Red Velvet Whoopies Pies - Health Bent

Yield: About 24 cookies or 12 cookie sandwiches

Ingredients

For the Cookies

• 2 c almond flour*
• 1/4 c cocoa powder
• 1/2 c full fat, canned coconut milk
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 c sugar
• 1 T vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 t baking soda
• 1/2 t baking powder
• red food coloring (You choose what you want to use. Beet juice is the hippie way, otherwise just use liquid or gel, until you like the color you see.)

For the Filling

• 3/4 c palm shortening**
• 3 T coconut oil
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 3 T powdered sugar, or any liquid sweetener***

Method

Set your oven to 350ºF. Whisk together all the cookie ingredients. Use a cookie scoop to dollop the batter in uniform sizes (important for the art of sandwich cookie making), onto a parchment or silicone lined baking sheet. Depending on the size of your cookie/baking sheet, this took two batches. Bake for about 15 minutes.
For the filling
Beat all ingredients together in a mixer. It may appear crumbly at first, but give it some time and eventually the shortening will start to get fluffy like butter. This should take about 3-5 minutes.
Once the cookies are 100% cool (Do not rush this, unless you enjoy wasting things.), use a small off-set spatula, or a spoon, to scoop some filling onto one of the cookies. Spread the filling around the surface of the cookie, top with another cookie and immediately put it into your mouth.
The filling does get hard in the refrigerator, so it’d be best to fill the cookies right before you plan to eat/serve. You could, of course heat the refrigerated cookie sandwiches in the microwave for a few seconds to soften everything up a bit