Little 'Lisha Snack Cakes

I've really been trying to cut back on sweets this year. I've only had dessert once since the second week of January. (Brian's sister visited during the first week of January and for some reason I think having a guest is a good reason to make and consume a lot of sweets.) A week or so ago I made chocolate chip cookies for a function and I didn't eat a single one. Even when I was baking them and needed a taste test, I had Brian give them a try. I was quite proud of myself.

But today I fell off the wagon. I was looking through my bookmarks to see how many recipes I had for red velvet cake. Now I know it sounds like I was looking for trouble, but I wasn't. I only eat red velvet cake on my birthday and since I'm planning on making my own cake for the first time this year, I've kept my eye out for recipes. And I thought it might be time to look over them and narrow it down to one recipe. That way the next time I need to make a cake or cupcakes (for other people of course, I'm cutting back on sweets, remember?) I can give the recipe a test run. What? You don't plan your birthday cake 2 months in advance? It doesn't matter in any case because I've only bookmarked one red velvet cake recipe.

But while I was looking through my bookmarks, I found another recipe. A Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie copy cat recipe. And wouldn't you know it, I just bought oatmeal today. And I had one jar of homemade marshmallow cream in the fridge. (Marshmallow cream is one of those food items we hardly ever ate in the U.S., but now that it's not readily available sometimes we really want it. Little Debbie snacks fall into that same category.) So it was like all of the stars had aligned and I was destined to make these treats today. And I don't fool with destiny.


The recipe came together nicely. The cream filling didn't taste quite right, but I'm guessing it's because of the homemade marshmallow cream. The filling was also not as firm as I would have liked, but the homemade marshmallow cream doesn't hold it's fluffiness like the store-bought stuff. I'm storing them in the freezer, so that should make them a little less messy. And even though the filling isn't exactly right, overall the cream pies really hit the spot.

The recipe said to use a tablespoon of cookie dough per cookie. But often when I want something sweet, a small something will do just fine. So I made some regular-sized oatmeal cream pies (pictured above) for Brian and some mini cream pies where I used a teaspoon of cookie dough instead of a tablespoon (pictured below) for myself.


Okay, so I realize now that you can't really tell the difference in size when they're not side-by-side. But the mini cream pies are much smaller. In fact, I'd say they're one-third smaller (since there are three teaspoons in a tablespoon). I also used less filling on the smaller pies.

The hardest part was preparing the snack cakes for storage. I wrapped about half of them individually in parchment paper and then foil. But that was taking way too long so I ended up placing the rest in plastic containers and popping them in the freezer. We'll see how that works out. I hope they last a while in the freezer because there are about 12 to 15 large cream pies and well over 20 mini cream pies.