Happy Valentine’s Day! Vegan Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies

Cupcakes are great, but sandwich cookies and whoopie pies are the new trendy baked goods. Combine that with red velvet, one of the hottest and most traditional Southern cake flavors, and you’ve got a Valentine’s Day treat that won’t miss. Bonus for you – the cake scraps you are left with at the end. A tasty messy treat for all!

Ingredients – Sandwich Cookies

• 1 cup flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup earth balance vegan buttery sticks, room temp
• 3 tbsp soymilk
• 1 tbsp red food coloring
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• heart-shaped cookie cutters if you have ’em

Filling 

• 2 parts vegan cream cheese (1/2 cup)
• 1 part earth balance vegan buttery sticks (1/4 cup)
• Powdered sugar to taste (start with about 1 cup)
• Vanilla (1/2 tsp)

Note: Portions for the filling depend on what kind of sandwiches you make and how much frosting you like. When I made this recipe, I made twice as much filling as I posted in the ingredients list, so I had to make another batch of cookies. Not a bad problem to have, but just a tidbit. 

Directions 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, cocoa powder, and salt. Add the room temp vegan butter in chunks to the mixture along with the soymilk. Use a hand or stand mixer to combine everything evenly. Once it’s all good and mixed together, add the red food coloring.

In a separate small bowl, have your volcano experiment like back in elementary school and mix together the vinegar and baking soda. Add it to the big bowl and use the mixer again.

This next part was nerve-wracking for me, but trust me, it will all work out. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Spoon the batter onto the cookie sheet and spread it out evenly using a spatula.

(Two things that would have been helpful for me to know before baking: Don’t worry about it being thin in parts – it will puff up a little and will be plenty thick to make sammiches. Also, don’t put any batter anywhere where the parchment paper bends off the sheet if you can help it. This will be unusable cake after it comes out for the most part since it’ll be cracked in those areas.)

Cook for about 12-14 minutes. Once you take the sheet out of the oven, let it sit and cool for a bit before cutting.

While you’re waiting for the cake to cool, you can start mixing up the filling. Use the proportions listed and blend all the ingredients together with a hand or stand mixer. That’s it. It’s seriously the easiest and tastiest cream cheese filling you can make.

Now, take your heart-shaped cookie cutters  and go to town. If you use different sizes, remember to make sure you have a pair of everything to make the sandwiches.

You can use a pastry bag to fill the sandwiches if you want, especially if you’re worried about breaking any thin sandwich halves, but I took my chances with a butter knife and it ended up working. For more fun, add some frosting to the top of the sandwich cookies and add little Valentine messages.

Do you have any favorite holiday treats? Comment below or tell us about it on Facebook!