Globecooking recipe : Banoffee whoopie pies (USA) #GameOnCooks

How much time a week do you spend watching, reading and hash-tagging food? As the nation’s obsession with social media, high profile chefs, cookery books and foodie TV shows continues (with Great British Bake Off attracting a whopping 10.4m viewers), research by Lurpak has revealed that the average Brit is now spending more than five hours a week consuming food culture and just 4 hours cooking. 

Lurpak is stirring up a cooking revolution with a new Game On, Cooks campaign, which aims to tackle the problem head on, by challenging Brits to turn their screens off and ovens on to remind everyone that nothing compares to the thrill of cooking.

Hopefully these beauties will make you want to join in. They are the first recipe that I tried from this month's New York-themed Bake Box (click through to see what else was in the box) and they are utterly delicious. Soft chocolate chip-studded cakes sandwiched together with a rich cream filling and moist banana slices then drizzled with salted caramel - and yes, they're as indulgent and moreish as they sound, but we did decide to cut them in half because they are just a little bit too-much in one sitting! I simplified things slightly, so head over to the Bake Box website to check out the original recipe and handy technique tutorials.

 Banoffee whoopie pies

ingredients :

FOR THE WHOOPIE PIE SHELLS

125ml (4fl oz) buttermilk

1½tsp lemon juice

125g (4oz) unsalted butter, diced and softened

175g (6oz) caster sugar

1 egg

275g (10oz) self-raising flour

150g (5oz) dark chocolate chips

FOR THE FILLING

75g (3oz) unsalted butter, preferably Lurpak, 

100g (3½oz) full fat cream cheese

275g (10oz) icing sugar

1tsp vanilla extract

2 bananas, peeled and sliced

FOR THE CARAMEL DRIZZLE

200g (7oz) caster sugar

2tbsp double cream

100g (3½oz) salted butter, cut into small cubes

Preheat the oven to 180°C (fan 160°C)/350°F/gas 4. 

Stir the buttermilk and lemon juice together. (I used up a carton of coconut milk that was lurking in the fridge instead.) Beat the butter and sugar together in a separate bowl until light and fluffy.

 Mix in the egg and flour then stir in the buttermilk (or coconut milk) and fold it in, along with the chocolate chips, until they are evenly distributed through the dough.

 Place the whoopie pie tray (from the Bake Box) on a baking tray and dollop on spoonfuls of the mixture. Bake for 10-12 minutes until springy to the touch. Leave to cool in the tray for 5 minutes before carefully removing the whoopie shells and transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Repeat three times until you have used up all the dough and made 18 whoopie pie shells. Leave to cool.

To make the filling, beat the butter until it is pale and creamy. Add the cream cheese and beat until evenly combined, then gradually beat in the icing sugar on a slow speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add the vanilla and beat for a further 5 minutes. I'm not sure why - maybe it was too hot or the butter and cream cheese had warmed up too much? - but I couldn't get this to thicken up, so I went for plan B and quickly mixed together some marscapone with some icing sugar.

Spoon the filling into a piping bag (or just use a spoon) and spread the filling over the flat side of half of the whoopie pie shells. (I'd made too much so I spread it over all of them for extra indulgence !) 

Add the banana slices and place the other half shells on top.

To make the caramel drizzle,  heat the sugar in a heavy-based saucepan over a low heat until melted. Boil, without stirring, until it becomes a rich caramel colour. Remove the pan from the heat. Warm the cream in a small bowl in the microwave and pour it into the caramel in a thin, steady stream. Add the butter and stir until it has melted. Put the pan back over a low heat and whisk hard to dissolve any lumps of caramel. Pour the caramel into a bowl and leave to cool. (I took a short cut here because I had a squeezy bottle of gorgeously gooey salted caramel sauce from Brittany in the cupboard!) Drizzle the caramel over the whoopie pies using a teaspoon.

Then tuck in - I defy you to stop at one half !

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Bake Box delivers a new package of goodies every two months and each box costs £14.99 + £2.99 postage. For more information and to see the recipes : http://the-bake-box.com/

Get your Game On and share your experiences @Lurpak #GameOnCooks

Disclosure : I received a free Bake Box subscription in order to share my attempts at recreating the recipes. Lurpak provided a shopping voucher for ingredients to take part in the #GameOnCooks campaign.