SAN ANTONIO, Texas-- Valero Retail Holdings Inc. has announced that its Corner Store convenience locations with bakeries are now producing Whoopie Pies. These moist cakes--a cross between cake and cookie--are a Northeastern tradition and are now gaining recognition across the country. Whoopie Pies are a classic dessert that brings back the nostalgia of homemade comfort food.
Whoopie Pies are baked fresh, with chocolate or vanilla creme cake batter creating a moist top and bottom. The delicious cake layers are then filled with buttercreme icing.
According to Wikipedia, [image-nocss] Pennsylvania and Maine both claim to be the birthplace of the Whoopie pie. In 2011, the Maine state legislature considered naming the Whoopie pie the official state dessert. The proposal received bipartisan support. L.D. 71, officially known as "An Act to Designate the Whoopie Pie as the State Dessert," read "The whoopie pie, a baked good made of two chocolate cakes with a creamy frosting between them, is the official state dessert."The Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau and others note that the whoopie pie comes from the area's Amish and Pennsylvania German culture--origins that are unlikely to leave an official paper trail--and has been handed down through generations. Most likely, Amish groups that migrated to Maine brought the treat to the people of Maine. Mainers assert that Labadie's in Lewiston, Maine, has been making the confectionery since 1925.The now-defunct Berwick Cake Co. of Roxbury, Mass., had been making the "Whoopee Pie" since 1931, and it is also claimed that the whoopie pie originated there in Massachusetts and spread both north and south. It appears though that German immigrants brought the predecessor of the Whoopie Pie to communities throughout the Northeast.
San Antonio, Texas-based Valero Energy is an international manufacturer and marketer of transportation fuels, other petrochemical products and power. Its assets include 14 petroleum refineries with a combined throughput capacity of approximately 2.6 million barrels per day, 10 ethanol plants with a combined production capacity of 1.1 billion gallons per year, and a 50-megawatt wind farm. Valero is also one of the largest retail operators with approximately 5,800 retail and branded wholesale outlets in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean under the Valero, Diamond Shamrock, Shamrock, Ultramar and Beacon brands.
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