How to Make a Heart Shape Cake Without A Heart Shaped Pan

Nothing says celebration like a special cake. Birthdays, baby showers, anniversaries, and of course, Valentine's Day are all great opportunities to indulge.  While most of us can't wait to dig into a delicious, home-baked chocolately cake, not all of us have the time to make a cake from scratch, much less the hours needed to painstakenly decorate it.  If television programmes like Cake Boss or The Next Great Baker are any indication, cakes are only getting more and more elaborate and expensive.

Time to go back to basics. Here is a quick and easy version of a heart-shaped Valentine Cake which doesn't require a specially shaped cake pan. All you need is the following:

1. your favourite cake mix and store-bought icing, OR a favourite home-made-from-scratch recipe with home-made icing.
2. an eight inch square cake pan.
3. an eight inch round cake pan.
4. a large flat plate, foil covered board, or cake plate large enough to hold the finished product.

•  Mix your cake batter according to your recipe or the directions on the package. Pour half the batter into the eight-inch square cake pan, and half the batter into the eight-inch round cake pan.
• Bake according to your recipe directions.
• Cool on baking racks.
• Once completely cooled, carefully move the square cake to your foil covered board or cake plate. ***PLACE IT AS A DIAMOND, NOT A SQUARE***.....or on an angle, so one corner is pointed up.
• With a sharp knife, carefully cut the round eight inch cake in half so that you have two half-circles.
• Place one half-circle on either side of the diamond.  This will give you a heart-shaped cake!
• Ice as desired.  You can make a very simple icing bag by putting a few spoonfuls of icing in a sandwich bag, twisting it closed, then carefully cut a very small piece off one corner of the bag.  Using the same icing or a complimentary icing, you could write a message or even make little rosettes on your Heart-Shaped-Cake.

 Use your imagination and creativity to come up with simple garnishes for your heart-shaped cake.  Here are some favourite combinations:

• use a grater to shave white chocolate over the cake. Then use raspberries to outline the heart shape, following the edge of your cake.
• chocolate shavings to cover the cake, halved strawberries to edge it.
• chocolate or white shavings with halved maraschino cherries to garnish it.
• ice the cake with chocolate icing as smoothly as possible. Place a large paper lace doily on the top of the cake and gently shake powdered or icing sugar over it. Remove the lace doily carefully. You will have a beautiful design on your cake!
• Look in your cupboards - what do you have? Jams or jellies can be used, as can dried, fresh, or canned fruit. I once iced a cake with strawberry jam, then shook grated coconut over the whole thing. It turned out surprisingly well.