Red Cake meets Whoopie Pies

In my family, red cake (more specifically the Neiman Marcus cookie recipe of the 1970's - Waldorf Astoria Red Velvet Cake) is a tradition.  It's delicious, yes, but for us it's all about the memories.  You had to beg (BEG!) for one for your birthday, but I'm pretty sure my grandma just liked to see us squirm.  She enjoyed eating it as much as the rest of us, but it is a PITA to make (for those of you abbreviationally challenged, that's Pain In The A$$).  You aren't truly a member of the family if your mixer isn't covered in blood-red stains from creating this beloved concoction.

However.  My Grams would have LOVED the idea of using a boxed cake mix for this.  Truly, she was all about shortcuts.  The problem is, it's the icing that makes the cake and, well, that's the tricky part.  It's not hard, per se, but it's...tricky.  So, because I wanted me some red cake but didn't want the hassle of having my kitchen look like a butcher shop, I bought the mix.  And then I got to looking at the box and lo and behold, there was an epiphany waiting to happen!  There was a photo of "red velvet sandwich cookies" - which is to say they looked like red velvet whoopie pies.  (If you don't know what whoopie pies are, I kinda pity you.  Google it.  You can thank me later.)  But wait!  What if I made the red cake part and then!  AND THEN!  Filled it with the Red Cake ICING!! 

Oh, yes.  I did:

 (Uncle Mark, stop licking the screen now...)

Luckily, my parents were here on Sunday to taste-test.  Lemme tell ya, I really had to twist their arms! ;)  I had to laugh while we were, uh, sampling them because I was just licking the icing off from the outside of mine when I looked at my parents and they were BOTH doing the same dang thing!  It really is the best part.  Good news, family!  I'm going to make these for Christmas and tint the icing green!  Whoopie!

And, because this just makes me smile every time I see it and also because - after starting to run again after OVER A MONTH of injury - it's exactly how I felt:

PS - Even with the box mix, my kitchen still looked like a butcher shop.  Also, I adjusted the recipe per the reviews and added an extra egg and 2 TBSP vegetable oil.  They came out delish but flat.