Write your favorite message on a cake with these cute conversation heart cakes. Perfect for Valentine's Day, anniversary or engagement. You will be surprised how easy these are to make and your loved ones will think you spent hours creating these.
These Valentine Conversation Heart Cakes are perfect to give away treats for Valentine Day Celebration. Say more with little words of love. In this video, I show you how simple and easy they are to create with tools or freehand.
These are one of the cake tutorials from my Heart Cake Tutorials collections.
If you remember I shared with you this Valentine pillow cake and floral heart cake as well as my Valentine strawberry gift box cake. For those of you that don't like decorating, I have a naked strawberry red velvet heart cake as well.
About these cakes for Valentine's Day
- The Cake Shape - Instead of using a heart pan I used a sheet cake. I made two heart cakes.
- If you do not have a heart cake pan you can just print the image of the heart you want from the internet. Cut out the shape as use it as your guide.
- Cake Flavor - This cake is my vanilla cream cake (recipe below) baked in a sheet pan but you can certainly use any other firm butter-based cake from my over 50 cake recipes. Often a pound cake or sponge cake works better for carving.
- Frosting - I've used my Velvet American Buttercream but ganache would work just as well.
- Fondant - This is my Homemade Sugar paste /Fondant Recipe. You can also use my quick and easy marshmallow fondant. You can also try any of my other frostings recipes. See 30 plus frosting recipes here
When should I decorate my cakes
Timeline for decorating cakes - The active time on this cake is close to two hours but this does not include the negative time you need in between. This also does not include time for making homemade fondant which would be another 10 mins + 3 hours chilling.
- Bake the sheet cake - 35 mins (10 mins prep - 25 mins baking)
- Frosting - 5 minutes
- Chill the cake - 2 hours at least (negative time)
- Carve and crumb coat - 30 mins
- Chill the cake - 15 mins (negative time)
- Smoothing - 20 mins
- Chill the cakes - 1 hour (negative time)
- Fondant work - 30 mins
- Embossing - 20 mins
Step by step instructions (pin)
Bake the cake
- Preheat the oven to 160 C/320 F.
- Grease and line one 7-inch heart cake pan or 8 x 8-inch square pan
- Sift flour with baking powder and salt.
- Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy
- Add eggs one at a time.
- Followed by the vanilla extract.
- Lastly, add flour mixture and cream.
- Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before removing from the pan.
- Always cool cakes completely before you decorate or store cakes away
- Freeze the cake for an hour (optional) as it makes it easier to carve.
Prepare the frosting
- Cream butter for a minute
- Add vanilla and whipping cream - whip some more
- Add the powdered sugar - one cup at a time
- Once all the powdered sugar is in - whip for three minutes until the buttercream is light and fluffy.
Carve the cakes
- If you bake a sheet pan like me - Using the heart template, cut out the heart cakes. Hold the knife at a 90% angle - straight up - so you get a nice straight side (not beveled)
- Simple syrup the cakes (optional)
- Crumb coat the cakes and let chill for 15 minutes
- Add a second coat of buttercream and smooth as much as you can, using a spatula and scraper.
- I like to use a cling wrap over the chilled cake and use my hand to create a smooth surface.
- Chill the cake for at least an hour.
Cover with fondant
- Roll red color fondant larger than the diameter of the cake.
- Place it on the cake and smooth it out. Cut any excess as necessary.
- Use a fondant smoother or your hands to smooth the sides and edges.
Emboss the words
- As you can see I have used plastic alphabets to emboss into the fondant. I then painted those in different colors.
- If you don't have these alphabet cutters, you can simply use a paintbrush and edible gel food colors and write the words freehand. It sounds scary but it's not as hard as it sounds. Use single strokes as shown in the video below.
This is one of the cakes from my Heart Cake Tutorials collections. You may like to also see the videos for my Heart Pillow Cake and Conversation Heart cakes
SAVE THIS RECIPE ON PINTEREST FOR LATER. TRIED MY RECIPE? SHARE IT WITH ME, PLEASE.
Share a picture of your work with me by uploading an image here below my image on this board. You can also find a collection of my tutorials and recipes here on Pinterest.
Description
Video
Ingredients
Cake
- 2 ½ cups (310 g) All-purpose flour
- 6 oz (170 g) Butter (1 ½ stick) unsalted, room temperature
- 1 ½ cup (300 g) White sugar
- 2 large Eggs
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- ¾ cup (180 ml) Fresh whipping cream
- 3 tsp Baking powder
- ¼ tsp Salt
Frosting
- 8 oz (227 g) Butter unsalted
- 4 cups (480 g) Powdered sugar
- ¼ cup (60 ml) Whipping cream
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
FOR THE FONDANT
- 1 batch Marshmallow fondant
Instructions
BAKE THE CAKE
- Preheat the oven to 160 C/320 F.
- Grease and line one 7-inch heart cake pan or 8 x 8-inch square pan
- Sift flour with baking powder and salt.
- Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy
- Add eggs one at a time.
- Followed by the vanilla extract.
- Lastly, add flour mixture and cream.
- Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before removing from the pan.
- Always cool cakes completely before you decorate or store cakes away
- Freeze the cake for an hour (optional) as it makes it easier to carve.
PREPARE THE FROSTING
- Cream butter for a minute
- Add vanilla and whipping cream – whip some more
- Add the powdered sugar – one cup at a time
- Once all the powdered sugar is in – whip for three minutes until the buttercream is light and fluffy.
CARVE THE CAKES
- If you bake a sheet pan like me – Using the heart template, cut out the heart cakes. Hold the knife at a 90% angle – straight up – so you get a nice straight side (not beveled)
- Simple syrup the cakes (optional)
- Crumb coat the cakes and let chill for 15 minutes
- Add a second coat of buttercream and smooth as much as you can, using a spatula and scraper.
- I like to use a cling wrap over the chilled cake and use my hand to create a smooth surface.
- Chill the cake for at least an hour.
COVER WITH FONDANT
- Roll red color fondant larger than the diameter of the cake.
- Place it on the cake and smooth it out. Cut any excess as necessary.
- Use a fondant smoother or your hands to smooth the sides and edges.
EMBOSS THE WORDS
- As you can see I have used plastic alphabets to emboss into the fondant. I then painted those in different colors.
- If you don’t have these alphabet cutters, you can simply use a paintbrush and edible gel food colors and write the words freehand. It sounds scary but it’s not as hard as it sounds. Use single strokes as shown in the video below.
Recipe Notes
Nutrition Information
The nutrition information and metric conversion are calculated automatically. I cannot guarantee its accuracy. If this data is important to you please verify with your trusted nutrition calculator. Thank you
Arlene Dsouza
These are so cute n you make the videos so detailed that it motivates me to keep trying new things. Wish you could have a class in Mumbai I would be the first student..... .?☺
Veena Azmanov
Aww thank you Arlene. I know what you mean. May be some day I will come visit Mumbai and have a class too!