Your Valentine’s Day Cake turned into a show-stopping Valentine’s Peek-a-boo Ombre Cake and it’s so easy to make!
I know, I’m a little late with sharing Valentine’s treats this year, but forgive me, toddler life has been on high alert lately. He’s my last one and my crazy one!
OMG. Seriously, if he were my first one, he probably would have been my last one.
Last week the toddler decided it was a good idea to pack his ear with gobs of silly putty. I’m sure it had something to do with a super hero trick, being that he is obsessed with all things super heroes. As you can imagine, extracting the silly putty from his inner ear took a million times the effort it took him to hide in the corner and push one silly putty finger-ful after another into his ear. Or something like that, because I’m not exactly sure how or where he did it, he just came to me and very casually said, “ I can’t get this out”.
Naturally I had a freak-out because (1) I don’t do silly putty—gross—I hate the texture smell and everything about it. (2) the person who bought it has to retrieve it—all receipts point to Matt.
Twenty minutes later, the silly putty extracted, he was back to running around with his sword, his cape and the extracted silly putty formed into an eye mask.
But enough craziness. Let’s go through some details about this cake before you get started:
- You’ll see the recipe calls for making two cakes, so to make things easy in terms of putting this all together use the same pan for both cakes. And since you have to bake one after the other, that should be easy enough.
- To tint the batter I use ProGel food coloring. It’s highly concentrated so you don’t need much and it doesn’t fade or darken as it bakes. For the heart, I used two teaspoons of red plus a teaspoon of claret. For the pink layer, I used two teaspoons of pink for the bottom layer and the middle layer I used 1 drop of pink and 1 drop of peach.
Valentine's Peek-a-boo Ombre Cake
Ingredients
- **NOTE: You will make two cakes, so make sure to measure out the cake ingredients twice—once for the first cake that will make the heart and a second time for the ombre portion of the cake
- 2 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 1/3 cups sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- red food coloring
- pink food coloring
- peach food coloring
Easy Buttercream Frosting:
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 tablespoon vanilla powder
- pinch salt
- 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 - 2 drops pink food coloring
Instructions
To make the red cake (for the heart): Heat oven to 325°F. Line a 9x5x3 loaf pan with parchment.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and in medium bowl. Set aside.
Place the butter and sugar in stand mixer bowl fitted with a paddle attachment, and on medium speed, beat until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add in 1 egg at time and beat until fully combined. Add the vanilla and food coloring in and beat until combined before adding the next egg. Turn the mixer to low, and add flour into the mixture all once, beat until just combined. Pour batter into parchment-lined loaf pan.
Bake 60 to 70 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack. Once cooled, starting at one end of the cake, place the heart shaped cookie cutter vertically on top of the cake, score the cake according to the depth of the cookie cutter and repeat until you reach the end. Then slice the cake along the score marks. Working from one end to other, place each slice flat on a work surface and stamp out a heart with the cookie cutter. Make sure the hearts are lined up in the order they are stamped out, so the hearts are flushed against each other. Set aside and make the second batter.
To make the ombre cake: Heat oven to 325°F. Line a 9x5x3 loaf pan with parchment.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and in medium bowl. Set aside.
Place the butter and sugar in stand mixer bowl fitted with a paddle attachment, and on medium speed, beat until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add in 1 egg at time and beat until fully combined before adding the next egg. Add the vanilla and beat until combined Turn the mixer to low and add flour into the mixture all once, beat until just combined.
Lay out two bowls and three pastry bags. Fill the first bowl with 1 cup of batter. Mix in 2 drops of pink food coloring; transfer batter to a pastry bag. Fill the second bowl with a 1 cup of batter and mix in 1 drop of pink food coloring and 1 drop of peach food coloring; transfer the batter to a pastry bag. Place the remaining batter into a third pastry bag (this batch of batter will be a little more than the first two, approximately 1 1/2 cups of batter).
To assemble the cake: Pipe the darkest pink layer into the bottom of the parchment-lined pan. Make sure the hearts are lined and flushed against one another and then drop it into straight into the pan. Push the hearts down into the dark pink batter (if you’ve used the same pan, the hearts will stay standing). Next pipe the light pink batter on top of the dark pink layer and all around the heart. For the final layer pipe the uncolored batter on top of the pink layer, making sure you cover the top of the heart as well.
Bake 60 to 70 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the middle of the ombre cake layers comes out clean. Remove from oven and and cool on wire rack.
To make the frosting: Place the butter, vanilla powder, salt and half the sugar in a stand mixer bowl and beat on low until combined, about 1-2 minutes. Add remaining sugar and beat on low until just combined, about 1-2 minutes. Increase speed, and beat until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
Mary Ann | The Beach House Kitchen says
Absolutely LOVE this cake Naomi! So fun for Valentine’s Day! I’ve never made a cake with a cutout inside. I’ll need to give your recipe a try. It’s just too cute!
Natasha says
I can’t believe how cute this is! You’re so talented.
Lori (southerngirleats) says
I am so in love with this. Can’t wait to try this idea. So so cute.
Evans Epaphras says
It looks so delicious. Can’t wait to try it out!
Jeff the Chef says
Super cute!
Laura | Tutti Dolci says
This is the cutest cake ever!! Can’t get over how adorable it is!
Fiona Manoon says
Such a cute and creative cake. This will make the couple’s day more special. No doubt in that..
Loved your post . Thanks for sharing this cute love cake recipe.
Keep Posting !
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Thanks
Marie says
Nice cake but my hearts turned upside down and all the colours faded whilst cooking!