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The perfect cake for someone you love – vanilla cupcakes with a hidden heart centre.
These cupcakes are great for baking with little ones as they combine all the things my boys love about cooking… The cake mixture is really simple – put it all in a bowl and mix, you get to use cutters, you get to use food colour and best of all you get to use as many sprinkles as you possibly can to decorate the top.
We Bake is an online community for bakers of any level which rewards you for baking – think of it as a cross between Facebook and Instagram, but with lots of extra baking advice, inspiration and some fantastic baking competitions. I’ve been a member since it was launched back in November last year and I’ve been busy adding lots of cakes and bakes to my profile ever since. Setting up your profile is a piece of cake, so what are you waiting for. Once you’re done, let me know the link to your profile I’ll come a take a look at your delicious bakes.
The Mother’s Day Bake Brighter Days Challenge
One fantastic things about We Bake is the challenges. They have regular challenges where you have to share a bake along a particular theme, with the best entries winning a prize (and they have some really amazing prizes). Their latest challenge is the Mother’s Day Bake Brighter Days Challenge where they want you to get creative with your little ones, baking something perfect for Mother’s Day and share it in the We Bake community.
Every day the competition is running they’re giving away a £50 Red Letter Days Voucher, so there are lots of chances to win if you enter.
My entry for the Mother’s Day Bake Brighter Days Challenge is these hidden hearts cupcakes. Now you may be surprised to know that I decorated most of the cupcakes here myself (cheating I know as it’s a baking with kids competition, but I do love my cakes to look pretty 🙂 ). I did however make another batch with my boys and we had a great time making the sponge, cutting out the hearts and then decorating them together (and trying to stop them eating all the sprinkles before they were put on the cakes!).
Customise your cupcakes
I chose to make my hidden hearts cupcakes with vanilla sponge as I thought the red centre would stand out well against the light vanilla sponge. However, if you fancy a different flavour then you could easily make the outside sponge in another flavour such as chocolate (this recipe would be perfect). I’d recommend keeping the hidden hearts as vanilla though, as that way you can ensure that you’ll be able to see the lovely red colour or whatever colour is your favourite.
To decorate my cupcakes I used vanilla buttercream and the boys used some Dr. Oetker Easy Swirl Cupcake Icing in both pink and white, which you just squirt onto the cakes using a choice of nozzles that come with the icing. We then decorated our cupcakes with a selection of Dr. Oetker Chocolate Hearts, Dr. Oetker Fairy Princess sprinkles and Dr. Oetker Red Regal Icing cut into little hearts and letters. I used these cutters for the hearts (it’s nice they have them in a few different sizes) and these for the letters.
If you decide to make the letters, sprinkle your cutter with a little icing sugar (this helps to stop them sticking in the cutter), cut them out and then leave them to harden before attempting to put them onto the cakes. That way they’re more likely to keep their shape.
There’s no reason to stick to hearts in the centre too, any simplish small shape can be added to the middle of your cupcakes. You could add stars… flowers… the Batman symbol!
Customise your cupcakes with chocolate hearts or sprinkles
Hidden Hearts Cupcakes
INGREDIENTS
For the pink sponge
- 110 g self-raising flour
- 110 g caster sugar
- 110 g soft margarine - or butter
- 2 medium eggs
- 1 tsp Dr. Oetker Baking Powder
- ⅛ tsp Dr. Oetker Madagascan Vanilla Extract
- 1 tsp milk
- Dr. Oetker Bright Red Gel Food Colour
For the white sponge
- 165 g self-raising flour
- 165 g caster sugar
- 165 g soft margarine
- 3 medium eggs
- 1½ tsp Dr. Oetker Baking Powder
- ¼ tsp Dr. Oetker Madagascan Vanilla Extract
- 1½ tsp milk
- 12 muffin or cupcake cases
To decorate
- Vanilla buttercream or any other flavour you fancy or some Dr. Oetker Easy Swirl Cupcake Icing
- Chocolate hearts, heart sprinkles or red fondant (and heart cutters)
INSTRUCTIONS
Make the pink vanilla sponge
- Pre-heat your oven to 160ºC/140ºC fan.
- Line a 20cm round baking tin (or similar size) with greaseproof paper or non-stick baking tray liners.
- Put all (except the food colour) of the pink sponge ingredients (110g self-raising flour, 110g caster sugar, 110g soft margarine, 2 medium eggs, 1 tsp Dr. Oetker Baking Powder, 1 tsp milk, ⅛ tsp Dr. Oetker Madagascan Vanilla Extract) into a large bowl and mix to combine.
- Once combined add a little Dr. Oetker Bright Red Gel Food Colour and mix. Keep adding a little more until your mixture is the desired colour – you’ll need the colour to be quite bold in order to stand out in the middle of the cake.
- Pour into your lined baking tin and bake for 25-30 minutes until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Once cooked remove the cake from the oven. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes and then remove it from the tin and leave to cool completely before making the white sponge.
- Once the pink sponge has cooled use a heart cutter to carefully cut out 12 hearts from the sponge.
Make the white vanilla sponge
- Pre-heat your oven to 160ºC/140ºC fan.
- Line a 12-hole muffin tin with cupcake cases.
- Put all white sponge ingredients (165g self-raising flour, 165g caster sugar, 165g soft margarine, 3 medium eggs, 1½ tsp Dr. Oetker Baking Powder, 1½ tsp milk, ¼ tsp Dr. Oetker Madagascan Vanilla Extract) into a large bowl and mix to combine.
- Spoon ½ a tablespoon of your mixture into each muffin case. Place a pink cake heart into each one, pushing it down so it’s right at the bottom. Add another ½ a tablespoon into each case, using the back of the spoon to carefully spread it around the heart.
- Bake for 18-20 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
- Once cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool before decorating.
- Decorate with buttercream and sprinkles and enjoy!
NOTES
NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
Any nutritional information provided is the estimated nutritional information per serving. Please refer to my guide to Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen nutritional information if you would like to learn more about how this is calculated.
This is the estimated nutritional information per cupcake (excluding icing).
Free From/Suitable For…
The ingredients I used to make this recipe are all free from the following allergens. However, please check any labels carefully for allergens you need to avoid as brands can vary and product recipes can change over time.
- Suitable for Vegetarians
- Tree Nut-Free
- Peanut-Free
- Sesame-Free
- Sulphur Dioxide & Sulphite-Free
- Lupin-Free
The cupcakes are soya-free, however the Dr. Oetker Chocolate Hearts shown contain soya. If you need to avoid soya then select an alternative decoration.
I’m sharing this recipe with the following blog challenges… #CookBlogShare with Hijacked by Twins, #LoveCake with JibberJabberUK and #TreatPetite with The Baking Explorer and CakeyBoi.
Jane says
These look amazing! Mine didn’t turn out quite so well…
I bought the heart shape cutters following the link from your website (Amazon, x3 plastic punch out shapes) but they don’t look the same as the ones in your photos.
The hearts were unrecognizable inside the cakes. It was as if the cutters were too small. Any ideas where to get the same as the metal ones that you have used in the recipe?
Charlotte Oates says
The heart cutters I recommended were for the fondant hearts used to decorate the cakes, not the ones in the middle.
I can’t actually remember where my metal heart cutter came from as I’ve had it a long time, but something like these should work well.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/KitchenCraft-Colourworks-Plastic-Shaped-Cutters/dp/B004O9952W/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=heart+cutter&qid=1586264709&s=kitchen&sr=1-4
Laura says
The cupcakes look wonderful!
A real treat for mother’s day!
Are the measurements the same if i wanted to make a chocoalte cupcake with white hearts?
Also, I wanted to ask how did you get the ‘mum’ and ‘love’ decorations?
Charlotte Oates says
For the white heart in the centre, make the pink sponge as per the recipe bit but leave out the food colouring. For the main chocolate cupcake, use my chocolate cupcake recipe and then pop the white hearts into the centre.
I used Tappit cutters for the letters on top. If you have a look on Amazon there are loads of different letter styles (I can’t remember which mine was, unfortunately). They are a little fiddly to use as the letters can get stuck in the cutter. The thing to do it to cover your work surface with plenty of icing sugar before you roll out your icing (so they don’t stick) and then also sprinkle a bit on top of your icing too (to stop the icing sticking the in cutter). The cut out your letters, but don’t attempt to put them onto the cake straight away. If you do, they’ll probably lose their shape as you try and pick them up as they’re quite delicate. Instead leave them to dry for an hour or so and then move them to the cake.
Jade says
Could you please leave the ingredients in cup sizes… thankyou 🙂
Charlotte Oates says
I have updated the recipe to include these now. Click on where it says “US Cups/Ounces” underneath the ingredients list to change them from grams.
Kat (The Baking Explorer) says
These are gorgeous Charlotte, so so pretty! Thank you for linking up with #TreatPetite
Stuart Vettese says
Thank you for entering these into #TreatPetite. They are super cute and great to know how the heart got added 🙂
Ness says
They are so sweet! What a lovely surprise to bite in to. I’m just thinking of the other shapes you could use as well.
Charlotte Oates says
I think you could use pretty much anything as long as it’s a pretty clearly defined shape.
Kirsty Hijacked By Twins says
I love hidden surprises in cakes and these look so pretty. I have included these cakes in my BritMums baking round up which will be live at the weekend. Thank you for sharing with #CookBlogShare x
Charlotte Oates says
Aww thanks Kirsty. Let me know when it’s live x
Angela / Only Crumbs Remain says
I love these Charlotte, they’re so so pretty! I’ve always been intregued by how to create such an effect, and now I know just how easy it is! Thankyou 🙂 ….though out of curiosity, does the double baked pink sponge not become over baked or is it protected by the vanilla sponge during the second bake?
Angela xx
PS, pinned for later
Charlotte Oates says
I was worried that it would but it was fine (although I have no idea why!), not too dry and still with a nice vanilla flavour.