Heart in a Cupcake

I made cupcakes on Friday...because I love cupcakes...and it worked out well to have company over to help eat up the dozen. 

This was my first attempt at baking a shape into a cupcake. I saw this recipe for baking a heart into a cupcake through one of the facebook pages I like and thought it looked really cute. I swapped the cake recipe from that site for Cupcake 23 from Cupcake Heaven. I don't know that I would recommend this cake without a filling because it was a little dry and dense. If you're wondering at this point why I didn't use the Bake it in a Cake recipe, I will tell you: that little half of a vanilla bean. Didn't want to go to the store (possibly multiple stores) to search for it.

As you can see in the left corner, some of the hearts did NOT stay in place

Strawberry Laffy Taffy Buttercream Frosting

Making the hearts was easy, getting them to stand in the cake batter was another story. Making the frosting required a little more effort than I normally put into frosting, but it was yummy. Note: The melted Laffy Taffy + heavy cream hardened a little while cooling in my fridge, even though the recipe said it wouldn't. I reheated it for about 10 seconds before dumping it in with the butter and powdered sugar.

When I iced them, I made sure to keep track of which way the hearts were facing. I put a line of sprinkles across the top to mark where the top of the hearts were...or so I thought...and I put sprinkles all over the ones that I knew were already messed up.

Most of the cupcakes looked like this once we bit into them:

A nice Valentine's quadrilateral. Is that a trapezoid?

But then, yesterday afternoon I cut one in half and spied this.

An almost heart!

So...I can't say I'd recommend baking hearts into a cupcake. Henry and I agreed that these were the most dramatic cupcakes ever. We may or may not have gotten into a little argument while making them. Can't even remember what it was about...but yeah. They took a long time to make, and we were both very tired when all was said and done. 

I would, however, recommend the Strawberry Laffy Taffy Buttercream Frosting. I'm pretty sure I'm going to use this frosting for my niece Laura's bridal shower next weekend. It will be on different cupcakes with nary a heart inside. 

And since it's Valentine's Day (hope you have a good one!), I want to leave you with a lovey song that makes me happy. Click here and press play. =)