While red is primarily the color that dominates February, pink is a close second. I am always sucker for all things pink, so love month is simple the best in my books. More so, the candies that you can find to celebrate Valentine’s Day are the best. While conversation and cinnamon hearts dominated my childhood, walking the aisle of Target this year, I came to realize the candy options are now endless for the holiday.
Sticking with my love pink and other pastel colors, I of course, picked up packets of smarties love heart candies. They actually come in two different types, the small round ones and the larger ones, which on one side is a message and on the other, a heart outine. I knew when I saw them, I could use them in a DIY Valentine’s Day baking recipe.
Recently my kids have been all about helping in the kitchen. I am not going to lie, train your kids to cook and bake and your busy mom self may actually get a few quiet moments to yourself (no guarantees of course, but a girl can dream). On this particular day, I gave my 8 year old daughter the boxed cake we got and I got distracted talking to a friend and when I came back she had everything done as she read the measurements and ingredients on the box, minus putting the batter into the pan. I was so impressed.
To get started we made a couple square vanilla cakes and also put some batter in a heart shaped mold I got from the dollar store. For the square sheet cake, it had to be thick enough so that the final hearts could stack one on top of the other. We also wanted some heart and letter cookie cutters to easily be able to move through (so not too thick of course). While we tried it with and without a heart shaped cutter, obviously having the shape ready to go was easier. That being said, if you have a circle cutter, you simply cut the circle in half and then add a square that is the same measurement as the long side of the half circle. Finish with frosting and boom, mini heart cake.
While we usually make frosting from scratch, for time purposes we had to use canned vanilla frosting this time around. Once the cakes cooled, I frosted the outside, and as mentioned, for the mini heart cakes I stuck two together with frosting in the middle. And then the fun began….so many options for decorating these adorable creations. And while this time we used the small and large pastel candies, next time I want to try other Valentine Day options, or heck even just use sprinkles. The smaller candies used in abundance like on the rainbow one below, obviously changed the flavour profile. But as I told my son, you could just used them to decorate and depending on a person’s preference they can easily be taken off before eating.
So if you have children, a Galentine, a special partner or are a strong independent woman who is full of self love, consider making these cute cakes to celebrate all things love.
