Roses are red, violets are blue, here are some sweet recipes to gain those holiday woos. 

Raspberry Lemon Cake

A cake can certainly be one of the most time-consuming desserts to make; however, it’s worth it in the end. This raspberry lemon cake is for all fruit and cake lovers and requires some unique ingredients. The cake itself can either be a one or two-layered cake that includes raspberries and lemon zest within the cake batter. Fresh raspberries or dehydrated raspberries can be used. 

Mix all the dry batter ingredients – flour, sugar, baking powder and salt – in one bowl. Mix the wet ingredients – butter, eggs, whole milk and vanilla – in another. Be sure to beat the eggs into the wet ingredients bowl one at a time. Finally, mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients bowl and add in the sliced raspberries and lemon zest. 

The oven should be preheated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and the cake will bake for 30-35 minutes. A 9×9 round or square cake pan can be used. Be sure to grease the pan before pouring in the batter.

To add an extra tangy taste, a lemon buttercream frosting is the perfect way to top off the cake. The frosting doesn’t require real lemons – only lemon juice – and either a whisk attached to a mixer or a hand whisk is needed to whip the frosting into a creamy, soft texture. 

For those who are not big frosting lovers, a naked cake with raspberries piled on top will suffice. 

Heart Shaped Cupcakes

This recipe is specifically for those who don’t like to put in a lot of work when baking something tasty and sweet. To make the batter, a box of premade cake mix can be used. Get one or two cupcake pans, depending on how much you decide to bake, and place cupcake liners in each cup mold. 

To achieve the heart-shaped look, roll up a small piece of foil into a ball and wedge it between the liner and the pan in each cupcake hole. It’s important to do this step before pouring your batter into the liners. 

While the cupcakes are in the oven, a light and fluffy frosting can be whipped up by using either an electric whisk or a hand whisk. For a unique flavor, add in a dash of lemon zest and smushed raspberries to top it off. The best way to apply the frosting is through a piping bag, which can be bought at most supermarkets. 

This dessert is the perfect Valentine’s day treat to gift to family or a significant other.

Red Velvet Cookies

The trick to making any dessert red velvet is that there is none. Red velvet is only chocolate that’s dyed red. The most important ingredients this recipe calls for are cocoa powder and three drops of red food dye. When both ingredients are mixed, the batter becomes a vibrant red and will cause the cookies to become chewy and delicate when taken out of the oven. 

Mix the flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt in one bowl. Mix the vanilla, butter and egg in another. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients bowl and stir thoroughly before adding the food dye. 

Before we can put the cookies in the oven, the dough must be covered and chilled for at least an hour in the fridge. The oven should be preheated to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and the cookies will bake for 10-12 minutes. Grease a 10×13 cookie pan with butter beforehand. 

Once the dough is ready and placed in the oven, a cream cheese frosting can be made to give those cookies some extra flavor. A cream cheese frosting is easy to make and only requires four ingredients – cream cheese, vanilla, butter and powdered sugar. These ingredients can be mixed in a medium-sized bowl by whisk or electric whisk. 

Once the cookies are out of the oven and cooled, the frosting can be applied with a butter knife or piping bag to create a desired swirl. 

Strawberry Cream Danish

The title may look scary, but baking a danish only requires seven ingredients and roughly 40 minutes of your time. To make a danish, puff pastry is needed, which is a pre-made ingredient that can be found in the freezer aisles of a grocery store. 

The sheet of puff pastry must be rolled out on a floury surface till it’s a quarter of an inch thick. A rolling pin is needed for this step. Then, cut the sheet in half and take each of the halves and cut those in half. You should have four squares of pastry puff dough. 

An almond extract, cream cheese, sugar and vanilla mixture will be stirred together in a medium-sized bowl. Take a spoon and scoop that spoonful of the mixture into the middle of the puff pastry dough. Fold the sides of the puff pastry to the middle and with a fork score a ¼ inch border around the edges.

The oven should be preheated to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Before placing the danishes in the oven, a spoonful of however many cut-up strawberries are desired can be placed on top. Cook for 20 minutes. The danishes will come out tasting sweet and flaky, perfect for those who are not heavy eaters. 

Editor’s Note: News Editor Bridgette Fox contributed to the content of this piece