With Valentines Day just around the corner we've created some adorable ombre cup cakes,  topped with Valentines Day heart shaped messages.  These cute little cakes would make a great addition to any school class room or just as a special treat for lunch.  If you are lucky, a couple may be saved for the adults in the house.

These Valentine Day Printables can be downloaded for free here. Just print, cut and get creative.

Enjoy.

Recipe

Ingredients:

• 12 Vanilla cup cakes. - use your favourite recipe.
• 125g softened butter
• 1 1/2 cups icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 Tbls milk
• Food colour - I've used a deep red 

Method:

1. Make cakes according to recipe.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together until soft and fluffy.
3. Add vanilla and 1/2 the milk
4. The mixture should be quite thick so it can be piped, add more milk if required
5. Divide the mixture into 3 bowls, to create 3 shades of icing.
6. Starting at the lightest icing, add a small amount of the red food colour and mix, adding more food colouring if required
7. Repeat step 6 on the other two bowls of icing, adding more food colour with each bowl.
8. Using a piping bag and a flat nozzle. pipe the icing starting at the outside and working into the middle.  Experiment with using the three shades of red to create an ombre effect.
9. Enjoy.