LOVEly Cupcakes

I had a party 2 days before Valentine's, and I just couldn't pass up doing a dessert with a cute little heart on it.  So I made chocolate cupcakes with a heart embellishment.

Here's what you will need:

• A box of cake mix - I used milk chocolate (will make 24 cupcakes)
• 1 can of icing - I used vanilla
• Cupcake liners
• Fun sprinkles (optional)
• Red Candy Melts - I got mine at Hobby Lobby. (You could also use white chocolate bark and add a little red food coloring).
• Heart mold (you could also draw out hearts if you don't have a mold).
• Ziploc bag

1)  Cupcakes

• Make the cupcakes.
• Allow them plenty of time to cool.  I let mine sit overnight.
• Put your icing in a Ziploc bag and then snip off a small piece of one corner.  This makes it easier to ice the cupcakes and gives them a more put together look.  (If the hole in your bag is too small, cut it a little larger).  Go in a circle motion, covering the top of each cupcake with icing.

2) Hearts

• Melt the red candy melts.  I melted mine in batches because I only had one thing to make heart molds.
• Make sure not to overheat the red candy.  It will burn and become unusable.

Pour the red candy into the heart molds. 

Put them in the freezer for quick setting.  It will only take about 5 minutes for them to get hard.

Take them out of the mold.  If they have a hard time coming out, tap the tops with a spoon.



Once the cupcakes are iced, add a few sprinkles to the top, then top with a heart.  Voila!  Fun & beautiful cupcakes!  These heart cupcakes cost me about $8 to do 24 of them.

You could easily adapt this recipe to another holiday.  This is where I got the idea:

http://www.marthastewart.com/318374/brownie-heart-cupcakes?center

As you can see, I adapted this idea because I wanted to do a red heart on the top of my cupcake. 

Hope this will bring you inspiration for other fun cupcakes!

-Katie