Settlers of Catan Party with Whoopie Pie Bar

Today, we have an awesome guest post by Scott Wilson:

Settlers of Catan is one of the most popular board games in recent memory, with over 22 million sold in 30 different languages. It’s also one of the most fun, and once you play it a few times and catch on to some of the strategies, you’ll likely become addicted. And you’ll likely get all your friends addicted too.

And that’s how I got involved with a co-worker’s Settlers of Catan Party that she was throwing for her husband’s birthday.

According to The Settler of Catan, the “board consists of 19 terrain hexes surrounded by the ocean. Each type of terrain produces a different type of resource: brick, wool, ore, grain or lumber. There’s also a desert hex that produces no resources.”  The object is to ” be the first one who collects 10 victory points. Each settlement is worth one victory point and each city is worth two victory points.  You can also earn victory points by holding the “Longest Road” card, the “Largest Army” card, or special victory point development cards.”

We had all sorts of Catan-themed decorations, but the evening resolved around our Whoopie Pie Bar from Whoopie Bakery. For those of you that don’t live in Pennsylvania or Maine, a Whoopie Pie is not really a pie at all. It’s two fluffy “cakes” in the size and shape of a cookie with frosting in between. Traditionally it’s chocolate cake with vanilla filling, but these have a creative twist and include the cake, filling, glaze, and toppings.

We set up in a style where people could create their own, mixing and matching the different items. For the cakes, which we called “houses,” we went with chocolate and pumpkin, and for the fillings (or “roads”) we had a cinnamon coffee and cream cheese.

Then for the rest we had the Settles of Catan theme. Check it out:

Sheep -Toasted coconut topping. You can go untoasted if you want them fluffier.

Coal – Crushed chocolate espresso beans topping. This is my personal favorite, and is awesome with the chocolate and caramel.

Brick – Baked bacon pieces. Who doesn’t like bacon?

Gold – Caramel glaze. Another one great with the chocolate.

Other Gold – Maple syrup. Don’t mix this with the first gold, but DO mix it with the brick (bacon)!

Wheat – Crushed pretzels. Mix this with coal (chocolate espresso beans) for extra crunch.

Ore – Crushed Oreos. This was the most popular topping by far, and went very quickly.

Wood – Toasted pecans. This one was made for the pumpkin.

It was a huge hit!

People came up with all sorts of creative concepts.  For example, someone created “The Ultimate City,” which consisted of the chocolate cakes, caramel glaze, and cream cheese for the filling. Then, of course, to make the city they added wheat (pretzels) and ore (Oreos)!

Another came up with “Hit the Road, Jack” which, of course, had wood (pecans) and brick (bacon) to make the roads. Those toppings were put on pumpkin cakes with cream cheese frosting.

If you want to make this on your own, there are tons of good recipes out there, but this recipe works really well.  Since each Whoopie Pie needs two halves, you need to make much more than you’d think in order to get a decent amount from it.  It also takes a pretty significant amount of time, so it may be best to purchase them if you live in an area that has them, and then just buy whichever toppings you need.

Give it a try and let us know how it goes in the comments!

Scott Wilson is a writer and blogger from Pennsylvania who loves playing just about every board game there is. Follow him on Twitter @ScottTheWilson. 

Disclaimer:  We are not the owners of Settlers of Catan, registered Trade Mark, and are in no way connected with the Settlers of Catan.