Finally!! Is that what you are thinking? It’s ok. You can admit it. We are all friends here.

Do you remember this little thing?

Well, it turns out some of you daring bakers want to make this Surprise Inside Cake yourselves. Yeah, you! I can’t wait to see and read all about it… send me links girls! (and boys… if there are any boys)

Well. In order for me to do a tutorial, I had to make another one. So, forgive the less than stellar decorations, but here is our ‘tutorial’ heart cake.

But you didnt come to see the outside right?

Here goes.

Start out by making four eight inch pans of white cake. (If you want the actual recipe, just click here)

Make one 9×13 (you can do whatever shape and size you want) pan of red velvet cake. (recipe here)

First I need to level each cake.

I use this handy dandy leveling cake thingy I got at Walmart for a few bucks.

Remember to do this for all four white cakes.

Add about 1/2 cup to 1 cup frosting and then put one layer on top. You want two separate two layer cakes at this point.

For the red velvet cake, I just ran my fork through it to break it up. Then I added about a cup of frosting and combined well.

NOW! I usually like to freeze the cakes for at least a couple hours. If you can’t freeze them, at least try and pop them in the fridge for a bit!

I know this looks pretty weird (maybe cause it is) but this is what I am going to use to make sure I have some uniformity in the heart design. Its just two toothpicks and a piece of twine.

Place one toothpick in the center of the cake, then (holding firmly) drag the outside toothpick around the cake and make a circle.

Like this! Now I have a rough guideline of where I am going to be carving. Do this to both cakes. (or, if you are a good drawer, just take a knife and cut a shallow line around the perimeter.)

Carve out a V shape in the cake.

The top half of the heart is a little trickier. This time, I started with my knife in the center of the cake and created this little island.

I then moved back out to my “guide line” and started cutting. I ended up creating this channel. Once this has been created, you can go back in a do some more carving to create more detail.

Here is after I went in with a spoon and carved out a bit more.

The two cakes carved out. The hard part is pretty much done now!

Now I can start filling in the cakes with the red velvet cake.

All filled! At this point, I put it in my freezer for about 15 minutes. Just to let them set.

I added some frosting the edge of the bottom cake. Make sure you know which is which! You are going to want to add the cake with the hallowed out ‘channel’ to the top of the V cake.

Here goes nothing! I have found the easiest way to do this is to just use your hand. Place it flat over the top of the ‘channel’ cake and flip it over. Then gently place it on the bottom cake.

Add some more frosting and do a rough crumb coat over the whole cake.

And here is our thin layer of icing for the crumb coat. Put this in the fridge about at least a half hour, or as long as overnight.

Now. Go eat an apple. Seriously. Cause if you are anything like me you have been snacking on the cake scraps this whole time and you need a healthy energy boost.

There. Feel better? Let’s get back to work.

I ended up using all my red velvet cake so I didn’t have any left over for decoration. So white it is!

Ready to see what all this work was for?

I thought it turned out pretty good! Granted, this is my third time making it in a month so I had better be able to at least make it presentable by now. 🙂

And it tastes as good as it looks! (I might be biased)

So I hope you are brave enough to try a heart cake for your loved one this Valentines Day. Be sure to let me know how it works out.. and take lots and lots of pictures! 🙂

Recipes:

Red Velvet Cake

For the red velvet cake, I messed around with a recipe from Magnolia Bakery.

*This is how I modified this recipe: I used 2 sticks of butter, 2 eggs and 2 egg yolks, 2 tablespoons of food color, and apple cider vinegar. I wanted a more dense cake because I knew I was using it in the center of the heart cake and I needed to make sure it was sturdy enough.

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*I used only all-purpose flour and then added 1 tsp baking powder. I am going to play around with this a bit more next time and maybe even add some baking soda.

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*My only modification to the recipe is I like to add a little almond extract, and it seems that 1 tsp. is the perfect amount! And be sure to use CLEAR vanilla extract to get a white frosting.

Makes enough for one 2-layer 9-inch cake or 2 dozen cupcakes