Red Velvet Cookies for Valentine’s Day {Easy, Vegan}

Well, it’s Valentine’s Day on Wednesday, and in case you’re as behind as I am, I have a last-minute homemade treat that takes only minutes to whip up.

Additionally, you can make it one of two ways.

The basis of this recipe is a boxed cake mix. Ahhhh! The horror, right?? Nope, not really. Not this time! Because we’re not making a cake out of this mix, we’re turning it into cookies! Yep, that’s right, and it’s super easy to do.

Many of the commercial brands of boxed cake mix are accidentally vegan, meaning they have no butter, dairy or eggs in the mix, and they don’t become not vegan till after you add those things. Many of the Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines cake mixes are accidentally vegan, but check the ingredients if that’s a concern for you, just to be sure.

Just dump your cake mix into a bowl, add the rest of the ingredients, and mix! Then all you need to do is scoop your cookies and bake them for about 9-12 minutes at 350 degrees, and voila! You have cookies.

For these Red Velvet Cookies (perfect for Valentine’s Day), I tried two different techniques:

1. Scoop the cookies as normal, and bake them. Once they are baked, remove to a wire rack to cool. Then mix up some cream cheese frosting (you can also use vegan cream cheese for this), and ice half of the cookies, topping each one with an additional cookie to make Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies.

2. Scoop the cookies, but before baking, roll them in icing sugar. Once they bake, the icing sugar creates a cool looking crackle effect.

Easy! Happy Valentine’s Day!