This year is really whizzing by – barely a blink and it’s February already! While this is far from my favourite month of the year I do have a bit of a soft spot for it thanks to a certain ‘holiday’ creeping up on the 14^th. Being a born and bred Kiwi I use the term holiday rather loosely when talking about Valentines Day – growing up it was never given so much as a second thought until High School when it became the day of $2 shop roses, confetti filled balloons and nervous hand holding. But despite not being raised to celebrate this Hallmark holiday I have to admit – I do quite like it. It’s the one day of the year I might just get flowers and have Kevin agree to eating fish ‘n chips on the beach for dinner without complaint.

But I’m also a firm believer that you don’t have to be coupled-up to enjoy Valentines Day – it’s a celebration of love in all its many forms. It was this rather than romance that I had in mind when making these little Valentines cupcakes – just because they’re pink, pretty and adorned with a heart doesn’t mean they need to be given to your partner. Give them to a friend, family member, take them to work… or be gluttonous and eat them all yourself.

After a quick browse of my cupboards and consultation with my sweet tooth I decided to make a batch of double berry cupcakes which are exactly what they sound like – cupcakes with two varieties of berries mixed in. Having spent all day at a Super Bowl party (I know, so much for not really celebrating American ‘holidays’ huh?) I didn’t have much time up my sleeves to prepare these little cakes so made the recipe as simple as possible – click here to take a look. You can use any berries you like for this recipe (I used a mixture of strawberries and raspberries) but don’t worry about purchasing fresh ones – for this recipe frozen berries work perfectly (while saving you a lot of money). Despite taking less than 10 minutes to prepare these cupcakes are to die for: the cake is fluffy, moist and jam packed full of sweet berry flavours.

While the cupcakes were doing their thing in the oven I went about preparing small chocolate hearts to adorn the finished products. After melting around half a bag of white chocolate pieces I carefully filled a tray of heart shaped moulds – while I never use silicon trays for my baking I do recommend them for this as they make getting the finished chocolates out of the moulds a breeze. The easiest way to fill these small moulds is to pour the melted chocolate into a snaplock bag, snip the corner off and use it like a normal icing bag. Using a bag gives you extra control over the chocolate, helping prevent getting those pesky chocolate trails all over your tray and the bench.

Once all the moulds were filled I dipped a bamboo skewer into a tub of gel food colouring and trailed it through the melted chocolate, swirling it around until the chocolate appeared completely pink. Be sure to use gel or powdered food colouring when tinting chocolate as a water based version will turn the chocolate into something not even the most avid chocolate lover would touch. After chilling them in the fridge for around 15 minutes you can easily push the chocolates from their moulds and admire their beautiful two-toned appearance.

Finally onto the icing! Cupcakes wouldn’t be complete without a (not so) healthy swirl of buttercream icing, so I went about mixing up a batch of my favourite vanilla recipe. After struggling to decide between white or pink icing I decided to keep with the two-toned theme and decorate each cake with a pink and white swirl. This was as simple as splitting the icing into two bowls, tinting one pink with food colouring then filling a decorating bag with a combination of both colours.

I haven’t made cupcakes that I’ve loved quite this much in a long time – the combination of berries, chocolate, pink and hearts is making me swoon a little. So if you’re short on a gift idea for that special someone or want to make a sweet treat for the other loves in your life then definitely give these wee cakes a go and put a berry filled twist on your Valentines Day.

Kirsten
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