This recipe is not for beginners -- my aunt gave me this recipe when I was a young mom, and I couldn't get them to turn out right -- I really thought she had left things out! She was famous for her whoopie pies. If you are having trouble with it, here is how I do it, and mine come out great. Use a good hand mixer to beat everything. Sift your dry ingredients, beat the sugar, shortening and eggs thoroughly, and add in the dry ingredients and boiling water alternately in at least four batches, beating thoroughly after each addition - this means beating at least two minutes with a mixer nine or ten separate times. If this isn't done, the dough will be lumpy. Put it on a baking sheet in small amounts: I use a heaping teaspoon for mine. That will make a pie that is the size of an english muffin. Don't grease the sheet or the edges will be crispy. Use a metal spatula to carefully scrape them off the sheet. Scrape the sheet between batches. Take them off the sheet to cool as soon as they come out of the oven. For the filling, beating is again the key. I use a small wire whisk for beating and cooking the milk and flour. I hold the pan on its edge over the heat and beat the milk and flour the entire time I'm cooking. When finished, it's the consistency of pudding. If you go thicker, or don't beat it, your filling will be lumpy. Cool it on the stove until it's not warm enough to melt the shortening. Don't chill it in the fridge. If you make it while you're baking

Incredible! Very rich, so make sure you don't make the cookies too large. I have made this recipe a number of times, and have always had success. One thing, however, is that the 2nd listing of "1 cup milk" is unneccessary, as the directions only specify using 1 cup of milk total, and that's in the filling (it would be too runny if both cups of milk were used).

I gave it four stars for the cake part but the creme was filled with way too much shortening. I made my own creme filling and after that they were great. I recommend the cake part for sure.

This recipe is very close to the one handed down from my mother in law, who has now deceased. The only change is instead of granulated sugar in the icing, you should use powdered sugar so it doesn't come out grainy. This recipe has to be followed to the letter. Other reviewers that had lumps or problems probably didn't follow the amounts correctly. It is hard to add that much shortening to it... but you have to in order to make GOBS!

mmmmm, very tasty. i made it just the way you said and they were great. (Bad for the waistline though) ;-)

I followed the exact directions for this recipe and used teaspoon size drops of batter on a lightly greased cookie sheet and they came out very tiny and lumpy. They never puffed or smoothed out. The filling was lumpy too. They did taste good but not a very good appealing presentation.

I dont know what went wrong here...WAY TOO MUCH FLOUR!!! I even got my grandmother to check everything I measured and she said that it was all correct. The boiling water turned my cake batter to rubber cement...WITH LUMPS!!! They didn's spread, puff, or fully cook, for that matter, in any way. I knew something was wrong as soon as I started adding the flour (too much) so I added more boiling water (which I missed the point of using it anyway) and it got worse!!! Highly inaccurate and very involved to the point where even if they did work out, the mediocre ingredients would have provided not satisfaction whatsoever.