Customers raving over Dorothy Lane Market bakery’s made in-house whoopie pies

The decision to create an original DLM whoopie pie came from the grocery store’s new initiative called the “Food Explorer Program.” Beginning in May and every month, at least through October, DLM will dive into a new destination from around the world and highlight foods from that region — both in their grocery products and in foods made in-house like the whoopie pies.

The program’s first destination is New England — the origin place of the handheld desserts.

“I’ve had whoopie pies from the Midwest before and it’s basically always been a chocolate cake with some buttercream icing on the inside,” said Scott Fox, DLM’s vice president of bakery. “And I knew we didn’t want that.”

Fox appointed Greg Tyzzer, the bakery’s assistant manager and now referred to as the “Whoopie Pie Scientist,” to begin experimenting with different recipes.

“Interestingly enough, I had never had a whoopie pie, so I kind of went into it blind,” Tyzzer said. “So, I just started doing research on what was the traditional New England whoopie pie like because, you know, you take the same recipe and you go to different regions of the country, it’s going to be different.”

After several rounds of testing and eating many of his “first” whoopie pies, Tyzzer finished with a base of two, semi-sweet chocolate cake that’s dense and almost the texture of a cookie.

The filling is a soft marshmallow buttercream, so the cake outside has a little “crust” to it for support.

“It’s been very exciting,” Tyzzer said. “As far as the customer response goes, they really embraced it.”

In less than a week, DLM has sold 2,000 pies at their bakery. Tyzzer assured they will be re-stocked each week.

“We had one customer that was very concerned because we were just going to promote this for the month of May,” Fox said. “He got into his car and ate it (whoopie pie) in his car. (He) sent an email after asking if they was any chance we would carry year-round.”

In response to the customers’ approval, Fox said it’s looking like the bakery will make the pies a permanent item.