Quick and Easy Valentine’s Day Cakes

No matter what you think about Valentine’s Day it does present a great opportunity for cake decorating, especially as the shops are full of adorable cooking equipment right now. So here are some quick and easy ideas for Valentine’s themed cakes.

This post is structured slightly differently to my last Quick and Easy post as I’m not entirely happy with the way that post turned out. So the new structure for this series is as follows: Recipe Ideas, Simple Decorative Touches, Themed Designs and Fun Things from Shops.
Ok so let’s get started!

Recipe Ideas
I firmly believe that cakes should taste as good as they look, but who wants boring vanilla cakes all the time? It’s great fun to match recipes and cake flavours to the holidays so for Valentine’s why not try some of these goodies?

Chocolate – Since chocolate is an instrumental part of Valentines celebrations, why not keep things simple with a chocolate cake rather than a box of overpriced chocolates? To jazz things up why not try adding chocolate chips, fruits (raspberries and strawberries are a favourite of mine), chillies, caramel or your favourites?  If you want something a bit more visually impressive why not have a go at a Red Velvet Cake?

Flowers – Roses are the official flower of Valentines and happily as a flavour rose tastes really lovely when used in baking. Rose is actually my all time favourite macaroon flavour! Try adding some rose water to chocolate cupcakes for a lovely twist on the traditional flavours. Or why not try topping vanilla flavoured cakes with a gorgeous rose buttercream? To make rose buttercream omit the vanilla extract when making normal buttercream (or frosting) and add a teaspoon or so of rose water instead. This is great if you want a more subtle flavour as it’s much easier to adjust the quantities to your personal taste.

Simple Vanilla – Not everyone wants flavoured cakes but plain old vanilla cakes are dull. So why not add a new dimension to vanilla cakes by adding some food dye? Red and pink are great seasonal options.  Just remember that what kind of dye you use will affect the final colour; gel food dyes give rich vibrant colours while the liquid ones available in most supermarkets will give you softer more pastel colours. Also using plain vanilla cakes is a great opportunity to play with flavoured icing as the plain cake makes the icing flavour really pop.

Stuck for inspiration or just want something quick and easy? Then why not try clicking the “Recipe” tag on the side and take a look at some of my recipes.

Simple Decorative Touches
Now that you’ve got some an awesome recipe lined up you want them to look great right? So let’s start with the basics, cake cases. I’d suggest going with a red or pink case, but there are lots of beautiful patterned ones available. How about love hearts or a rose design?

Now when it comes to decorating your cakes what you can do is largely dependent on what icing you want you use. Sugarpaste and water icing work best when used to simply cover the surface of the cake, water icing makes great “glue” for sprinkles as well. Sugarpaste however makes a great canvas for both painted designs (which while simple in principal do require a certain amount of artistic skill) or piped patterns using royal icing. Frosting/buttercream however can be piped into beautiful spirals and swirls, spread on and shaped, and like water icing is very useful for sprinkle adhesive.

Sprinkles are the simplest way of decorating a cake, and since this is a Valentines themed post why not try and get some adorable heart shaped ones like on my Red Velvet Cakes? Supermarkets often sell premade icing roses which also fit the theme, but if you want something a bit more special why not try using real rose petals? Just make sure they are ok to eat first! Oh and don’t underestimate the value of edible glitter for that final touch!

Themed Designs
Want something a little bit more special than sprinkles and frosting? Then why not try some of these ideas? I did not come up with all of these ideas myself, several have been adapted from those I have seen in cake decorating books.

Rose Bouquet – Why not try making a simple rose out of sugarpaste and putting that on top of your cake? There are many tutorials available online and in cake decorating books, but if you don’t fancy making your own rose cheat and buy some premade ones. Cake decorating shops and the baking aisle of most supermarkets sell lovely premade roses; my local cake decorating shop even sells chocolate roses! Rose petals or even fresh roses would work in this design.

Sealed with a Kiss – This design does require some artistic skill but looks very effective. Simply cover your cake with some coloured sugarpaste, then using red food colouring, paint a set of lips onto each cake. It should look like you’ve just blotted your lipstick.

Hearts – Instead of using heart shaped sprinkles how about using royal icing? On a sheet of baking parchment draw the outline of lots of hearts and leave to dry overnight (make lots more than you think you’ll need to allow for breakage). Then after icing your cake in your chosen style, carefully remove each heart from the paper and place them on the cake. I think these hearts work great when used in a similar manner to my snowflake cakes from Christmas.

Anti-Valentine – All this pink and hearts getting you down? Then why not turn things your way with these broken hearts? Using sugarpaste cut out several heart shapes, then using a sharp knife cut each heart in half making sure you get a jagged line. You want the heart to look like it’s been snapped in half, then carefully insert a cocktail stick into each piece and leave for a few hours to harden up. Then cover your cake with black icing and then carefully insert each 2 heart halves into each cake.

Fun Things from Shops
And finally here are some fun things to look out for in your local shops, since these products are seasonal I won’t provide shop links as they’ll be broken in a few days time. So while out shopping keep your eyes peeled for these. 

Biscuit cutters – Available in a selection of sizes heart shaped cutter can make Valentines biscuits extra cute, and as a bonus they are useful all year round.

Cake Pans – I currently own heart shaped silicone cupcake cases and a large silicone heart shaped cake pan. These are fun to use all year round and being silicone they don’t take up much storage space.

Lurking in my local shops I’ve also stumbled upon heart shaped ramekins and lots of cute home wares for setting the table like placemats, coasters and even heart shaped wine glasses!

Well I hope this post was useful in some way, all that I have left for Valentines now is my review of the book Kinky Cupcakes which I hope to get up tomorrow.  That post may got up rather late (or I might just save it until Friday) as I have an awful lot to do tomorrow including work and getting ingredients for my brother’s birthday cake!