Love Heart Cakes

There is something about Swizzel-Matlow sweets that I love. They are a Derbyshire made product and the tart fizziness of all the sweets is delicious, though I happily give Rainbow Drops and Parma Violets a miss. I used to adore eating a whole packet of Love Hearts and letting it fizz. As a child I remember once trying to do a handstand after eating a packet of these fizzy delights, yep, not recommended.

Over the years the messages have changed on Love Hearts. While many of the traditional messages still remain, in the packet I used to make these cakes these was one sweet that essentially ‘stuff you’ Who said romance was dead?

During the first series of Great British Bake Off Ruth Clemens made a cake topped with buttercream made with Parma Voilets. Given I don’t like these perfumed sweets I decided to see if the same concept with would work with Love Hearts. Of course to get the smoothest buttercream it’s best to use Love Hearts that have been ground down well. I had all good intentions to do this until I realised our pestle and mortar is in storage. Just had to make do with putting the sweets in the blender and it explains why the butterceam in the pic looks slightly grainy. If you do have a pestle and mortar use it and even sift the powder to get it as smooth as possible. Due to the nature of the sweets when mixed together it gives the buttercream an odd orange pink tinge so I added a small amount of pink food colouring to give a more defined colour.

The taste of this buttercream is rather intense, there is no denying it tastes of Love Hearts. It is also fizzy and it is really quite odd eating fizzy buttercream. If you don’t want it as fizzy reduce the Love Heart powder and increase the icing sugar.