Conversation Heart Cakes

I am sorry it has been so long, but I am finally going to reveal the surprise dessert I made for my Valentine's day celebration.  Here is the finished product.

If it looks familiar, that is because it was inspired by the cupcakes in the book What's New, Cupcake?

If you are not familiar with the book, I will hopefully do a review of there book(s) in the near future.  To learn how I created this cute treat, keep reading.

First I took out the vanilla cake I made a head of time.  I removed them from the pan and put them on two cutting boards.

I then found cookie cutters that I wanted for the particular dessert I was creating.  If you wanted to create little cakes that looked like something in particular, there are a variety of differnt cookie cutters available to purchase.  I haven't bought any recently, but when I find a great selection in a particular store, I will be sure to let you all know.

In order to create an almost perfect heart from the cookie cutters, I firts insert the heart into the cake.

Then I gently remove it and use a knife to cut the cake even more.

I then gently pull away my heart-shaped cake from the remaining "loaf."  I used two different sized cookie cutters to add some variation to my little cakes.  I arranged them in an aluminum pan.

I removed each one and put it on a paper plate when I was decorating and put it back in the aluminum pan to be refrigerated.  I wanted the first layer of frosting to be hardened so when I added more, it wouldn't ruin the first layer.

After it is refrigerated for thirty minutes or more, I used a canned icing, like this one.  If I were to do this over, I would use a piping bag with a small tip to write on the cakes.  This is because I found that the can caused the icing to come out inconsistantly with multiple air bubbles.  Some of the writing got very sloppy because I had trouble finding control with this product.

For my particular dessert, I wrote cute sayings on it just like the ones on Necco conversation hearts. 

 

This the wonderful book I found this idea from.

This is the original idea.  As ou can see, the authors of the book decided to put the cakes on cupcakes.  I thought it was a lot of food and I prefered the way the cakes looked by themselves.  This way, my friends could have just one or a few, not worrying about taking one cupcake and not eating the entire thing.

 

All and all, this was a fun project.  I have had messy or chaotic experiences in the kitchen but this was very easy and the mess was easily controlled.  If you try this out, let me know what you think.

Rachel