Valentine’s Day cupcakes: a new spin on a classic treat

By Kelly Loeper

Blogs Editor

Every Valentine’s Day, dessert recipes seem to be more creative than the year before. As a typical student baker, I’m always on the hunt for something that’s easy, fast and cheap to make. This recipe includes an interesting twist that’s sure to impress everyone on Valentine’s Day—whether it’s a significant other, housemate, for a single-but-not-lonely girls party or if you just want to procrasti-bake.

Ingredients

• 1 package white cake mix

• 1 1/4 cups water

• 1/3 cup vegetable oil

• 3 egg whites

• 8 drops red food coloring

• 2 drops raspberry candy oil

Directions

1. Preheat an oven to 175 C (350 F). Line a standard muffin tin with paper cupcake liners.

2. Beat the cake mix, water, vegetable oil and egg whites together on low speed for 30 seconds, then on medium for two minutes until smooth. Fill cupcake liners 1/3 full with white batter; set aside.

3. Stir four drops of red food coloring into the remaining bowl of batter to make the batter pink. Stir in the raspberry oil. Pour 1/3 of pink batter into a resealable plastic bag and set aside.

4. Mix more food coloring into the remaining bowl of pink batter until it’s an orange,red color and pour the batter into a resealable plastic bag. Cut a corner off the bag, stick the open tip into the center of each cup of white batter and squeeze in about two tablespoons of red batter.

5. Cut the corner off the bag with the pink batter, stick the open tip into the center of the red batter and squeeze about one tablespoon of pink batter into each cup.

6. Bake the layered cupcakes in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. It takes 15 to 20 minutes. Cool completely before frosting.

Verdict

The recipe was super easy to make. Although the lighter pink shade of the batter didn’t show up well when baked, the different colours on the inside of the cupcake has a cool effect.

I ended up having lots of leftover dark pink batter, so I used it to make mini cupcakes.

The fact that I used a premade cake mix and icing went unknown to everyone who tried them; they were too impressed and surprised by the cherry flavour and colours in the centre. All in all, the recipe was a success. As the recipe suggested, this could also be fun to do for different occasions: green and mint flavour for St. Patrick’s Day or orange for Halloween.

—Source: allrecipes.com

Tags

dessert, recipes, valentine's day

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