Heart-Shaped Pull-Apart Cupcake Cake

This Heart-Shaped Pull-Apart Cupcake Cake is the best alternative to a traditional a cake. It’s so easy to make that I guarantee you will get great results even if you are a beginner at cake decorating. The only tool you need to decorate this cupcake cake is a teaspoon. I used vanilla cupcakes and a simple, 3-ingredient mascarpone cheese frosting.

Ingredients

6 large cupcakes and 12 mini cupcakes of your choice – I made these Perfectly Moist Vanilla Cupcakes
450 g frosting of your choice – I made my 1-minute frosting following this recipe. I made the frosting in two flavours – vanilla & raspberry – but you can make it in 1 flavour as well to keep things simple.
gel food colouring – red (and pink if you choose to make the vanilla frosting only)
a teaspoon
3 piping bags (ziplock bags are just fine too)

Directions

Bake your cupcakes and let them cool off. Make your frosting following this recipe.

Colour 1/3 of the frosting in red using the gel food colouring.

Colour 2/3 of the remaining frosting in pink using pink food colouring. If you make the raspberry frosting, there is no need to colour it further as it will already be pink.

Arrange the cupcakes on a serving platter to form a heart.

Place your frosting in piping bags. Cut the tip of each piping bag so that you have close to a 1 cm (1/3 inch) opening.

Pipe red frosting dots beginning on the outer edge of the heart. Place the tip of the teaspoon in the middle of the dot, press down and drag the icing towards the centre of the heart.

Wipe your teaspoon with a paper towel every few strokes and between colours to prevent excess buildup of frosting and achieve a uniform/clean look.

Make two rows of red dots.

Then, pipe 3 rows of pink frosting and repeat this process of pressing down and dragging the icing with the teaspoon for each row.

Lastly, pipe white frosting dots and repeat the process to finish frosting the pull-apart heart cupcake cake.