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Heart shaped mini cakes decorated like the sparkly heart emoji are a fun, colorful, and fully vegan treat perfect for birthdays and Valentine’s Day! 💖✨

This recipe makes 4 small heart cakes.

Table of Contents

(click the links below to skip to the section you’re looking for)

• Mini Heart Cakes Recipe
• Cherry Frosting Recipe
• Mini Heart Cakes Decor
• Ingredient Substitutions
• Nutritional Information
• Contact Me with Questions
• Similar Recipes

These mini heart cakes are vegan, organic chocolate cakes. they’re covered in cherry vanilla frosting and adorned with naturally gold colored white chocolate sparkles. I made these vegan new years eve cakes, along with a variety of other cute recipes in my vegan New Year’s Eve menu.

I think these would also be great vegan chocolate birthday cakes for someone who isn’t having a party and just wants a quiet celebration at home for 2.

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Ingredients for Vegan Heart Shaped Mini Cakes Recipe

(jump to the substitutions section to see ingredient details and suggestions for substitutions)

• 1 cup (240g) nondairy milk
• 1 tablespoon (15g) apple cider vinegar
• 1 ¼ cups (160g) all-purpose flour
• ⅓ cup (26g) cocoa powder
• ¾ teaspoon (3-4g) baking soda
• ½ teaspoon (2g) baking powder
• ⅓ cup (72g) sunflower oil
• ¾ cup (96g) organic or raw sugar
• 1 teaspoon (4g) vanilla extract

How to Make Mini Vegan Sparkle Heart Emoji Cakes

prep time: 20 min | bake time: 30 min

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Lightly oil four 4" mini heart springform pans with the same oil you use in the cake recipe. Set them on a baking sheet.

Combine vinegar and soymilk, mix, and let sit.

Sift 1 ¼ cups flour, ⅓ cup cocoa powder, ¾ teaspoon baking soda, and ½ teaspoon baking powder into a medium-sized mixing bowl.

Add ⅓ cup oil, ¾ cup sugar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla to the soymilk mixture, stirring well between each addition. Add dry ingredients to wet and mix until smooth (try not to overmix).

Fill the cake pans about ⅔ full. Use a silicone spatula to get all the chocolate cake batter out of the mixing bowl.

Bake for 30-33 minutes, until when you insert a toothpick into the center of one, it comes out clean. This recipe also makes a single layer 8” or 9” heart cake if you bake it for 35-40 minutes.

Ingredients for Vegan Cherry Vanilla Frosting Recipe

(jump to the substitutions section to see ingredient details and suggestions for substitutions)

• ⅓ cup (58g) vegan butter or margarine
• ⅓ cup (68g) organic palm shortening
• 1 ½ teaspoon (6g) vanilla extract
• 3 cups (360g) organic powdered sugar
• ½ cup (70g) frozen cherries
• pink vegan food coloring (optional)

How to Make Vegan Cherry Vanilla Frosting

prep time: 20 min

Simmer the cherries over medium heat until they’re no longer frozen.

Blend the cherries using a handheld blender or a stand blender.

Strain the blended cherries through a sifter.

Whisk the butter, spectrum sustainable organic palm shortening , and vanilla using a stand mixer or a handheld electric mixer with the whisk attachment.

Add the cherry juice the made it through the sifter and whisk again.

Sift in powdered sugar, one cup at a time, adding a tiny splash of nondairy milk if it gets too thick.

Add wilton pink gel color if you want to make the pink color brighter. The pink color from the cherry juice is nice too, so you can just leave it that way as well. I also have a complete list of vegan food coloring you can look at for other ideas.

Frost all the cakes (only when completely cooled) with a thin layer of frosting using an offset spatula (or just a butter knife if you don’t have one).

Chill the cakes until the crumb layer hardens to the touch.

Frost each cake again with a second layer of frosting.

How to Decorate Mini Heart Cakes to look like the Sparkle Heart Emoji

prep time: 20 min | cook time: 10 min

Melt ⅓ cup vegan white chocolate with a teaspoon of coconut oil and stir.

Add yellow food coloring or turmeric. I used Color Kitchen natural food coloring vegan food coloring because it’s all-natural, but doesn’t taste like turmeric.

Pipe sparkles onto parchment paper or spread a thin layer of the white chocolate onto the parchment paper and use a toothpick to trace the shape of the sparkles.

Chill until you’re ready to add them to the cake.

Ingredient Details and Substitutions

• Nondairy Milk: Since you can’t taste the milk in this recipe, I buy 365 brand soymilk or almond milk from Whole Foods because it’s organic and cheap. Another resource for inexpensive plant-based milk is Grocery Outlet. I think soy milk is the best milk for baking. Something about the protein content in it really works well with the chemistry. But I’ve used every plant milk you can think of, and they all work fine.
• Apple Cider Vinegar: If you don’t have ACV, you can replace it with a tablespoon of distilled white vinegar, lemon juice, or lime juice. You just need some sort of acid to interact with the baking soda.
• Flour: I always use unbleached, organic, all-purpose flour because it’s super cheap at Costco. However, you can replace it with almost any flour you have at home. To make these cupcakes gluten-free, use a gluten-free flour blend.
• Cocoa Powder: I use organic fair trade cocoa powder for all my recipes. You can use whatever cocoa powder you buy. Just make sure it’s not dutch cocoa or black cocoa powder or you’ll have to make some adjustments to the other ingredients.
• Baking Soda: Out of baking soda? Replace the ¾ teaspoon baking soda with an extra 2 teaspoons of baking powder.
• Baking Powder: I use the non-aluminum baking powder, because my grandma had alzheimers, and I don’t want it. Out of baking powder? Replace the ½ teaspoon baking powder in this recipe with an extra eighth of a teaspoon of baking soda.
• Sunflower Oil: I recommend using safflower, sunflower, avocado, or coconut oil for baking cakes because those oils are made for high heat. However, you can use any other oil such as vegetable oil, canola oil, grapeseed oil, etc. People even make cakes with olive oil, but I don’t.
• Sugar: For the sugar in this recipe, you can use any number of sugars, as long as they’re vegan: sucanat, coconut sugar, raw sugar, organic sugar, or vegan sugar. If you’re not sure if your sugar is vegan, you can contact the company and ask, but basically, just avoid conventional white sugar or granulated sugar, and you should be ok.
• Vanilla Extract: Vanilla flavoring, vanilla extract, and vanilla powder can be used interchangeably. Just make sure you add powdered vanilla with the dry ingredients and vanilla extract or flavor with the wet ingredients. It’s important to keep the wet ingredients and dry ingredients separate until the very last minute. As soon as they touch, the rising agents will activate, and you want that rising action to happen in the oven.
• Vegan Butter: I usually use organic whipped earth balance because I like the flavor and the consistency. It always works great in every recipe. If you avoid soy, they make a soy-free version too. You can use any brand of vegan butter or margarine that you prefer, but results do vary depending on the brand you choose. For instance, Miyoko’s vegan butter doesn’t work well in my opinion. The frosting comes out grainy and not creamy.
• Vegan Shortening: If you don’t have access to vegan shortening, you can replace it with additional vegan butter or margarine.
• Powdered Sugar: If you’re not sure if your powdered sugar is vegan, read my list of vegan powdered sugar brands.
• Frozen Cherries: You can omit this ingredient if you don’t want the frosting to have a natural cherry flavor.
• Pink Food Coloring: Look at my list of vegan food coloring for brands of food coloring that are vegan.

Nutrition Facts

The nutrition information below assumes that one mini vegan cake has 3 servings. I calculated these numbers with the cherry frosting but not with the white chocolate sparkles.

• Servings: 12
• Calories per serving: 357
• Calcium per serving: 40mg
• Cholesterol per serving: 0mg
• Dietary Fiber per serving: 2g
• Iron per serving: 1mg
• Potassium per serving: 86mg
• Protein per serving: 3g
• Total Carbohydrate per serving: 51g
• Total Fat per serving: 17g
• Total Sugars per serving: 38g
• Sodium per serving: 145mg

Comments or Questions?

If you make this mini vegan chocolate cake recipe, I would love it if you’d snap a pic, post to instagram, and tag me @vegandollhouse. It seriously makes my day/week/month!

Please message me (instagram or email) if you have any questions or feedback about the recipe.

Similar Recipes

This is the only vegan emoji cake recipe I have, but for other emoji recipes, you might like my bean pâté that is served in the shape of the cactus emoji. I also have some vegan cucumber tea sandwiches that look like the ghost emoji.

If you like this recipe because you like mini vegan cakes, here are some others you might also like. Using these same 4-inch heart springform pans, you can make my easy vegan red velvet heart cakes or my mini chocolate blackberry cake. Other 4-inch cakes that do not require heart-shaped spingforms are my pastel mini vegan coconut cakes, my mini chocolate birthday cake with ombre rose frosting, mini blue velvet cakes with vegan cream cheese frosting, and a gluten-free vegan nutella mini cake.

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I use mostly organic ingredients when I cook, but I realize that not everyone has the disposable income to purchase all organic ingredients. Therefore, I only specify organic on the ingredients that really matter - when buying the organic version is the only way to ensure that the item is vegan.

This post links to items I mention. If you click on one, you will go to a website (like Amazon) where you can buy the product. Sometimes, the store you purchase from (Amazon, Etsy, etc.) will pay me for referring you. This costs you nothing extra, and I would never recommend a product that I don’t use. These affiliate programs help me buy ingredients to create recipes for you. Read more about this in my privacy policy.

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