Name: Macadamia Valentine love cakes
Yield: 12

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These little love cakes are perfect just as they are or ‘dressed to the nines’ to gift a loved one on Valentine’s Day.

serves

INGREDIENTS

Cakes

1 cup macadamias

1½ cups icing sugar

1 cup plain flour

5 egg whites, lightly beaten

160g butter, melted and cooled

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Icing

100g butter, at room temperature

100g copha (vegetable shortening), at room temperature

4 cups icing sugar

¼ cup cocoa powder

2 drops pink food colouring

To serve

Edible pink glitter

Store-bought chocolate hearts

1 cup whole macadamias

METHOD

For the cakes, preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease a 12-hole muffin tin with straight sided muffin impressions. Place the macadamias and icing sugar into the bowl of a food processor and process until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Do not over-process or the mixture will stick together, so pulse as you get closer to achieving fine crumbs. Add the flour and pulse until just combined. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl and, using a large spoon or spatula, mix in the egg whites then the melted butter and vanilla essence. Do not overmix. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin, dividing evenly. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out to cool completely.

For the icing, beat together the butter and copha until pale. Add the icing sugar and beat until combined. Divide the mixture between two bowls and stir the cocoa powder into one half, adding a little water (½ teaspoon at a time) to achieve the desired consistency. Stir the pink colouring into the other half.

To assemble, place the pink icing into an icing bag fitted with a decorative nozzle. Using a knife or small spatula, cover the cakes with chocolate icing and pipe 4-5 decorative pink icing swirls around the top. Decorate with a little glitter, a heart and macadamias.