I love whoopie pies! They're kind of like Macarons' uncomplicated cousin. So, without further ado, I give you: Red Velvet Whoopie Pies with a Valentines Flare!

Step 1: Gather Your Materials

Here's a list of all the ingredients which you will need, to make the Whoopie Pies:

-1 cup shortening
-2 cups white sugar
-2 eggs
-2 teaspoons vanilla extract
-1 cup milk
-2 teaspoons baking soda
-1 cup hot water
-4 1/2 cups flour
-1/2 cup cocoa powder
-1 teaspoon salt
-3/4 teaspoon red food colouring (50 drops)
-A dash of Cinnamon

These are the ingredients you will need, to make the cream cheese filling:

-1 250g (8oz) package of cream cheese, softened
-1/2 cup butter, softened
-2 cups icing sugar
-1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Step 2: Mix Everything Together

First, preheat your oven to 400F (200C) and grease cookie sheets. Second, cream together the butter and white sugar. Next, beat in the eggs and stir in your vanilla and milk. Now, sift together the flour, cocoa and salt, and then mix that into the butter mixture. Mix up the baking soda and hot water and them mix that in with the rest of the batter. Add in the red food colouring until you reach a desirable shade of red (50 drops was just what worked for me). To give these a bit of 'Valentine's spice' add in a dash of cinnamon. It will not be too prominent a taste, but a nice undertone.

Step 3: Bake Them

Drop the batter onto the cookie sheet by the heaping tablespoon. The method that I used was just scooping a bunch of batter out with my tablespoon and then putting that on the cookie sheet. Put them into the oven and bake them for 8 minutes so that they are firm but not overbaked.

Step 4: Make the Cream Cheese Filling

All you must do for this step is simply cream together cream cheese and butter, mix in the vanilla, and then slowly add the icing sugar.

Step 5: Valentinesify Them!

When you take your whoopie pies out of the oven, allow them to cool of a while, but not too long. Now it is time to give your whoopie pies a Valentine's flare! Take out a heart shaped cookie cutter and cut each of the whoopie pies. You can have an oven mitt on the hand that you're holding the pan with if it is still hot. If you don't have a cookie cutter, you can just cut them out using a knife too. Remove the excess whoopie, and save it for snacks to go with any left over filling. You can now remove the whoopie pies from the pan and move them to a cooling rack. I learned that it is a good idea to not stack the whoopie pies on top of each other, as this will cause them to kind of stick to one another. A piece of parchment paper between the layers is a good solution.

Step 6: Fill Them and Finish Them

Lay out a whoopie pie so that the flat side is facing up. Spoon your cream cheese filling into an icing bag. Pump the filling onto the whoopie pie so that it is about a half a cm thick. Leave a border of roughly a half a cm all the way around your whoopie pie. Take another whoopie pie and place its flat side on top of the filling. Now your whoopie pie is done! Continue to do the same to all the rest of your pies. I hope you enjoy your Valentine's Day Whoopie Pies! Be sure to share them with that special someone!

Step 7: It Works for Singles Too!

If you're looking at this intractable and thinking well if only I had a special someone, it's okay! Just take the whoopie pie and rip it in two with all your rage! Anyways Happy Valentine's Day, and I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial!