Make easy swirled chocolate bark out of your favorite candy melt colors, then cut out heart shapes to make cute & easy Valentine’s Day cupcake toppers.
🧁 Candy Melt Cupcake Toppers for Valentine’s Day
These Valentine’s Day cupcakes, topped with swirled chocolate heart toppers, will win YOUR heart–and your stomach! All you need are a few colors of candy melts and some small cookie cutters to make these eye-catching hearts. You can use them as cupcake toppers, decorate a full cake with them, or even package them individually as cute valentines for kids!
If you’re looking for more Valentine’s Day Cupcake ideas, don’t miss my Sprinkle Heart Cupcakes, Fondant Rose Cupcakes, or Chocolate Rose Cupcakes.
Table of Contents
🧾 What You’ll Need
Components
You can use practically any cupcake and frosting recipe you’d like as the base of these cupcakes. Here are my top recommendations, but if you have a tried and true recipe you love, chances are it’ll work too. Just pick a cupcake and a frosting flavor, and get ready to swirl!
Cupcake Recipes to Try
- Chocolate cupcakes
- Red velvet cupcakes
- Spice cupcakes
- Strawberry cupcakes
- Pineapple cupcakes
- Lemon cupcakes
Frosting Recipes to Try
Storebought vs Homemade
Looking for shortcuts? You can definitely use a cake mix to make cupcakes, or even buy baked cupcakes to decorate. You can also use store-bought canned frosting — just be aware that this kind of frosting doesn’t pipe well, so you’ll want to do a small spatula swirl on top of the cupcakes instead of a tall piped swirl.
Equipment
Here’s everything you need to decorate these cute cupcakes!
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- Heart cupcake wrappers (these are grease proof!)
- Heart cookie cutter set
- Red candy melts
- Bright pink candy melts
- Light pink candy melts
- Piping bag
- Large star tip
- Baking sheet
- Parchment paper
- Mini spatula
📋 Instructions
How to Make Swirled Candy Melt Bark
Since the star of the show is the candy melt cupcake toppers, this tutorial will focus on how to get those perfect swirled hearts.
Step 1: Melt the different colors of candy melts in individual bowls in the microwave. For these hearts, I used red, bright pink, and light pink colors.
Cover a baking sheet with parchment or waxed paper, and spread one color out in a rough oval shape as the base color. Use a spoon to drizzle the other two colors on top of the first.
Step 2: Take a bread knife or mini spatula, and swirl it through the candy melts before the candy starts to set up. Avoid over-swirling, or the colors might become muddy and indistinct.
Let the candy bark partially set at room temperature, but stay close by and watch the tray carefully. You want the candy to be firm enough that you can touch it without smearing it, but still pliable enough to be easily cut. Depending on room conditions and temperature, this will probably be in the 5-10 minute range.
Step 3: Take a small heart-shaped cookie cutter and press firmly through the swirled candy melt bark. If you have timed it right, you should be able to easily cut through the candy. TIP: the candy melts will start setting from the outside edges in, so cut your first hearts out around the edges, then move into the center when it feels firm enough to cut.
Step 4: Once all the hearts are cut out, let the bark set completely–this can be at room temperature or in the refrigerator. When it’s firm, carefully pop the hearts out and set them aside while you frost the cupcakes.
Step 5: Pipe generous swirls of buttercream on your baked and cooled cupcakes. I’m using my Easy Swiss Meringue Buttercream here, piped with Ateco #846 large star tip.
Step 6: If desired, you can press jimmies or nonpareil sprinkles along the base of the frosting for an extra festive flair. Finally, add a few chocolate hearts and you’re done!
❤️ More Heart-y Desserts
- Watercolor Rose Sugar Cookies
- Pistachio Shortbread Cookies
- Pink and Red Heart-Topped Cake
- Trendy Cream Tarts
- Truffle-Topped Heart Cake
Sprinkle Heart Cupcakes
Fondant Rose Cupcakes
Don’t miss the step-by-step tutorial showing how to make Swirled Heart Cupcakes – check out the web story here!
Leave a Review!
If you make this recipe, let us know! Leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating on the recipe below, and leave a comment, take a photo and tag me on Instagram @elabau, or use #sugarhero on IG!
Swirled Chocolate Heart Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 6 oz red candy coating melts, (1 cup)
- 12 oz bright pink candy coating melts, (2 cups)
- 12 oz light pink candy coating melts, (2 cups)
- 24 cupcakes, baked and cooled
- 8 cups Frosting of your choice, (about 8 cups for 24 generously frosted cupcakes)
- 1 cup jimmies, or other sprinkles of your choice
- Piping bags
- Star pastry tip
- Heart-shaped cookie cutter
Instructions
- Place each candy melt color into its own bowl. Microwave the candy melts, stirring every 30 seconds, until melted and smooth.
- Cover a baking sheet with parchment or waxed paper, and spread one color out in a rough oval shape as the base color. Use a spoon to drizzle the other two colors on top of the first.
- Take a bread knife or mini spatula, and swirl it through the candy melts before the candy starts to set up. (Avoid over-swirling, or the colors might become muddy and indistinct.)
- Let the candy bark partially set at room temperature, but keep a close eye on it as it sets. You want the candy to be firm enough that you can touch it without smearing, but pliable enough to be easily cut. Depending on room conditions and temperature, this will probably be in the 5-10 minute range.
- Take a small heart-shaped cookie cutter and press firmly through the swirled candy melt bark. The candy melts will start setting from the outside edges in, so cut your first hearts out around the edges, then move into the center when it feels firm enough to cut.
- Once all the hearts are cut out, let the bark set completely–this can be at room temperature or in the refrigerator. When it’s firm, carefully pop the hearts out and set them aside while you frost the cupcakes.
- Fit a piping bag with a large star tip, and fill it with frosting. Pipe a generous swirl on top of each cupcake.
- Hold a cupcake over a bowl of pink and red jimmies. Pick up a small handful, and gently press the sprinkles into the bottom of the cupcake’s frosting, creating about a ½-inch sprinkle border around the base.
- Press a few chocolate hearts into the top of the frosting. Repeat with the remaining cupcakes, until all of them are decorated.
Video
Recipe Notes
Measuring Tips
Our recipes are developed using weight measurements, and we highly recommend using a kitchen scale for baking whenever possible. However, if you prefer to use cups, volume measurements are provided as well. PLEASE NOTE: the adage “8 oz = 1 cup” is NOT true when speaking about weight, so don’t be concerned if the measurements don’t fit this formula.
Want to learn more about baking measurements and conversion?
THE BEST VALENTINE’S DAY CUPCAKES
27 cute and delicious Valentine’s Day cupcake ideas — click here to get all the recipes!
Love your creativity. So easy and so perfect for Valentine.
Thank you! I just thought these little hearts were so fun 🙂
Omg these cupcakes are adorable and so perfect for Valentine’s Day! I can’t wait to make these with my kids — I’m sure they will devour them! 🙂
Valentine’s Day is such a fun holiday to make treats for! I hope your kids enjoy them 🙂
The perfect idea I was looking for for Valentine’s Day! Thank you
Thanks Sonia! Come back and share how they turn out!
Oh, these swirled hearts looks so pretty!!! I want these cupcakes, what a beautiful treat for Valentine’s Day!
Thanks Kechi! 🙂
These are so adorable!!! What a great idea for valentines day party or even just to give to my SO. Thanks!
Totally! They are easy enough to make for a party or just for your Valentines!
I want to make these for a luncheon coming up. How far in advance can I make the hearts and how far in advance can I decorate the cupcakes with the frosting and hearts? If Ithey can be frosted and decorated the day before, will the chocolate hearts “run” in the icing? They’re beautiful!!
Hi Peggy! Hosting a luncheon sounds like fun. I hope it turns out amazing. The chocolate hearts won’t bleed into the frosting like sprinkles would. It’s probably best to decorate the cupcakes the same day you plan to eat them or up to 24 hours in advance. If you decorate them too soon you run the risk of having dried out/stale cupcakes. If you’re looking for ways to save time, you could definitely make the frosting and candy bark hearts a couple days in advance. Make the cupcakes the day before your event so that all you need to do is assemble them the day of. I hope that helps. Best of luck!