Valentines Cupcakes

I am an ambassador for Countdown supermarket, they support my blog by providing ingredients for recipe creation and testing. I used self-raising flour and butter, and icing sugar from their range in this recipe.

How to make heart-shaped cupcakes for Valentine's day

Below are illustrated step-by-step instructions to make my Valentine's Day Cupcakes, if you prefer just the written instructions then head straight to the printable recipe card below.

Prep:  Heat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius, (This will be 160 degrees if are using a fan-forced oven.)

Step one: Add all of the cupcake ingredients (wet and dry) including the whisked eggs into a large mixing bowl. Mix on slow until the ingredients are combined. Increase the speed to medium and beat for approximately 2 minutes until the cupcake batter is pale and creamy

Step two: To make a heart-shaped cupcake pick up a cupcake liner and firmly pinch a fold into the cupcake liner. This will form the indentation at the top of a heart.

Step three: Place a small amount of cupcake batter into the bottom of the pinched cupcake liner. (This helps hold it in place).

Step four: Place ceramic baking weights into the triangle created by the pinch in the cupcake liner. If you don't have ceramic weights you can use small balls of tin foil.

Step five Add a second scoop to the cupcake liner, you want there to be enough batter to two-thirds fill the cupcake liner. But don't work if there are a few gaps around the edges etc as the cupcake batter will expand and fill these while baking.

Step six: To make a mixture of differently decorated valentines cupcakes, I choose to only make half of my cupcakes heart shapes, for the remaining cupcake liners I just filled two-thirds full with cupcake batter to make traditional round cupcakes.

Step seven: Bake for 15-20 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. When cooked the cupcakes will have risen, and be golden in colour and when you insert a skewer into the centre it will come out clean. Allow cooling before decorating.

How to decorate cupcakes for Valentine's day

Below are illustrated step-by-step instructions to make decorate Valentine's Day Cupcakes, if you prefer just the written instructions then head straight to the printable recipe card below.

Make vanilla glaze:   place all the vanilla glaze ingredients into a bowl and whisk, and keep whisking until you have a smooth spreadable glaze.

If you want pink icing add a drop of red colouring to the glaze, to achieve the pink colour you desire.

If the glaze is a little thin add more icing sugar a tablespoon at a time, if the glaze is too thick add more milk 1 teaspoon at a time.

Heart-shaped Cupcakes: To decorate my heart-shaped cupcakes, I used white vanilla glaze and piped a heart shape onto the top of the cupcake. I then filled in the heart shape outline with more vanilla glaze. And sprinkled with some heart-shaped sprinkles!

Heart Decorated Cupcakes: To decorate my round Valentine's cupcakes, I spread the top of the cupcake with a pale pink vanilla glaze. I then placed a small heart-shaped cookie cutter on the centre of the cupcake and spooned pink and white sprinkles into the cutter. I carefully tipped off the excess sprinkles then removed the cutter to reveal sprinkles in a heart shape in the centre of the cupcake.