Red Velvet Cookies

Would you believe me if I said I did NOT make these because it's almost Valentine's Day?

You should, even though I thought it was a neat coincidence.

I made these for the soft launch of a new food truck, Yume Burger, that my co-worker hosted. Since the event was that evening, I needed a recipe in which I already had most of the ingredients on hand. I first settled on a chocolate thumbprint with cream cheese center, but since I had whipped cream cheese instead of the solid block, I consulted the Interwebs to see if I could still use my standard cream cheese icing recipe. Upon typing "cream cheese" in the Google search bar, red velvet recipes popped up everywhere. Thus I got the idea to make my chocolate cookies red! I skipped the thumbprint idea after seeing how beautiful and cracked they came out and decided just to add a dollop of icing and some red sprinkles.















And whatever, they are cute and perfect for Valentine's Day.
















Red Velvet Cookies w/ Cream Cheese Icing Recipe:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup oil
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 extra large egg (if you only have a large egg, the dough might be too crumbly so add 1 tbsp of milk)
• 1 tbsp red food coloring
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp distilled white vinegar

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 8 oz whipped cream cheese
• 4 tbsp butter or margarine
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/3 cup milk
• Mix all together until smooth. Add more or less of any ingredient depending on your taste/consistency preference (I wanted something a little more like icing than frosting, so I added milk).
  

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Combine dry ingredients in a small bowl. In large bowl, combine oil and sugars. Beat until well combined. Add egg and mix until incorporated. Add in food coloring, vanilla and vinegar and combine. Finally, gently beat in the dry ingredients until all incorporated well. Roll tsp size balls in the palm of your hand and place on a greased baking sheet. These spread a little, so make sure they have room on the pan. I baked mine for about 12 minutes and I think they came out a little too hard. I would shoot for 8-10 minutes. Let cool completely and then top with icing and sprinkles!

Recipe makes about 2 1/2 dozen.