One of my coworkers always mentions how much she loves red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and jokingly asked me to make red velvet cupcakes for Valentine’s Day. Using directions from Annie’s Eats on how to construct the pies into hearts and my red velvet cupcake and cream cheese frosting recipe I whipped these up in time for Valentine’s.

These are far easier to make than I could have imagined and came out wonderfully. They are incredibly moist and their texture is far more cakelike than cookie, even though they were baked on a cookie sheet and are quite thin. Enjoy, and I hope your Valentine’s Day is wonderful!

Ingredients:

For the Cookies:

3 cups flour;
1/3 cup cocoa powder;
1 tsp baking powder;
1 tsp baking soda;
½ tsp salt;
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature;
½ cup brown sugar;
1 cup sugar;
2 eggs;
3 tsp vanilla extract;
4 tsp red food coloring;
1 cup buttermilk.

For Icing: (also seen on my pumpkin spice cupcakes!)

8 oz cream cheese;
5 tbsp butter at room temperature;
3 tsp vanilla extract;
2⅓ cup confectioners sugar.

Recipe Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and using a heart cookie-cutter, trace hearts out evenly along parchment paper. Leave about 1 inch around each heart (I fit about 20 on each sheet).
Combine flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
Using an electric mixer, beat together butter and both sugars on low speed until combined. Increase speed to medium and beat until fluffy, about 3-4 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla and red food coloring and beat until just blended.
Alternating, add flour mixture and buttermilk in 3 parts, beating on low in between each addition. When all combined beat on medium speed until smooth.
Using a spatula, scoop batter into pastry bag (I just use a plain old ziploc bag and snip a corner off!). Carefully fill the hearts about halfway full, making a small heart of batter inside of your traced heart. Continue with all of the hearts, then bake about 10 minutes or until tops spring lightly back when touched.
Allow to cool for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely. If you still have extra batter (I did!), reuse the parchment paper and refill the hearts as you did the first round until you are out of batter.
For frosting, combine cream cheese (cold) and butte with an electric mixer. Beat on medium speed until smooth, then mix in vanilla extract. Gradually add the powdered sugar until fully mixed, then increase speed to blend until smooth. Don’t overbeat it! Transfer into a pastry bag or ziploc bag for piping.
To assemble whoopie pies: do your best to find hearts that match up in size, then flip one over and make a small heart (don’t go to the edges!) on the underside of one cookie. Place the cookie’s mate on top, gently pressing until icing is at the edges. Voila!