Pretty Little Cupcakes

Ta-Da! Cute little chocolate cupcakes! :)

No particular reason for making these, except I haven't baked anything cute in a couple of weeks and Joy was practically begging me to make some cupcakes, and she pointed out that we had a dark chocolate cake mix and fudge icing. As much as I want to test out some scratch recipes, it was 10:00 at night and we didn't have enough ingredients.

If I couldn't make them taste homemade, I could at least make them look amazing. So what do you think?

The little gold heart on top is white chocolate, melted really slowly in the microwave, then piped with a #5 round tip and allowed to dry on wax paper. I just free-handed them, which is why they all looked different. And obviously, I made more than I needed (good plan; I broke 2 of them).

I used a clear extract and gold luster dust to "paint" the little hearts, and then just carefully peeled them off the wax paper and gently placed them on the little cakes. Simple, sweet, and stunning, if I do say so myself.

My only wish is that I had different cupcake liners (shiny gold or plain brown or something along those lines) but Joy thinks no one will notice the wrapper and will just rip right into the cupcake. I guess she has a point, but I'm a perfectionist, as always. :-)