Whoopie Pie at Starbucks

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Staggering out of the Christmas Market weighed down by profound disappointment (instead of what over $20 of food should have felt like in my tummy), my dining buddy and I closed our evening outing with a trip to Starbucks for proper coffee.

I got a seasonal Caramel Brulée Latte, extra hot, plus one Chocolate Crème Whoopie Pie for myself and one for my patient dining buddy. When the cashier went to ring it in, she asked which type of Whoopie Pie we wanted, only to realize there was just the one type in the display case. It's a bit harder to find on the website, but there is apparently a Red Velvet Whoopie Pie.

Each Whoopie Pie is slightly bigger and sandwiches more cream than your typical $2 macaron. IF you compare it to macarons, then at $1.60 they don't sound too expensive. But if you didn't know macarons were $2, then $1.60 for something smaller than a moist chocolate muffin must look like a rip-off.

The Chocolate Crème Whoopie Pie is quite soft, very moist, and very dark-chocolaty. In firmness they are very much like a moist chocolate muffin. Overall, there isn't anything particularly special about them. They're like an Oreo Cookie, but using cake to sandwich a softer cream. Happily, the softness of everything allows you to bite through it quite cleanly without the cream inside being squeezed out.

If you pop them open like you might an Oreo, usually the cream in the middle sticks wholly on one side. I encourage you to eat it that way, thereby giving you way more cream on one side and what seemed to myself and my dining companion to be a more satisfying taste experience.
As for the other, maybe dip it in your coffee.

I did like it quite a bit, but would balk at the $1.60 if I were thinking of buying it again since it's such as one-bite wonder. If you're the type who compares it to $1.50 specialty chocolates from Godiva, $2 macarons, and $4 organic vegan muffins from Edible Flours, then from that perspective $1.60 isn't too bad.

EDIT (January 1st, 2012): Okay, I take it back. $1.60 is probably a rip off. Macarons are a different animal and harder to make. Here, it's just a cake sandwich. One dozen HUGE whoopies (almost the size of a saucer) is $26. If you want to try your hand at it, you can get PC Chocolate Whoopie Pie Baking Mix from Superstore.

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