Valentine cupcake

Sponge cake with chocolate heart or special Valentine .

Although I am one of those who believe that affection is shown daily, on Valentine’s Day I cannot avoid having some kind of detail with my partner.

Today’s recipe is also a surprise, it is a cake with a chocolate heart.

What appears to be a classic vanilla sponge cake , which in itself would be a vice, has a surprise inside. Imagine the surprise when you start to cut this sweet and see a chocolate heart appear , a detail, right? easy, simple and cheap.

The only complication of this recipe is actually having a heart-shaped cutter.

We need one of those that are used to make cookies, the ingredients of a traditional cake and a little time to prepare a rich and cool detail, either for Valentine’s Day or for the day you want.

Preparation of the inner sponge cake. Hearts

1. We begin the preparation of the cake by baking the cake that will go inside, the chocolate one.
2. In a bowl beat the butter, which must be very soft, until we form an airy cream. If we use a kitchen robot or electric rods, the process will be much easier.
3. Add the sugar and continue beating until we have a light cream. We incorporate the eggs one by one, mixing all the ingredients well before adding the following.
4. In a bowl, mix the flour with the yeast, cocoa and salt. Add the solids to the liquid mixture and mix until you have a homogeneous cream.
5. We spread an elongated mold with butter and cover it with baking paper. So we can unmold it without any difficulty.

Baking the sponge cake

1. Pour the mixture into the mold and, with the oven previously heated to 175º C, bake for about 50 minutes, with heat above and below and without a fan.
2. We check that the cake is ready by clicking it. If the knife comes out clean it will be perfect.
3. We remove the cake from the oven and let it rest for about 10 minutes on a rack before unmolding it.
4. We wait for it to cool down completely on the rack before continuing the process.
5. Once we have the cold cake we cut it into slices of about 2 cm. With a heart-shaped cookie cutter. We are making the cake hearts in each of the slices and we are placing in order.
6. It is important that we put the hearts in the same order that they were on the cake, so they will fit perfectly.
7. We put the hearts in line on a transparent paper and wrap them. We keep the strip of heart biscuits in the freezer for about 2 hours.
8. We can leave it from one day to another or more, so we can prepare the cake more calmly.

Preparation of the Valentine’s cake

1. Once we have frozen the chocolate cake, we prepare the dough for the vanilla cake.
2. We repeat the same steps that we follow to make the chocolate but without adding the cocoa to the mixture, adding instead a pinch of vanilla essence.
3. With the dough ready and the same mold smeared and lined, pour a small amount of vanilla sponge cake dough, leaving us a base of 1 or 2 cm.
4. We remove the chocolate hearts from the freezer and place them on the base of dough. Pour the rest of the dough over the chocolate hearts.
5. Bake, with the oven previously heated to 175º C with heat up and down and without a fan, for about 50 minutes.
6. We remove when when you prick the cake it comes out clean and let cool on a rack in the mold 10 minutes before unmolding it.

We wait for it to cool down completely before consuming it. Decorate the cake, once cold, sprinkling it with icing sugar.

You can see in this step by step how to prepare this recipe for the Valentine’s cake .

Tips for a fluffy sponge cake

• One of those dessert recipes that is quite simple to prepare and that you can also make in several batches. One way to cut down on work.
• We can first prepare the chocolate cake and leave it in the freezer, once the hearts are cut, and continue the work the day we want.
• The only drawback, if we can call it that, is that we will have a lot of remains of the chocolate cake. We can eat them like this, chopped. Also for breakfast or take advantage of them to make other preparations such as a pudding with nuts or another chocolate.
• In both recipes I have used bread pare if we replace it with this cake they will be fatal. These cuts can be stored in the freezer and voila. Prepared for the moment when we want to use them.
• I am sure you will love this recipe, it is a compact and dense cake with an incredible flavor, as well as beautiful.
• Surely it will be a nice surprise when the chocolate heart appears when cutting the cake, all a detail, perfect for Valentine’s Day or the day we want a cool and delicious snack.
• You can enjoy this cake as a precious detail with your partner on this special (and commercial) day. If you don’t give him anything, there will be sure anger. Encourage you with this recipe or one of the ones we have in the special Valentine’s recipes .