These adorable Valentine’s Day cupcakes from Recipe.com are mostly about the decorating and not about te actual cupcake. A chocolate cake box mix would work (shhh….don’t tell my mom!) as would canned frosting. But seriously, wouldn’t it be much more fun to make the cupcakes from scratch? Or mostly from scratch? One of my favorite chocolate cupcake recipes follows below along with a chocolate buttercream frosting recipe.
But you don’t have to use chocolate anything. Think about using a vanilla cake or a red velvet cake to make white or red cupcakes. Or maybe red frosting or vanilla frosting. Mix it up and make them special for your loved ones!
Be My Valentine Cupcakes
Ingredients
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standard Rich Chocolate Cupcakes
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1/2 cup instant chocolate pudding or whipped cream
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12 candy hearts with messages
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3 cups Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
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1 4 1/4 ounce tube red Decorating Icing fitted with #16 star tip
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72 heart-shaped red and pink candies
Directions
Cut off top (dome) of each cupcake. Scoop out 1 scant tablespoon of cake from center of each bottom. Fill each with about 1/2 tablespoon pudding. Place a candy heart in center and cover with cupcake top.
Chocolate Cake from Your Cup of Cake
Ingredients
Chocolate Butter Cream Frosting from Cooking Classy
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups butter, at room temperature (I like to use 3/4 cup salted and 3/4 cup unsalted)
- 3 3/4 cups powdered sugar
- 3/4 cup cocoa powder
- 3 – 4 Tbsp heavy cream or half-&-half
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Directions
- In a the bowl of an electric stand mixer, fitted with whisk attachment (paddle attachment works too. Whichever you use just pay attention the the shade of the butter), whip butter on moderately high speed until very pale and fluffy (nearly white in color), about 6 – 8 minutes, occasionally scraping down sides of the bowl. Sift in cocoa powder then add in powdered sugar, 3 Tbsp heavy cream and vanilla and mix on low speed until combine, scrapping down the sides of the bowl as needed and adding up to 1 tbsp additional cream to thin if desired. Increase mixer to medium-high speed and whip mixture until pale and very fluffy about 4 – 5 minutes, occasionally scraping down sides of the bowl.
- Note that similar to whipped cream the frosting will lose some of its “fluff” after a few hours, it will still taste the same it just loses some of the air that was whipped into it (similar to whipped cream how it loses it’s stabilization after a few hours). It is best to prepare and use within a few hours for best (fluffiest) results.