Valentine’s Day Love Heart Cakes

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and I’ve got a sweet little recipe for you to try that will yield you a batch of mini heart-shaped cakes that you can personalise with any message you like. Sound good?

I know Valentine’s Day is pretty cliche, but I don’t care I like playing into the fluffiness of it all and this year I’m going to make Shane, Nina and Rex their own little cakes to scoff down any way they like. So if you’re ready to make some Valentine’s Day Love Heart Cakes then carry on reading! And if you’re ready to eat some Valentine’s Day Love Heart Cakes then I suggest you sneakily forward this recipe onto your loved one.

This mixture makes a nice soft coffee and chocolate flavoured cake but if you going to make them for kids I suggest you use this chocolate cake recipe which has zero coffee in it.

I’ve topped these hearts with classic smooth buttercream icing, which works perfectly because you can colour it any shade you want and it makes for a nice icing to write with.

You are going to need a couple of things for this recipe that you may not have in your kitchen, but they definitely worth the mission because they’re delicious and they’ll make a nice surprise for anyone who loves a bit of cake and affection:

• A heart-shaped cookie cutter or mini heart-shaped cake tins/silicone mould.
• A few different food colourants, the gel ones (you can get them online here) are my favourite to use because they have so many different colour options that range from light to dark. You can get these at any specialised bake store. You can also just use the ones you find in supermarkets, just be sure to use a very small amount.
• A piping bag fitted with a small round nozzle tip so you can write your words of love, or you can use a ziplock bag by snipping a very small piece of the corner off to make a hole that the icing can come out of.

Before we start here are a couple of other heart themed cakes I’ve made in the past if you’d prefer:

Hidden Heart Cupcake

Blueberry and Vanilla Heart-Shaped Cake 

CAKE INGREDIENTS: I used mini metal tin moulds and this mixture made 7 of them.

• 60 grams all-purpose flour, sifted
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 115 grams unsalted butter room temperature
• 100 grams of sugar
• 2 large egg white
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence 
• 4 tablespoons hot coffee
• 4 tablespoons milk

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat your oven to 180° C or 350°F and then grease (I use Spray and Cook) your heart moulds or a rectangular baking dish (it must be at least 30cm long) if you are using heart-shaped cookie cutters.
2. In a small bowl mix together your sifted flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder.
3. In another mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy then whisk in your egg whites and vanilla essence until well-combined.
4. Add half your flour mixture to the butter and sugar and then add all of the milk before adding the remaining flour mixture. Mix until just combined after each addition.
5. Stir in the hot coffee one spoon at a time and stir until combined. Your mixture will be quite thin.
6. Pour the cake batter into your prepared baking dish or moulds, filling them about 3/4 of the way up.
7. If you are using smaller heart-shaped moulds then bake them for ±15 minutes, if you are using a bigger baking dish you will probably need to bake it for at 18 minutes. Check it/them at the allocated time by inserting a toothpick into the centre of the cake/s, if it comes out clean you’re all good.
8. Cool completely before either cutting hearts out of your sheet cake using your cookie cutter or taking your hearts out of their moulds.

ICING INGREDIENTS:

• 80 grams unsalted butter at room temperature
• 2 and a half cups icing sugar, sifted
• 2 to 3 tablespoons milk, start with two if the icing is a bit thick add another. If you land up adding too much, just add more icing sugar 🙂
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• Different food colourants

DIRECTIONS:

1. With an electric mixer beat the butter and icing sugar on medium-high speed.
2. Add your milk one tablespoon at a time. Mix well.
3. Add vanilla essence.
4. Once you have a smooth icing separate it into 3 different bowls then add your chosen colours to each one to make an array of different coloured icings.
5. Give each cake a crumb layer, which is a thin layer of icing that traps stray cake crumbs and prevents them from popping up in your finished cake. I then placed my hearts in the freezer for a good 20 minutes (to harden the crumb layer) before I pulled them out to ice them completely.
6. Ice each heart with a different colour.
7. Pop some of the leftover icing into a piping bag fitted with a small round nozzle tip or into a ziplock bag with a very small hole cut into one of the corners to form a tip.
8. Start spelling out your love.