Annie's Noms

Dessert with a sprinkle of beauty.

Cranberry Muffins with A Heart Baked in them!

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A friend and I were talking about cupcakes the other day and she found an article explaining how to bake hearts into cakes! Well I simply had to try this and I have tonight with these cranberry muffins. They didn’t turn out perfectly, but boyfriend says they’re super yummy!

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You will need:

> Square cake tin, greased and lined
> Small heart cookie cutter
> Muffin tin, lined with muffin cases

Adapted from The Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days – Blueberry & Sour Cream Loaf

Ingredients:

> 190g butter
> 190g caster sugar
> 3 eggs
> 190g plain flour
> 1tsp baking powder
> 2tbsp sour cream
> 100g dried cranberries
> Red food colouring (or any colour you want to make the hearts)

Makes 6

Method:

> Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C and grease and line the square baking tin.
> In a bowl place the butter and sugar and then beat together until light and fluffy.
> Add the eggs one at a time and mix well in-between to stop curdling.
> Sift the flour and baking powder into the butter and sugar and then mix until well incorporated.
> Add the sour cream in and mix again until well incorporated.
> Put 1/3 of the mixture in another bowl and then use the food colouring to dye it the shade you want. It’s better to add the colour in gradually as it can go from too little to too much very quickly!
> Place the dyed mixture into the square cake tine and spread it out with a spatula. Make it as smooth as possible. It needs to be a couple of centimetres thick.

cranberrymuffins3
> Add the cranberries to the leftover 2/3’s of the mixture and cover with clingfilm.
> Bake the coloured mixture until it is firm enough to cut, I baked it for about 9 minutes, this was firm enough to touch, but not properly cooked.
> Leave to cool completely and then use the cookie cutter to cut 6 hearts out of the cake.
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> Place them on a plate and then put them in the fridge for 45 minutes.
cranberrymuffins6
> After the hearts have chilled uncover the cranberry mixture. Heat the oven back up to 170 degrees C. This is where you need to have lots of hands!
> Pick up a heart and hold it vertically in the muffin case.
> Get a spoon and dollop the mixture either side of the muffin. Make sure you remember which way you put the hearts in because if you cut them the wrong way they won’t look like hearts!
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> I continued to dollop around the heart until the case was almost full. I also put a bit of mixture on top of the heart.
> Now here I followed the instructions of the original article on how to bake a heart into a cake and it said place foil on top of the tin. I was a little apprehensive of this as I thought it would affect the rising of the cakes, but I went along with it. However, it turns out I was right. I checked after 20 minutes and the cakes had gone a bit more sideways than upwards, meaning a tiny bit of the heart was poking out the top. So when I make these again, I won’t be putting foil on them!
> Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool and serve.
> So here’s my first attempt, next time I’m definitely not putting foil on, still look good though!
Enjoy 🙂
Cranberry Muffins

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