How to Bake an "I Love You Cake" for Valentine's Day

This easy to make I Love You Cake for Valentine's Day is perfect for a party, romantic dinner for two, or even a dinner dessert for the family. I am always looking for fun way to decorate for the holidays and Valentine's Day is one of the easiest. There are so many possibilities. You can use this edible I Love You Cake for Valentine's Day

set the mood and decorate your Valentine's Day dinner table.

To Make an I Love You Cake for Valentine's Day

You Will need:

You favorite boxed cake mix

Tub of Vanilla icing

Red or Black Tube Writing Icing (2 to 3 tubes)

Piece of Acetate

Exacto Knife

Tooth Pick

Straight edge

Print Outs of Your Favorite Fonts

Edible silver dust

Bake your favorite cake mix as usual. You need to bake it in a 13" X 9" baking pan. You can make this in a circular layer cake, but you will have less room to write "I Love You!"

Once the cake has cooled flip it out of the baking and onto a large platter, carving board, or whatever you have. If for some reason your cake did not bake flat, use a large knife to trim a smooth flat surface for your Valentine's Day design.

Coat the entire cake with a thick coat of vanilla icing. You can add a few red food coloring drops to the icing to make it pink. Later you can write in white if you want! Use your spatula or butter knife to make the icing really smooth and flat. The more smooth the better. In fact if you like working with fondant icing, that would be the best, but you can use regular canned icing for this. Reserve some icing aside for touch ups later.

Tip: You may find it easier to apply a thin coat of icing to the entire cake. Then place the cake in the refrigerator for about an hour. Once this thin layer has chilled apply another thicker coat of vanilla icing. This first coat is called the crumb coat for obvious reasons. This is a great way that the professionals use to get a clean smooth surface of icing on their cakes.

Now for the real fun. Take your piece of acetate and cut it to 13" by 9" just like your cake. You can use a piece of white paper cut to this same size to draw your Valentine's Day "I Love You" words on if you do not have one to trace. Use a magic marker to trace the Valentine's Day words onto your acetate sheet.

Tip: Try writing "I love you" in a variety of shapes in sizes on the sheet of acetate. Have them all running from left to right. You can write the words large in the middle, then smaller to the top and bottom. You can also have them running off the cake.

Now, cut out your Valentine's Day letters with an exacto knife.

Once you have your acetate stencil cut out place one tooth pick in the center of your cake. Then, place one tooth pick in each of the four corners of your cake. Press then down until about 1/8 inch of the tooth pick is visible sticking out of the cake.

Lay your Valentine's Day acetate stencil on top of the "I Love You" cake. Use another toothpick to trace out your letters and numbers from the stencil onto your cake top.

Remove the Valentine's Day word stencil and wash it off. You can save it for next year's Valentine's Day cake! Careful remove the toothpicks from the sheet cake. Fill in and smooth out the toothpick holes with you extra vanilla icing.

Now, outline all of your Valentine's Day word details on the cake with your icing. I like to outline in the same color icing I am going to fill in the words with. Fill in the details with icing.

Your Valentine's Day I Love You cake is finished!

You could also add your Valentine's Day words in a different manner with ice sugar cookies. Simply use letter cookie cutters and a roll of store bought sugar cookie dough. Bake your cookies as normal and spell out "I Love You!" Now, once they cool you can ice them in red, white or even purple. Place the cookies on the top of the cake to read what you would like!