Chocolate Cherry Whoopie Pies

There are so many delicious looking Valentine's Day recipes floating around blogs and Pinterest lately.  Here's one that I came up with yesterday while my boys were home for the MLK Jr. Holiday... 

After pinning these cupcakes from Glorious Treats via The Tomkat Studio to my xoxo board...

And seeing these strawberry "oreo" sandwich cookies from Thirty Handmade Days around blogland...

I came up with my Chocolate Cherry Whoopie Pies because I loved the ingredients for the cupcakes and the look of the sandwich cookies.

Here's how I made them:

Have you ever made cookies from a cake mix?  It's SO easy!  Just mix the dry cake mix {any flavor you choose} with 2 eggs and 1 stick of softened butter.

 Your cookie batter will come out stiff like this...

Preheat oven to 350 degrees... then roll cookies into small balls, one at a time and drop them onto your parchment lined cookie sheet {I was out of parchment so you'll have to see my well-used cookie sheets}

Once on the cookie sheet, shape it into a heart {this was the hardest part because the dough is very sticky, but just do your best... you'll be able to fix them a little bit when they first come out of the oven}

Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes or until they are no longer doughy on top, but not browned on the edges.  When mine came out they didn't look much like hearts anymore...

So while they were still hot, I gently used a butter knife to push the center of the cookie back into a heart shape like this...

Transfer cookies to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

  While they're cooling, make your frosting... by the way this made WAY more than plenty, you could probably just make 1/2 of this...

2 sticks softened butter

4 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

3-4 tablespoons cherry juice from your jar of maraschino cherries

15 or so maraschino cherries, chopped into small pieces

Make sure you wear an apron or just not your favorite shirt while chopping those cherries... they're juicy!

Your frosting will look like this... a pretty pink color without having to add any food coloring, thanks to those cherries.

I used my piping thingy {I think it's called a Decorator Pro?} but a butter knife would work fine too...

Pipe {or spread} your frosting onto one cookie, on the bottom of the cookie like this...

Place another cookie, bottom side in touching the frosting to make a little sandwich...

And ta-da... simple and delicious semi-homemade 

Chocolate Cherry Whoopie Pies! 

p.s. Don't they look pretty on my new cake stand from Costco???  

If you have a Costco nearby and a cake stand collection like me, 

you'll want to get these too... just $19.99 for 2 gorgeous cake stands!


I'm linking up to some of my favorite places!