These are ridiculously good. I made them smaller than a typical whoopie pie. This holiday season i have done a lot of 'minis' in an attempt to promote portion control...This has had limited success ("well.. they ARE small..so i can have another...") The cake part of this.. i wanted to eat the batter straight from the bowl. So i consider it a great success that i managed to get to the bake. Consider yourselves warned.

Step 1: Gather the Ingredients:

For the Cakes:

1/1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup butter

2 eggs

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cup plus 1 tbs milk

2 tbs strong coffee

1/2 tsp ground coffee

For the Filling:

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup shortening

2 cups powdered sugar

3/4 cup marshmallow topping

1/2 bag andes creme de menthe baking chips (melted)

1/3-1/2 cup milk

Topping:

crushed peppermint candies

green sugar (optional)

Step 2: Cream Together:

the butter sugar and eggs, then add the vanilla and oil. beat this until creamy

Step 3: Whisk Together:

all of the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Pour the milk into a measuring cup and add the coffee (for those of you wondering, the coffee brings out the chocolate flavor, but wont really be discernible)

Step 4: Add These in Parts:

Stir in half the dry mixture, then half the milk mixture ,then the remainder of the dry , then the last of the milk... Adding the dry and wet ingredients in parts helps incorporate everything thoroughly. Watch your batter develop into a lovely chocolaty yum. you have my permission to taste it at this time , just so you know what an excellent cook you are =)

Step 5: Using a Cookie Scoop*, or Some Other Even Measure:

spoon these onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 350 until set (mine took 10 minutes). Cool these on a wire rack.

* I suggested a cookie scoop for this because you want these to be uniform in size to make matching them up easier.

Step 6: Onto the Filling!

I neglected to get a picture of all the ingredients together.. possibly because i was kind of making it up as i went along. I knew i wanted a mint filling because standard whoopie pie filling is just kind of "meh" to me.. but I love chocolate mint!

melt your chips, soften your butter, beat everything together using the milk to adjust the thickness to your liking..

Step 7: Make Your Matches

I matched my cookies up first .. then put one scoop of filling and smashed the top on.

I crushed my peppermints and put them on a plate. i rolled the edge of the filled pies in this for added flavor and a festive color. you could also leave these plain as pictured on the right. i think the crushed peppermint added a nice texture though.

(you will note my cake surfaces got a bit marred because i made the cakes a day ahead of the filling and tried to store them between sheets of parchment - rookie move)