Best Tiramisu Whoopie Pies

The galley proofs arrived Thursday. A PDF, 214 pages, "What the Seasons Do" by Ryan Gallagher, the cover design Sarah had been working on — a watercolor of a Montana landscape in four seasonal panels, simple and right. I printed it out at the library in Lewistown because I needed to hold it in my hands. Forty dollars of ink and paper and I drove home with it on the passenger seat like it was fragile.

I read it on Friday. All of it, in one sitting, with a pen for corrections. Sarah was right: it was emotional. Not in a dramatic way — I didn't cry, which is probably good since I was marking errors — but in the way that reading your own sustained work feels when it's done: you can see the whole shape of it for the first time, and the shape is both exactly what you intended and slightly different than you imagined, in the way that all built things are different from their blueprints once they're built. I found eleven corrections. I sent them to Sarah with the note: "This is a real book." She wrote back: "It has been for a while. You're just meeting it now."

Valentine's Day on Wednesday. I don't have a tradition for Valentine's Day — it's a holiday that marks an absence more than it marks anything else, and I've spent most of my adult life either not thinking about it or thinking about it too much. This year I made a good dinner for Patrick and me: steak with a pan sauce, roasted asparagus that I found at the store and that was probably from Mexico but tasted like a promise, a slice of chocolate cake that the bakery in Lewistown makes year-round. Patrick said "this is unnecessary," and ate every bite.

I called Tom on Saturday to describe reading the galley. He laughed and said he cried at his first galley and that I was handling it with considerably more composure than he had. I told him I'd cried at his galley too, so we were even. He said that was cheating. I said you take the tears where you find them.

February is teaching me patience in a new way this year. The book is almost out and all I can do is wait. Forty dollars of galley proofs on the table, a cover I love, a May that's coming whether or not I'm ready. I am starting to be ready.

Patrick said the dinner was unnecessary, and ate every bite — which is exactly the kind of response that makes you want to do it again. The bakery cake was perfect, but it got me thinking about what I’d make if I were doing it all from scratch: something that felt a little indulgent, a little celebratory, something with layers to it the way this February has had layers. These tiramisu whoopie pies are that dessert — coffee and cream and cocoa, two soft cookies holding something tender between them, the kind of thing you make when a night deserves to be marked.

Prep Time: 25 minutes | Cook Time: 12 minutes | Total Time: 37 minutes (plus chilling) | Servings: 12 whoopie pies

Ingredients

For the cookies:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
For the tiramisu filling:
8 oz mascarpone cheese, room temperature
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder dissolved in 1 tablespoon warm water
For finishing:
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, for dusting

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Mix the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt until evenly combined.
Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and granulated sugar together with a hand or stand mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Add egg and vanilla. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract until fully incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Combine wet and dry. Dissolve the espresso powder into the buttermilk. Add the flour mixture and buttermilk alternately to the butter mixture, beginning and ending with the flour, mixing on low speed just until combined. Do not overmix.
Scoop and bake. Using a medium cookie scoop (about 2 tablespoons), drop mounds of batter onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them at least 2 inches apart. Bake for 10—12 minutes, until the tops are just set and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on the pans for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Make the filling. Beat the mascarpone, heavy cream, powdered sugar, vanilla, and dissolved espresso together on medium-high speed until thick, fluffy, and spreadable, about 3—4 minutes. Refrigerate for at least 15 minutes before assembling.
Assemble the whoopie pies. Pair the cooled cookie rounds by size. Pipe or spread a generous layer of tiramisu filling onto the flat side of one cookie in each pair, then press the second cookie gently on top.
Dust and serve. Place the assembled whoopie pies on a platter and dust the tops lightly with cocoa powder through a fine-mesh sieve. Refrigerate for 30 minutes before serving for the cleanest filling.

Nutrition (per serving)

Best Tiramisu Whoopie Pies — A Valentine’s Day Dessert Worth Every Bite