Easy Peasy Valentines Heart Center Muffins

  
   Growing up, my nanny often made an almond pound cake that had this wonderful strawberry glaze. It was simply divine! But the most memorable part of this special pound cake wasn't the flavor, although it was quite wonderful. Every time she sliced it, it was filled with beautiful shapes and colors! The one I remember most was the tulip. My sweet grandmother now has alzheimers, so I  am  now unable to find out from her how she did this. If you have grandparents or parents in good health, never take this for granted! If they want to tell you a story about the "good ole days," drink it all in. They are so full of wisdom and you never know when they may no longer be able to remember or be around to tell you these wonderful tales. I long to one day be able to make one of these special pound cakes and I really believe with a little "family research," talking to aunts, etc, I will find out and I promise to share with you all when I do!
   These muffins are definitely not my nanny's pound cake, but they were certainly inspired by it. This is my first time making these, so hopefully the more I make them, the more beautiful they will be. They actually did not take much longer to make than regular muffins.

   First, Mix up some muffin mix like the instructions say. Add food coloring to this. I added several drops of red food coloring until I got it to the shade of pink/red I liked!

Pour this into a small baking pan. I baked mine at the temp listed on the muffin packet and subtracted about 5 minutes off the time. This ended up being about 10 minutes.

Now take a small heart (or whatever other shape you like) cookie cutter and cut out the number of hearts you will need.
Prepare your muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray. Now put just a little batter in each space and place one heart standing up in each muffin. Cover your heart with batter. Continue until you are finished with all of your muffins. Be sure that all of your hearts are turned the same direction that way you will know which way to cut them to see the heart.

Now just bake as you normally would! Easy peasy! Happy Valentines Day! :)

*Don't forget to grease your pan. I got a little ahead of myself and forgot, so mine would look much better had I remembered this! :)