Pinspired Project - LOVE inspired

My Pinterest projects this week are celebrating love.

I love showing people how much I care about them but rather than head to the shops, I prefer to go DIY.

I LOVE baking (and my hubby loves eating = perfect match)

 so when I came across this pin from Bake it in a Cake...

 I was so keen to try it.  Step-by-step instuctions here.



Here's my finished product...

Not quite like the original, but if you squint you can kinda tell what it's meant to be... and if you can't at least it tastes yummy.


Basic Steps

• I used a basic packet cake mix, mix it up as per instructions (of course you can make one from scratch) and divide mixture into half.
• colour one half of the mixture (I chose red for one half, and left the other half plain).
• Pour the mixture you want the hearts to be into a small cake pan or slice tray and bake (being careful not to overcook).
• Wait until cooled completely and use cookie cutter to cut out shapes.
• Pour mixture into cupcake liners then place shapes into batter.
• Spoon mixture over hearts and cook.

Lessons learned along the way...

•  Wait until the coloured cake has cooled completely before you cut out the shapes.  I was a bit impatient and I think that's why it was a bit crumbly when I cut out the hearts.  Maybe I should have put it in the fridge?

• I'm not quite sure what happened but a couple of my hearts floated to the top!  Perhaps I didn't cover them with enough batter??  I did catch some early though and managed to push them back in so if you are giving it a go - maybe check them after a couple a minutes to make sure they haven't floated to the top.  Or you can just leave it as a design feature??

• Make sure you put a mark on the cupcake liner where to cut otherwise it will turn into a guessing game and you may end up with a rectangle instead of a heart - lesson learned.

•  I think my hearts were too big for the cupcake liners, next time I will try a smaller cutter or cut them out freehand.

• You can cover up just about any cupcake mishap with icing!

Other DIY inspiration
I'm being treated to a night off cooking (chinese take-away) this Valentine's Day so I thought I might make these cute little felt fortune cookies from the curly birds blog...

...and fill with messages of love or cute little love quotes (the blog has really clear instructions and they look really easy to make - only takes a circle of felt and 3 stitches).


*PROJECT UPDATE
Here's what I ended up making...

I also LOVE this idea that was shared by Katie on the Moorea Seal blog.

...you make little fabric hearts and hide them in all sorts of secret places and when the person finds them they put them in a jar and are reminded of how much you love them. So cute!

Hope your day has been filled with love!