Bleeding Heart Cupcakes

From the kitchen of Carly

Heart-shaped vanilla cupcakes with a hidden strawberry jam center that bleeds through when you bite in. Topped with tinted vanilla frosting and finished like little edible valentines. Visually stunning and surprisingly simple to pull off.

Bleeding Heart Cupcakes

Cupcakes stuffed with strawberry jam and frosted to look like anatomical hearts, complete with veins. The trick is baking with marbles or tinfoil balls to create the dent, then coring and filling each cake with "blood." They're dramatic, a little gory, and honestly kind of fun to make if you're willing to get specific about the details.

Prep
n/a
Cook
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Total
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Servings
4
Difficulty
medium

Ingredients

4 servings

  • 20glass marbles or small balls of tinfoil
  • 1recipe batter for White Cupcakes
  • 2 cupstrawberry jelly or smooth strawberry jam
  • 1recipe Vanilla Butter Cream Frosting
  • 1Red and blue food coloring
  • 1Pastry bag and medium round tip

Instructions

  1. Line cupcake tins with paper liners and fill each one two-thirds full with batter. Tuck 1 marble or tinfoil ball between each liner and the tin wall before baking. This creates an indent that gives the cupcakes their heart shape as they rise. Bake according to the cupcake recipe directions, and if you used marbles, handle them carefully when removing the cupcakes from the tin as they will be extremely hot.

  2. Using a small paring knife, cut a dime-sized circle into the center of each cupcake, going about two-thirds of the way down. Lift out the little plug of cake, slice off the top piece to about 1/2 inch thick, and set it aside. Discard the bottom portion. Spoon or squeeze strawberry jelly into the hole partway, filling it with your "blood," then press the cake plug back into place. Repeat across all the cupcakes.

  3. Divide the frosting into three portions: two separate bowls each holding one-third of the total, and the remaining two-thirds in a third bowl. Stir red food coloring into one of the smaller bowls and blue into the other. Tint the large portion pink.

  4. Spread the pink frosting over each cupcake in an even layer. For a super-smooth finish, dip a butter knife or palette knife into hot water and glide it across the surface. Finish by piping or painting the red and blue frosting onto each heart in thin, branching lines to create the veins.

Tips from the kitchen

  • Use tinfoil balls instead of marbles if you want to avoid the hassle of fishing hot glass out of the tin. Crumple them loosely so they sit snug between the liner and the pan. They won't conduct heat as quickly, so you'll have an easier time removing them.
  • A squeeze bottle works better than a teaspoon for filling the hole with jam. Less mess, more control, and you can actually see how much you're putting in before you plug it back up.
  • Dip your frosting knife in hot water and wipe it between swipes to keep the pink frosting smooth. If you rush this step, you'll drag crumbs all over the surface and end up with a mottled look instead of that clean, clean finish.

Variations

  • Raspberry filling: Swap strawberry jam for seedless raspberry. It's darker, deeper in color, and reads even more convincingly as blood.
  • White chocolate veins: Melt white chocolate, pipe it on top instead of frosting veins. Cooler contrast, and you get a little texture variation when people bite into them.
  • Chocolate cupcakes: Use a basic chocolate cake batter as your base instead of vanilla. Frost with chocolate frosting tinted pink, then finish with red and blue veins for the same effect but richer flavor.

Make ahead and storage

Keep in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. The jam filling and frosting will hold, though the cake itself will firm up a bit from the cold. Freezer is fine for up to 2 months if you wrap them individually, but thaw at room temperature before serving so the frosting softens back up nicely.