Cupid's Heart 2 Heart Cupcakes

The little cherub of love, Cupid is busy sharpening the tips of his arrows in time for the 14th February. When he aims his bow at you, I hope you will be in the arms of the one you love embracing this Valentines Day!

To mark this occasion I have put my thinking cap on again to come up with another cupcake idea to share with you. It’s a simple red sponge in keeping with the theme of Valentines and cutout fondant heart shapes. I am baking the sponges on a slightly lower heat to help maintain the bright red colour of the sponge; a higher heat would brown them slightly.

These cupcakes are simple and quick enough to recreate if you are looking for something quickly to bake for your Valentine.

If you want to try something like a heart cake or heart shaped little cupcakes etc click on my link [here], which will bring you to my other Valentine recipes.

I would like to wish you all a wonderful Romantic Valentines Day!

Cupid's Heart 2 Heart Cupcakes

Cupid's Heart 2 Heart Cupcakes

Makes approximately 24 small cupcakes or 12 larger cupcakes – depending on size of cupcake case you use.

Ingredients
For The Sponge
175g (6 oz) self-raising flour
½ tsp baking powder
175g (6 oz) softened butter
175g (6 oz) caster sugar
2 large eggs
5 tbsp double cream or milk – use one not both
1 tsp vanilla extract
Edible red food colour – I used Wilton gel colours
For The Apricot Glaze
! tbsp apricot jam
3 tbsp water
For The Icing
350g (12 oz) of fondant icing
Edible red & pink food colouring
Icing sugar for dusting the work surface

You will also need 24 small paper cupcakes or 12 larger cupcake paper cases. 3 different sized heart shaped cookie cutters, largest cutter to fit the top of the cupcake. 2 x 12-holed small cupcake tin or 12-holed large cupcake tin

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.

In a large mixing bowl add the butter and sugar and beat well with a wooden spoon until pale and fluffy. Mix the eggs, cream or milk and vanilla extract in a jug with a fork. Add a little at a time of the egg mixture and remain to beat well in between each addition until all the mixture is completely combined. With a tip of a teaspoon add a little at a time of the edible red food colour until you reach your desired colour of red, beating the colour through the sponge mixture thoroughly. Place the flour and baking powder in a sieve and sift this over the mixture, folding in gently with a large metal spoon until all traces of flour have gone.

Place each paper cupcake case with sponge mixture to no more than three-quarters full. Place into the preheated oven to bake for 15- 20 minutes for small cupcakes 20 – 25 minutes for the medium cupcakes. They should feel firm to a gentle touch in the middle and or when a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Place on a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes before turning out of the tins fully onto a wire rack until cold.

For the apricot glaze, place the apricot jam and water into a saucepan and with a small whisk combine them together over a low heat on the stove. Take off the heat and leave aside to use later.

For the fondant icing, sprinkle a little icing on a work surface and roll out the icing thinly. Cut out enough white hearts with the largest heart cutter. With a little apricot glaze on a pastry brush, stick each heart down on top of each cupcake. With the fondant remaining, roll it up into a ball shape and cut a quarter off, leave aside in a plastic bag. Colour the larger fondant icing with edible pink food colouring. Roll out like before cutting enough heart shapes out with the middle sized heart cutter and stick them down also with apricot glaze over the middle of each white fondant heart. Lastly colour the fondant put aside with edible red colouring and cut out small hearts with the smallest heart cutter and stick two with the apricot glaze on top of each pink heart.

Note: you may find you have some fondant Icing left over, but it will keep placed in a plastic bag in an airtight tub then stored in a cool place. It depends again on how many cupcakes you make and /or how thickly you roll your icing. The packets of fondant icing I buy come in 500g (1 lb 2 oz) weight.