Valentine's Day Red Velvet Cupcakes

Happy Valentine's Day to all the lovebirds reading this today! I wanted to share with you today some quick and easy heart-shaped cupcakes to celebrate Valentine's Day.

After seeing a photo on Pinterest, I improvised a method to do the same thing as there was no corresponding link to instructions. So, I've created a little how-to for you, based on how I accomplished these cupcakes, so that you can make something special for your special someone.

You will need:

• Your favourite cake/cupcake batter, and icing
• A regular muffin pan
• Muffin pan liners
• Marbles or glass rocks, or other heat-proof round objects
• Sprinkles, candies, sugar dust, etc. to decorate

From what I could tell in the photo on Pinterest, they used marbles. I didn't have marbles so I improvised with decorative glass stones. I also used a Red Velvet cake recipe from Baking With The Cake Boss (I've still yet to watch his show), as well as a Cream Cheese Icing from the book. Once you've got your batter prepared, this is what you'll want to do:

1. Line muffin pan with liners (I used Valentine's Day themed liners)
2. Fill each liner with your cake batter (using something like an ice-cream scoop will help alleviate any mess and ensure that the cupcakes are roughly the same size)
3. Using your index finger, push the liner towards the centre of the muffin hole
4. Fill the resulting space with marbles or other objects to hold the liner in place (you'll want to stack a few on top of each other, so that the batter doesn't bake over top of the marble)
5. Bake cupcakes according to recipe directions
6. Let cupcakes cool, and remove from pan - be careful, the marbles may still be warm
7. Allow cupcakes to cool completely and ice as desired

When icing my cupcakes, I chose to decorate them with red and white sugar sprinkles, heart-shaped candy sprinkles, and silver sugar dust. I used Valentine's Day themed cookie cutters on top of the cupcakes and filled the cookie cutter in with the dust (or sprinkles in some cases) to leave the decorations in the shapes of hearts, flowers, bells, etc. 

These were quick and easy, without the cost of purchasing a heart-shaped pan, or the need to elaborately decorate a cake! You get delicious results, and more time to spend with loved ones! 

On a side note - the Red Velvet cupcakes stayed nice and moist, and tasted pretty good, however the recipe only calls for 1tbsp of cocoa powder. I found that this left them a bit bland, as red velvet is supposed to have that cocoa taste. I'll be using my old recipe next time!