Spring where art thou?

It was 15 degrees outside this morning. fifteen. fucking. degrees. Seriously WTH!! Last I looked at my calendar it clearly said SPRING! So, why am I still freezing my ass off every morning. OK now that that is out of my system.....for now....I can say that this is the weather the sugar houses have been waiting for. You see, with this endless cold, they are behind schedule too. In order for the sap to flow, sugar maples need freezing nights and thawing days. Fortunately for those tree tappers, we have been eeking out temps of 40 or so during the day so they can now make up for lost time. Then one of my favorite food blogs, Foodie With Family, posted a recipe for Amish Maple sandwich cookies (a.k.a. whoopie pies). That and the bottle of maple whiskey that I bought on my last ski trip, and I had a maple trifecta on my hands. I had been DYING to bake something with that whiskey since I purchased it and so I decided to bring that Amish recipe to the dark side. Let me tell you it was SO worth it! Now the original cookie recipe called for rolling out the dough. When I made mine the dough was very sticky and there was no way I was going to try rolling it out. It would have been a disaster. So, I just dropped in on a foil lined baking sheet and it worked out just fine. He is how I did it:

Maple Whiskey Whoopie Pies (Adapted from Foodie With Family)

For the Cookies:

• ½ cup butter, softened
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon maple whiskey
• 1 teaspoon maple extract
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons heavy cream
• 2¾ cup flour

For the Filling:

• 1 cup softened butter 
• 1 cups shortening
• 2 cups marshmallow fluff,
• 1 tablespoon maple extract
• 2 Tablespoons maple whiskey
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 5½ cups powdered sugar
• 2 Tablespoons heavy cream

Preheat oven to 350F

In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment cream together shortening, butter and sugar. Slowly add remaining ingredients and mix until smooth.

Drop dough by rounded teaspoon onto a foil lined baking sheet. Flatten slightly with the back of a wet spoon. Bake approximatly 15 minutes until set. Allow to cool.

While the cookies are baking add the filling ingredients to a mixing bowl of your stand mixer and mix with the paddle attachment until smooth.

When cookies are cooled, assemble with the filling.

I had tons of leftover filling so you can always divide it and experiment with other flavorings! I made traditional chocolate Whoopie Pies too with plain filling and some that I mixed with peanut butter. They were all super yummy!