Sweet Heart Cupcakes (Valentine's Day)

While in the midst of spending (more) time with family, hanging out with friends, packing and frantically squeezing all my baking barang barang for the move, I've managed a little time for this post. One that's almost a year from the last, and the first on this blog. Just in time for Valentine's day! Yippie!

As the number of baking enthusiasts increases steadily, it is with no doubt that home-baked goodies remain one of the top gift choices for V day. Besides the point that we can add an extra cuppa "love" and be very generous with the scarce "sincerity", it is a budget-friendly option as well. All it takes is some thoughts, some time and some TLC.

December to February are the months I fear most each year; bound to gain weight (not muscles sadly) after all the feasting from the series of festive celebrations. To end it on a sweet note *winks*, we have Saint Valentine's day of course, where sweets are inevitable. It will diminish any last strand of weight-loss motivation compared to when I first wrote "To lose 5kgs" on my new year's resolution list. Well, mainly because I've gained an extra 5kgs since. Bwaha.

That's why I adore this Sweet Heart cupcakes' cutout design; so easy to execute and a lot less frosting than the classic huge dollop of waistline-unfriendly, artery-clogging, teeth-decaying, death trap of sugary blissfulness. Yes, less but not none. I mean no one should go cold turkey on this creamy goodness and no one should eat a cupcake without its frosting, at least not on V day! Save him/her the trouble of scraping off the cream or save yourself from the horror of having the cream shoved into your mouth!

1. Bake the cupcakes according to your preferred recipe. Or use my favorite Chocolate cupcakes recipe.

2. Slice off the top of the cupcake.

3. Using a heart-shaped cookie cutter, punch a <3 out of the cupcake top.

4. Spread a layer of prepared frosting on the cupcake.













5. Replace the cut-out cupcake top and you're basically done. Additionally, you may pipe more frosting into the cut-out <3 and dust some icing sugar over the top.








For the leftover hearts, I just pipe some frosting between 2 pieces and save them as TV snacks. They're kinda cute and look quite like whoopie pies. If you have time, save them for Hidden Hearts cupcakes which is also a suitable application for V day.

Although I went with Dark Chocolate Raspberry -- chocolate for its *ahem* supposedly "aphrodisiacal" properties and raspberry for a little tanginess, you can go with any flavour combinations your special someone favour, say e.g. classic Red Velvet. And if you think "Sweet Heart" is too cheesy a name, change it to something like "I give my <3 to You", "You have my Heart"...... Or maybe not, they all sound kinda cheesy. lol. Perhaps change it to something only both of you know. A shared joke? Nickname? Or just sweet nothings whispered behind closed doors. Let it be something that will melt his/her heart and put a smile on him/her while chomping on your lovingly prepared treat, thinking that all the calories are well worth it.

"The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart." 

~ Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

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