Method (red cake)

1. Preheat your oven to 180ºC  fan and line a 9×9 square cake tin with grease-proof paper.
2. In a small bowl, combine the dairy-free milk with the apple cider vinegar and a few drops of red food. Whisk until fully combined. This creates a vegan buttermilk.
3. In a large mixing bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Mix well to combine.
4. Add the oil to the ‘buttermilk’ and whisk to combine.
5. Add the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until a smooth batter.
6. Pour the red batter into the lined tin, level out with the back of a spoon or off-set spatula. Make sure to tap the tin on the worktop to remove any air bubbles.
7. Place the cake into the centre of the preheated oven and bake for 18-20 minutes. You will know it’s ready when you put a knife or skewer down the centre of the cake and it comes out clean and it’s springy to the touch.
8. Place the cake on a cooling rack and allow to cool fully.
9. Once cool, using a large serrated knife, trim the top of the cake until flat. Use a mini heart cookie cutter (test the size by placing it into a cupcake case, it should be slightly smaller).
10. Chomp out hearts from the red cake and set aside. You can also store these in an air tight container until ready to use.
11. Remaining cake can be stored in an air tight container as a snack. You can also cut more hearts for decoration and crumble for cake crumbs to sprinkle over the frosting. 

Method (cupcakes)

1. Preheat your oven to 180ºC  fan and line 2 cupcake tins (making 10 cupcakes) with cupcake cases.
2. In a small bowl, combine the dairy-free milk with the apple cider vinegar and whisk until fully combined. This creates a vegan buttermilk.
3. In a large mixing bowl, sift the flour, sugar, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Mix well to combine.
4. Add the oil to the ‘buttermilk’ along with the vanilla and whisk to combine.
5. Add the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until a smooth batter.
6. Fill each cupcake case with approximately 1 tbsp of the plain vanilla cupcake batter. Smooth the cake batter to over the bottom of each cupcake case.
7. Place a red heart standing up into the centre of the cupcake cases. A tip is to carefully lift the cupcake case and draw a line on the base of each cupcake case showing the way the hearts are situated so when they are baked and ready to cut you can showcase the hearts perfectly. Once the hearts are covered, you may not know which way the hearts go and may not cut right to showcase the hearts.
8. Add more of the plain cake batter to each cupcake case so they are roughly ¾ full. Don’t worry if this doesn’t completely cover the red heart as the batter will rise on baking.
9. Bake in the middle of the oven for 18-20 minutes. You will know they are done when you put a knife or skewer down the centre of the cakes and it comes out clean and they are springy to the touch.
10. Place the cupcakes on a cooling rack and allow to cool fully before frosting and decorating.

Method (frosting)

1. In a large mixing bowl, add in the dairy-free butter and cream cheese, whip until creamy. I use a stand mixer with a balloon whisk attachment, a hand mixer will work great too.
2. Sift in the icing sugar and vanilla extract. Whip for 5 minutes on high speed until the buttercream becomes pale and fluffy in texture. If it’s too runny, add in a few more chunks of butter to get it to the right consistency. You might need a splash of milk.
3. Transfer the buttercream in to a piping bag fitted with a large star tip nozzle. I use a Wilton 1M.
4. When the cupcakes are cool, pipe a swirl of the frosting on top of each cupcake.
5. Decorate with a sprinkling of the red cake crumbs. You can even place a red heart on top.
6. Serve and enjoy!