Hey guys! I hope you’re having a great year so far. In today’s post, I am making a dessert charcuterie board including a valentine’s day heart cake, cookies, and mini cupcakes!
While making this adorable Valentine’s Day heart cake, I had the idea to have a dessert board layout. Valentine’s Day is one of the best times to make super cute goodies for someone you love (including yourself 😉)
As elegant as these valentine’s day desserts look, they are actually quite easy to make. I’ll walk you through the entire process and share how I made the heart cake, cookies, and mini cupcakes!
I started with baking and decorating the heart cake. I used a box of strawberry cake mix instead of making the cake from scratch. The reason why I decided to use a box cake mix was simply because I saw a unicorn strawberry cake mix at the grocery store and couldn’t resist using it for my Valentine’s Day cake. I made two 6-inch cake layers with the box mix and had enough batter to make 8 mini cupcakes! For the heart cookies, I used a chocolate sugar cookie.
To build the valentine’s day heart cake
Start by leveling your cake two cake layers and removing any unwanted caramelization. I like to do this to show off the cakes pink color and sprinkles!
Next, stack and fill the cake layers with American buttercream. Crumb coat your cake (if you use a box cake mix you do not want to skip this step! They tend to have more of a crumb than other recipes).
If you would like to learn how to decorate a cake from start to finish, consider reading my in-depth tutorial here!
After your crumb coat is chilled, ice the cake with an angled spatula. The technique I used is a great way for beginners to ice a cake and not have to worry about getting a smooth finish.
Using a heart template (I used a heart cookie cutter), mark where you want the heart to be on the top of the cake.
Color your icing to your desired shades and put in piping bags with couplers. See my post here on how to use a piping bag and tip!
Start piping in the heart shape using different piping techniques. I love using this method not only because there is a lot of room for error, but also because the finished look is just beautiful. The look is so effective and versatile. Check out this Sheet cake I made using this technique here!
That is it for the heart cake!
For the cookies and mini cupcakes, I used the same piping bags, tips, icing colors, and technique! They came out SO cute!
I really hope you guys try out this decorating technique on your next creation! You can use it on pretty much any project to get a gorgeous cake, cookie, or cupcake. If you try it out, please share a picture in the comments or tag me on Instagram @thepleasantbaker. I love seeing all of your amazing desserts that you make <3
