Lovely Heart-Shaped Mini Cakes for Valentine's Day

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, it's time to put your heart into planning for those parties. Some of my favorite sweet treats, which can also serve as table decorations, are made by baking small cakes in the shape of hearts and decorating them in various ways.

I have a cake pan that contains six heart-shaped indentations for baking little cakes, and have also used heart-shaped Jello molds. Another option is to bake a fairly thin sheet cake and cut the hearts out with heart-shaped cookie cutters.

Since these little cakes, and especially if they are cut-outs, are rather difficult to ice, I would suggest freezing them before trying to ice them. They can be frozen on a cookie sheet, then removed from the freezer one at a time for icing. Since they will sweat as they warm up, it would be best to ice them several hours before decorating them in order to allow time for them to dry.

If you choose to use regular decorator's icing such as buttercream, be sure it isn't thick enough to tear the cake as you smooth it on.

Another way to ice the cakes that wouldn't require freezing would be to cover the entire top of the cakes with icing stars or shells, and cover the sides with up-and-down zig-zags made with a star tip. Then the tops could be decorated with drop flowers or sprinkles.

Another option is to use fondant icing, which makes a wonderfully smooth, shiny surface on which to put your decorative touches. One word of caution: working with fondant icing takes a bit of practice, so you might want to try it ahead of time. Also, small batches of the fondant icing are more difficult to work with than a full recipe.