The Story:
I don’t remember asking my parents to check for monsters under the bed or in the closet but I do have my fair share of quirky fears.
Crows, kayaking, car washes, cheese balls and yule logs.
I could live without them all.
Monster Whoopie Pies
Ingredients
Chocolate Cookies:
- 1 box Devil's Food Cake Mix
- 1/3 C. oil
- 2 eggs
- 2 Tbsp. brown sugar
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
Chocolate Frosting:
- 1 C. butter
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1/3 C. unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 Tbsp. milk
- 2-3 C. powdered sugar
20 Starbursts, for tongues
White Chocolate Chips, for teeth
10 large marshmallows, for eyes
20 Junior Mints or M&M's, for eyeballs
Instructions
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1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line pans with parchment paper.
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2. Sift cake mix into a large bowl, add oil, eggs, brown sugar and vanilla extract. Stir until dough forms. It's thick, you'll have to work for your cookies if you stir it by hand 🙂
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3. Make golf-ball sides dough balls and gently flatten them out a little so that they don't bake up too tall. (You don't have to flatten them as much as in my photos.)
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4. Bake for 6-8 minutes and let cool.
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5. Frosting: Beat butter. Add vanilla extract, unsweetened cocoa powder and milk. Slowly add in powdered sugar until you reach your desired consistency.
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6. Tongues: Unwrap Starburst squares and heat 2 at a time in the microwave for 5-9 seconds. Each microwave is different, but be careful because they can melt really fast! Remove from microwave and twist and turn the colors together and form a long "tongue" shape. Let cool of parchment paper.
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7. Prep the whites of the eyes by cutting each large marshmallow in half and set down sticky side up.
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8. To assemble (see photos), pipe a small amount of frosting on the bottom of a cookie. Place a "tongue" on the cookie and pipe more frosting on top. Top with another cookie. Use white chocolate chips to make the "teeth." Place marshmallow halves sticky side down onto the cookie. Use a little frosting to stick the Junior Mints on the marshmallows.
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NOTE: I placed the top cookie on at a slant like a mouth would open with the tallest point right above the tongue.
Cake mix dough is really stiff. I always mix mine by hand because I feel like it’s a mini work out, so I get to eat more cookies, right?
Flatten down your dough balls a bit, though maybe not quite as much as I did in this photo. Cake mix dough bakes tall, that’s why you have to pat it down a bit.
I combined colors in the tongue to give it a more “cartoon-y” look. Be careful microwaving them! They can melt REALLY fast! You can also use Laffy Taffy (take longer to melt) or Air Heads (which you don’t have to melt at all)!
We all love step-by-step photos…
They really are pretty scary. NOTE: I cut some of my marshmallows into thirds and discarded/ate the middle third (sticky on both sides). I didn’t want them all to have the big bug-eyes.
I used Ghiradelli’s unsweetened cocoa powder, so good. I can’t wait for hot chocolate season…
Very cute !
I can’t wait to make these for my son’s class they are too cute! The boys will love them!
Thanks again!!! So cute! Your ideas are motivational to the creative mind.
The step by step photos on this one, really makes it!! I think my boys will have a blast helping me make these! Of course I’ll have to buy extra Starbursts!
Thank you!!
Looking forward to baking for our annual Halloween party this weekend. Now do I make the monsters or Frankenstein… ?
So many ideas for this Halloween!!!…..can´t decide which one I´m going to make!!
You are an artist!!!
These are so fun! Love it.
Those are the cutest things!
Where did you get the cocoa powder? My Costco and BJ’s apparently stopped selling cocoa powder…so I don’t where to find it wholesale!
Wholesale I don’t know where you can find it! Some Costco’s do carry it though, so it may be worth a phone call to the next closest Costco to ask! Other than that… you can always order online.
So cute, love that you used white chocolate chips for the teeth!
These are so cute. I am going to make them for Halloween. Thanks for the step by step photos.
Will these keep overnight if I put them together and put them in an air tight cake holder? I want to make them and send them to school tomorrow?
Yes they will! I like putting my whoopie pies in the fridge in a container because it make the filling more firm so it doesn’t gush out when you bite into the cookie!
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You can nnot ijagine jst how much time I had spent for this information! Thanks!
These are so freaking adorable! I did have a little trouble with the batter though. I’m wondering if every devil’s food cake mix has a different amount of dry ingredients in the package. My cookies didn’t rise as much as the pictures showed. Also, I’m from Florida and have been around golf balls my whole life. I made golf ball sized balls and this recipe made only 7 cookies per batch! I will definitely make it again, but I might try comparing with other whoopie cookie recipes to see if they come out puffier.