butter, softened
3 C Powdered sugar, sifted
¾ C Cocoa Powder, sifted
1 T Coffee, finely ground
2 T Sour cream
3 T Whole milk or half and half
Pinch of Salt
1 t Vanilla extract
½ t Mint extract
Make your frosting:
- Beat the butter until creamy.
- Add all the dry ingredients, alternately with the sour cream and milk, beating after each addition.
- Beat in the vanilla extract and salt.
- Beat until well combined, light and fluffy.
- Add more milk or powdered sugar to make the frosting thinner or thicker, depending on how you like it. It should be a light fluffy frosting, and not too firm.
Options:
- For a stronger chocolate flavor, substitute strong home brewed coffee for half of the milk.
- To make a white frosting, eliminate the cocoa powder and replace with the same amount of powdered sugar.
- Make the white buttercream frosting and tint it green with green gel food coloring.
- For a fluffier marshmallow-y frosting, add a cup of marshmallow fluff at the end and beat in until well combined.
- Just spread the buttercream frosting on one cookie and omit the sandwiching. Sprinkle Andes Mints or green M&Ms on top.
“Bake your own Memories!” …with your little Leprechauns while you make these fun and delicious Green Velvet Whoopie Pies for St. Patrick’s Day.