Whoppie pies. Oh my, they’re delicious little cakes of love. When my friend (a transplant to Kansas from Vermont) introduced me to her pumpkin whoppies last Thanksgiving, I fell in love with them.  And as an avid baker myself, I couldn’t resist learning about them.  I picked up a couple of recipe books, but the only one I’ve baked from is whoppie pies from Sarah Billingsly and Amy Treadwell.  The thing that grabbed me first was the shear number of whoppie variations.  They cover both sweet and savory.  But since this isn’t a book review, I’m going to just forge forward with the recipes of yumminess.

Should I admit that I don’t remember ever having had goat cheese before?  I really didn’t know what to expect.  Separate, both the cake and filling were “eh” to my tastebuds.  The cake was a little bland, even though it was both sweet and spicy.  The filling had a tangy/salty punch that I wasn’t expecting.

The combination though…wow.  It was like a party in my mouth.  The flavors really melded together in a beautiful way.

1/3 of these went into the freezer for testing.  I’ll take them out for New Year’s Eve and update with the results of that.  This may be one where the cake part is fine to freeze, but the filling would do better having been made fresh the day of serving.  I’ll let you know!

Once upon a time (sometime around 1989/1990), I attended a 4-H camp at Kansas State University.  {Discover Days} was/is a time for the high school kids, who were too old to attend camp at Rock Creek, to get some summer learning done.  We stayed in the dorms and ran amok around the campus.  Well, most of the kids ran amok.  I was there with my big sister and Mom.  Plus, I was a total goody-goody at that age.

The class I loved the most was called Kookie Kutter Kraze.  See, I’ve been a baking nut since I made my own birthday cake at the of 10. Mom got me the Wilton’s Strawberry Shortcake pan, and I did it all by myself.  She was beautiful!

But today’s recipe isn’t about cakes.  It’s about the wonderful gingersnap recipe I came home with from my introduction to cookie cutters.  Before that day, I hadn’t really made shaped cookies.  My mother’s experience with sugar cookies had been so terrible to that point that we never made them.

Enter my new friend the gingersnap.

This particular recipe was published in the December 1969 issue of Woman’s Day magazine.  The cookies have become a family staple, and are still the only rolled out/cut out cookies that my mother makes.  I’ve since found an excellent sugar cookie recipe, but we’ll save that for another day.

This year, the girls wanted tiny little (1 1/2″) gingerbread girls.  So that’s what we made.  I can fit 63 of the little buggers on one of my pans.  I think we got 5 pans out of about half the dough.  That’s a lot of little gingersnaps!

What comes to mind when you think of Red Lobster? Hmm?

It’s something other than a red lobster, isn’t it?

For me, it’s crab legs and Cheddar Bay Biscuits.  Those piping hot, melt-in-your-mouth nuggets of goodness have been greeted with squeals of delight from my girls. I was squealing on the inside. Promise!

So when I decided to serve shrimp and baked potatoes for dinner, what recipe did I search for?  Right, you are!

Let’s start the week right with a recipe for cheesy garlicy biscuits, a pretty good rendition of Red Lobster’s own.

One note.  My recipe adds salt, but it can be omitted if you’re watching that sort of thing or don’t favor salty bread.

Enjoy!