Bake a St. Patrick's Day Cake Without a Shamrock Pan

A shamrock cake is a great touch for any St. Patrick's Day gathering, but shamrock shaped cake pans aren't always easy to find, and they're not very versatile in other situations. I recommend investing in miniature heart shaped pans instead, and making a St. Patrick's Day cake with those instead.

For this cake, I used one standard cake mix, four miniature heart pans, and one 8x8 square cake pan.

Grease the heart shaped pans well, to ensure that the cakes can be removed easily after baking. Bake as directed in the recipe for the cake. The smaller heart cakes will probably bake slightly faster than the large square cake does. Remove all the cakes from the pans and allow them to cool completely on the wire racks.

I used one batch of Wilton's butter cream icing recipe to frost this cake. After preparing the icing, I divided it in half, and dyed one half spring green with Wilton paste colors. The other half of the frosting, I left the natural white color.

Frost the square cake completely with the white icing. Place the four small heart cakes on top of the square cake with their points together in the center of the cake. Ice these four cakes all together with the green icing, being very careful to keep the green color from smearing onto the white base. It is advisable to allow the white icing to dry on the first layer for a while, to make it easier to frost the green layer neatly.

Fill in the cracks between the heart cakes with icing to finish the shamrock shape. A piping bag may be useful for this. Smooth all the icing well to keep the shamrock looking whole.

If desired, a white cake can be used and dyed green to match the icing. Beat the dye into the un-baked batter until the shade of green is correct. Mint flavoring can be added to the icing as well, to make the cake taste "green" too.

Green or gold sugar or edible glitter can be a nice addition to this cake, since sparkles and gold are usually a big part of the traditional decorations. If you'd like, the square base cake can be frosted in gold colored icing. Piping decorations and words can be added to this style of cake easily, around the bottom of the square base or across the top of the shamrock.