I love that no matter how old you are you can continue to learn about yourself.  I'm learning new things about myself all the time.  Sure some things stay the same - I will never LOVE parties And I have always disliked desiccated coconut - but other things can change.
So hear I am thinking that I'm this crazy sweet tooth person 'cause it's always been that way.  Back in the day my friend T and I would do some stupid things.  We were both broke in university... like damn broke.  Not like 'I'm-just-waiting-til-my-parents-bail-me-out-in-a-week' broke but 'I'm-hoping-that-my-roomie-is-cool-if-I-only-have-$20-for-groceries-from-now-on' broke.  There were lots of times that I rode my bike in the middle of winter not 'cause I wanted to but because I couldn't afford the damn subway tickets.  So T and I would pool our money quite often.  If I had extra (which was a lot less than he did) then I would contribute more and vice versa.  We would buy enough food to feed ourselves silly for a night or two.  Cook together, gorge ourselves, have way too much fun laughing and then mellow into some serious conversation until the wee hours of the morning.  I remember on many occasions buying multi-packs of chocolate bars would be a big part of our evening.  We would eat them (yea, that's right - plural, more than one each) either on the way home or while we were cooking - although that often was too long to wait.
At school, I would often willingly forfeit lunch in order to eat chocolate.  Nasty stuff - the stuff from the vending machine - I had no taste.
When D and I got engaged we didn't do the ring thing (that came later), instead we stopped at an awesome chocolate place and got a big box of chocolates that we hand picked.


Sweets have been a pretty big part of my life and I just assumed that I must therefor be a sweet tooth.  I guess that I never paid much attention to the fact that I disliked cheesecake because I found many of them too sweet.  I also ignored the fact that I almost never - N E V E R - order dessert when we go to a nice resto.  I may have overlooked the fact that I complained so much about the 'too sweet' hot chocolate from Starbucks that she found out that I could order it half sweet (and with no whip).  Dang.  It's all hitting me now because ... I didn't like these cookies.  They're too sweet for me.   Truth be told, I didn't even try them.
I know.  My kids love them.  Derek has even had one or two.  Me... not even one.  Too sweet.  Not even attracted.  Couldn't care less.  My God.  What's happened to me.


While I'm off figuring out exactly what it is that I am interested in eating when it comes to snacks or treats, go and make these.  They don't suck, I do.  It's not them... it's me.



Chocolate Whoopie Pies with Chocolate Buttercream Filling adapted from 'Whoopie Pies'
makes about 25 med/small pies

2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature
4 tbsp veg. shortening (I know... yuck)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 lg eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Line a cookie sheet with parchment or a silicon liner.
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.
Beat together the butter and shortening until it's light and cream.  Add the eggs and the buttermilk, beating until they're all combined.
In another bowl mix together the milk, baking soda and vinegar.  Add the milk mixture to the buttermilk mixture and mix.  Add the vanilla and mix in.  Add in the flour mixture and beat until combined.
Drop the batter by tbsp's onto the baking sheet keeping space between each so that they can spread.  Bake for about 10 minutes or just until the cakes begin to brown.
Remove fromt he oven and cool for a couple of minutes before removing front he cookie sheet to a cooling rack.  Cool completely.
Make the filling below and dig in...

Filling:

1 1/2 cups icing sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
6 tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature
3 tbsp heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla

Sift together the icing sugar and the cocoa powder.  Using a fork begin to mash in the room temperature butter until the texture is quite crumbly.  Add in the cream and vanilla and continue to mash and then beat until the mixture is smooth and spreadable.  Add extra cream if required.
Spread onto the underside of one completely cooled cookie and then sandwich with another cookie.