Chocolate cake will always have my heart. # 386: Chocolate Heart Cake

Why pick between a bouquet of flowers and chocolate when you can have both at the same time? As long as you like your flowers to smell like butter and chocolate, you’re all set.

These floral piping tips deserve more air time. How cute can you get? It’s so satisfying to get a consistent buttercream flower without having to pipe individual petals and freeze them for a nerve-racking transfer to the cake.

I only used one rose-ish tip this time, but explored a bit more with my botanical cupcakes a few years ago. Maybe I’ll do a summer flower cake this year and try to use every single one! It’ll definitely take every single ramekin and small bowl in my house to make all the colors but it’ll be worth it. (I can already feel Nate Dish Washer Extraordinaire cringing.)

I think of this cake as my “boxed cake mix” recipe. Using oil instead of butter makes for a super thin batter and very soft, light crumb.

Blooming the cocoa powder with hot water. Feels extra appropriate for a flower cake!

Gotta love a one-bowl bb.

To get the heart shape, you need two cakes:

• A square
• A circle with a diameter that’s the same length as the side of the square

Cake lego time.

Chop the round cake in equal halves and then trim the edges of the square until they really are the exact same length as the half circles. Plop the circle halves on like Mickey Mouse ears and ta-daa you have a heart!

To glue it all together deliciously, I went with American buttercream:

• 200g butter, at room temperature
• 400g powdered sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon milk

The powdered sugar blends in way faster than granulated and there’s no potential for a gritty texture. I’m not sure why, but I’ve found that if I add the milk and vanilla at the beginning when creaming the butter and sugar, it splits and takes a lot of cajoling and extra cold butter to bring it back together. But if you add the liquids last, it works like a charm!

This cake has such a delicate texture that the buttercream needs to be piped on to avoid ripping it. Once piped on, you can gently spread the buttercream to fill in the gaps.

And then pop it in the fridge to set while you make all the fun colors.

I tried swirling the three pinks and reds together in an attempt to give the flowers more depth. Spoiler alert: red takes over everything so they all ended up looking monochromatic. *hums “Painting the Roses Red*

Second buttercream layer acquired – bring on the flowers!

They’re finicky and the design tends to splooge if the buttercream is too warm. Fridge to the rescue.

Why are leaves so stinking cute?

Happy munching!