red, black and gold valentine's day cupcakes

Well hello there friends! I realize that it's not a Tuesday, so you may be wondering why I'm sharing pictures of food with you. I was actually made these cupcakes as part of a styled shoot this weekend with the very talented Sarah Nickerson (from the Nickersons), as well as Ainsley (from Ainsley's Affairs). It was a Valentine's Day shoot with a red, black and gold theme, and featured different local vendors from around Vancouver. The shoot was for The Refinery, and I'll be sure to share it with you all once it's published!

Until then, here are a few of my own photos, as well as a very short tutorial (probably not actually legit enough to be a tutorial...) on how to make these yourself!

First, you'll need some cupcakes! I chose to make my mocha ones (since they're nearly black!), but you can make whatever flavour you'd like! {maybe chocolate, vanilla, or brown sugar pound cupcakes?}

Then, I made a double batch of our basic buttercream, and used a 16mm 45-9 Kaiser icing tip to pipe the swirls. I topped them with gold sprinkles (from Michaels)....which are totally my new favorite!

Finally, the most intensive part....the royal icing hearts! I used approximately 1 tsp of egg white and a few tablespoons of icing sugar (until I had to count to 10 for the icing to resettle once a spoon was drawn through it...you want it pretty thick!). I coloured the icing red, and then piped the hearts onto plastic wrap (wax paper or parchment would work better!).

*The most important part for your hearts is letting them dry 100% before you try and pick them up! It's best to let them set for 24 hours if you can!

OR, you can just melt down some red melting wafers (you can find these at Michaels!), which might be less scary if you've never worked with royal icing.