Valentine's Day Message Heart Cakes

These little cakes are as yummy as they are cute! Fashioned after those candy message hearts that abound every Valentine's Day, these treats can be personalized with your Valentine's Day message.

To make these Valentine's Day Message Heart Cakes, here's what you'll need...
~ White icing
~ Small cups or bowls to mix in
~ Food coloring
~ Sheet cake pan and heart-shaped cookie cutter
OR heart-shaped mini cake pans
~ Cake batter
~ Non-stick spray
~ A sandwich baggie

If you have the skills, and want to make cake from scratch, mix up a batch of your favorite batter. Everyone else, stir up a batch of your favorite boxed cake mix.

Next, decide what you're going to cook in. If you have heart-shaped mini-cake or muffin pans, now is the time to get them out and sprayed with the non-stick spray. (If you want to get some heart-shaped pans, here's a place online where you can buy some... Wilton 6-Cavity Nonstick Heart Mini Cake Pan.) If you're using a regular sheet cake pan, spray it with non-stick spray now. Carefully pour batter into your chosen pan(s), and bake as directed in your recipe or on your box mix. Remove from pan(s) and let cool completely.

Now, if you're using heart-shaped pans, skip the next step...
Sheet pan users, use the cookie cutter to cut out your heart shapes. If your cake is too crumbly, try putting it in the freezer for about 20 minutes. (By the way, you'll have scraps of cake left between the hearts. It's okay to eat them!)

Now that we're all working with heart shapes, it's time to frost! Separate your frosting into your small cups or bowls, and add food coloring. One batch needs to be red, for writing the messages later. The others are to color the hearts. Make pastel colors by adding just a tiny bit of food coloring to each cup of white. You can always make it darker, but it's hard to make frosting lighter, so add one drop at a time. (I like to use disposable plastic cups, so I don't have to clean up the food coloring!) Remember to leave one batch uncolored, if you want some of your hearts to be white.

Coat the top and sides of each heart with a pastel (or white) color frosting. Make a variety...white, pale pink, pale yellow, pale green, etc.
Finally, scoop the red frosting into the sandwich baggie, and push it down into one corner. Snap a very tiny piece of the baggie's corner off, so that when you squeeze the bag, a thin line of red frosting comes out. Use this to write your messages onto your hearts.
Give the frosting a chance to firm up, and then use a spatula to carefully move your Valentine's Day Message Heart Cakes onto individual plates for serving.

Happy Valentine's Day! Have a sweet holiday!

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