The last time I had perfect chicken pot pie was in the early '80s. My grandmother placed it on her kitchen counter, steam wafting through its crust, and wiped her hands on her apron. Just beneath a pastry that flaked away if you looked at it too hard were the most orange carrots and greenest peas, gently coated in a stock too rich to come from a can. She served the pot pie with mild dandelion greens, wilted under a blanket of warm bacon dressing. This is the food I grew up eating.
Pennsylvania Dutch food is largely based on German cooking, but with New World sensibility. It's food with an American soul, like the cuisines we call Italian-American, or Chinese-American, or TexMex. But it has fallen into a funk: scrapple that's chalky, not meaty; whoopie pies stiff with unmeltable Crisco frosting. As each of those cuisines are enjoying renaissances (see: Torrisi Italian Specialties, Mission Chinese Food, El Real), I wonder: Who will breathe new life into my Grandma's old recipes?
Well, I suppose I might. During nine years of a sweet job eating and cooking all over the world, learning about amazing food that had soul and stories, the Pennsylvania boy in me always wanted to be as proud of my culinary heritage as the cooks I met were of theirs. And so I'm on a mission to find the old staples of Dutchy cuisine and cook them again, to share what made Grandma's food so wonderful, but with a modern sensibility.
And since this is in part about pride, I need to start with the whoopie pie.
Earlier this year Maine passed legislation that claimed the whoopie pie as the state treat. Folks in Pennsylvania were pretty peeved. Thieves! They already have blueberry pie as the state dessert, no less! We, of course, insist that Pennsylvania Dutch country is the homeland of the whoopie pie. The locals of Lancaster County, where there is an annual whoopie pie festival, were up in arms. At one point the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau's website called Maine's bill "confectionary larceny".
As the story goes, Amish mothers would bake leftover cake batter into cookies, sandwich them with sweetened lard, and send them off in the lunch boxes of their farming husbands and children. In Pennsylvania Dutch (a language derived from German that sounds a lot like Yiddish) the pies were called Hucklebucks, but they got their name when Amish farmers would find them at lunchtime, yelling "whoopie" with excitement.
(Then again, I guess it's just as likely that a group of people like the Amish, who have tons of children, and who settle towns named Intercourse and Blue Ball just have whoopie on the brain.)
Now that it's summer in Amish country, the rural roads are dotted with produce stands, and I stop at almost every one. Each is manned by an Amish or Mennonite woman whose accent is thick with Dutch-country singsong. They all sell whoopie pies. "Ahh, yah-nooo, vee've been makin' dem," they say.
Joan Garman is a Mennonite woman whose family farm is just off route 23 in East Earl, PA. Joan is young, tan, and surprisingly pretty for being so plain. Her dress covers her ankles and her hair was in a bun underneath a white head covering. She held her son, Jairus, on her hip and half smiled when I asked if she makes him whoopie pies. She said she does, but uses what she called a boiled milk frosting instead of the more common shortening. When I asked her why, she raised her eyebrows, almost suggesting that my question was stupid. Joan lives on a dairy farm. She's got lots of milk.
When I got home from the Garman Farm with a gallon of raw milk, I decided to make a gentle update of the classic chocolate whoopie pie with vanilla cream. It uses butter in the cake, instead of lard or shortening. The cocoa is dark Dutch-process (or even better, Vahlrona if you can find it). And the filling has half a vanilla bean that cooks in Joan's boiled milk frosting. It's the sort of whoopie pie that they'll be really jealous of in Maine.
Whoopie Pies
This version of the traditional Pennsylvania (and Maine) treat uses dark Dutch-process cocoa for a terrifically intense cake and an old country-kitchen technique for the filling that uses flour-thickened milk as the base of the frosting. The vanilla bean gives a bit of luxury to this homey classic.
Makes 6 whoopie pies
For the cakes:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup Dutch-process cocoa
1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
1 cup well-shaken buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 large egg
For the filling:
½ a vanilla bean
1 cup whole milk
2 ½ tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 cups confectioners' sugar
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
For the cakes: Preheat oven to 350°F.
Whisk together the flour, cocoa, soda, and salt. Beat the butter together with the brown sugar with an electric mixer until lighter in color, beat in the egg until fluffy. Add half the flour mixture, mixing to combine. Add the buttermilk and vanilla, mixing to combine, then add the remaining flour mixture, mixing to combine.
Place 12 ¼ -cupfuls of batter on 2 baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches between each. Bake, switching positions of pans half way through, until cakes are baked through and spring back when gently pressed. This will take 12 to 15 minutes. Let cakes cool completely on baking sheets.
For the filling and assembly: Split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise, then place in a small heavy saucepan with the milk and flour, whisking to combine. Bring milk mixture to a boil over medium high heat, whisking constantly, then boil 2 minutes until thickened. Remove the saucepan from the heat and cover the surface of the milk with a piece of wax paper. Let cool completely.
Beat the butter, confectioners' sugar, and ¼ teaspoon kosher salt together with an electric mixer until it looks pale and fluffy. Beat in the milk mixture and beat until fluffy. This will take at least 4 minutes.
Make 6 sandwiches with cakes and filling.
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