Pumpkin Spiced Whoopie Pies with Maple Mascarpone Filling

There's something about this time of year that makes me long for warm, cozy, down home foods and pumpkin to me is one of these foods.

I was feeling like some fall food so jumped onto Pinterest and found lots of delicious pumpkin recipes. When I saw a couple of recipes for pumpkin whoopie pies, I knew I found what i wanted to make/eat!  The problem I ran into was the recipes either used vegetable oil or a cake mix or both and I didn't want to go there. If I'm going to eat fat, it's going to be butter. Butter just tastes better and makes anything it's in or on taste better too and if I'm going to bake, I want to do it from scratch. It only takes about 5 minutes longer to measure some ingredients and the final result just tastes so much better..

After reading through different recipes for pumpkin whoopies, I found a few that sounded kind of good, but not quite right. I combined the best of those recipes with a recipe I have for a soft molasses cookies and the Libby Pumpkin Pie recipe and came up with this one. It's a perfect spiced pumpkin cake like cookie with a creamy, buttery, slightly maple flavored filling. I served it to company, family company so they'd be honest, and they were a hit. I hope you enjoy them as much as we all did.

Pumpkin Spiced Whoopie Pies with Maple Mascarpone Filling
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Whoopie Pies
3 cups all purpose flour
1 TBS cinnamon
1 ½ tsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
½ tsp ground nutmeg
¼ tsp ground cloves

1 cup softened butter
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
3 TBS of molasses
1-15oz can of Libby's Pumpkin chilled- I just throw the can in the fridge for a few hours.(this chills up the dough so you can scoop and bake right away. If you don't want to chill the pumpkin, then chill the finished dough for a couple of hours before scooping it to bake.
1 tsp vanilla

Maple Filling
4 cups powdered sugar
8 oz of mascarpone cheese room temperature
1 stick of butter softened
3 TBS of Maple Syrup or (¼ cup of Maple Sugar plus 3 TBS milk)

The Whoopie part:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper
2. In a small bowl whisk together the dry ingredients- flour, spices, baking powder, baking soda, salt
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, sugars until combined and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and beat to combine. Add pumpkin and vanilla and beat until combined.
4. Add in the dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Do not over beat.
5. Using a small cookie scoop or a tablespoon, drop batter onto the parchment lined sheets about 1 inch apart.
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes making sure that the cookies are cooked through. They will start to crack on the top- it’s part of their charm!  I used a toothpick inserted in to the center to make sure they were done.
7. Slide parchment off of sheets and onto counter to cool.

Filling

1. Beat the butter and marscapone cheese until fluffy and smooth- this will take  3-5 minutes. Add half the powdered sugar then the maple syrup (or the maple sugar and milk) and the vanilla. Beat until combined. Then continue adding the rest of the powdered sugar until it is thick enough to hold it's shape well.

Assembly
Match up the cookies into sets of 2 similar size and shape and turn one over.  Spoon or pipe the filling onto the upside down cookies covering the entire surface. I spoon all the filling into a quart size zip lock bag and cut one corner off , then all I have to do it squeeze it out to pipe it.
Place the other cookie on top of the filling and press down slightly to get the filling all the way out to the edge. Repeat for each whoopie pie. 

Storage 
Please store these in the refrigerator. You can store these for up to a week in the refrigerator. Take out and let sit at room temperature for about 15-20 mins before serving to soften up or just eat them cold.