I Heart Cupcakes

February 14th.
Saint Valentines Day.

A day to celebrate martyred Saints of ancient Rome!??

The romanticisation came centuries later when poets invented stories about the various Valentines (martyrs).

So this Valentines, rather than a gift of chocolates, flowers or cards to support the Hallmark holiday and rather than commemorating the traditional celebration of martyrs, I decided to pay tribute the poetic geniuses whose creativity transformed St Valentines Day into the lovey-dovey, soppy-woppy day it is today.

I put my own creative skills to the test and designed some heart themed cutesy cupcakes!

The first batch were a double chocolate variety with a soft chocolate ganache centre. The 82% cocoa chocolate and a recipe hiccup resulted in double the amount of reccomended chocolate being added - too much chocolate is never a bad thing!! The chocolate ganache was made with chocolate of a slighly lower cocoa content to give a nice contrasting flavour between the two chocolate varities. The addition of a generous helping of double cream ensured that these cupcakes were pure heaven. Piping the ganache into the centre would have been easier if I had done so straight off the hob rather than letting the chocolate cool, but the end result was absolutely delicious none-the-less.

The second lot were a simple vanilla with a hint of lemon rind. I decided to dish these into miniature cupcake cases to add to their cuteness! The miniature size meant a swift 8 minute stint in the oven and the timer pinged signifying the readiness.Yummy!!!

Round three in the mixing bowl was an easy batch of chocolate chip cookies. A heart shaped cookie cutter ensured these babies were fitting to to my Valentines theme.

The decorating, as always, was my favourite part. Vanilla buttercream with simple lemon and a hint of red food colouring looked perfect with my love heart sweet cupcakes.

White rolled icing topped with hand rolled love hearts in shades of red and pink completed my Valentines baking efforts.



They looked the part, but there was still the taste test to pass. They were good enough for my pallet but how did my colleagues feel???

After I returned home with an empty cake tin, several people came back for second helpings and one guy even declared his love for me, I can safely sat they passed!!

Happy Valentines Day everyone :)