pumpkin spice whoopie pies

 happy halloween everyone! is halloween on a friday not the best thing ever?!

let me tell you something about the behind the scenes of this post. i made these, and they're delicious. i got out my nikon, set up my little shooting area, got some plates/props i'd never used before, and i was feeling really great about it. look at me, photographing these whoopie pies like i work for national geographic. i'm gonna use manual and make the aperture look stellar.

and then i looked back at the photos. oh god, i thought, these look like biscuits. or dog treats. no, no, no. absolutely not. and so then, i decided i wasn't going to post the recipe at all. the pumpkin didn't bring out as much orange as i thought it would in the cookies, and though i considered adding dye, i felt it unnecessary. more processed garbage in our food, who needs it?

so here they are in a photo from my phone. i did my best to make them look not biscuit like. they look a little funny. but they taste like cakey, warm icing goodness.

if you still need a quick treat to whip up for a party tonight, or y'know, just because you want a sweet treat, these are just the trick! i've written before about the simplicity of making cookies from boxed cake mixes (see pumpkin butterscotch cookies here, and lemon white chocolate cookies here!), and they're pretty foolproof. you can make your own cream cheese icing (i recommend this recipe) or use premade.

you will need:

• 1 box of spice cake mix
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons pureed pumpkin (i used 3, but it made the dough a little stickier than i liked)

preheat your oven to 375. combine all ingredients in a bowl. take the dough and begin rolling it into 1 inch balls - place on a greased cookie sheet. bake 9-12 minutes, or until cookies are firm. let cookies cool for at least half an hour. pipe (or spoon) your icing onto a cookie, attach another cookie, and voila! dog biscuits! i mean, pumpkin spice whoopie pies!