Valentine's Day: Cakes and Cupcake Ideas

It's not just about roses and candy anymore!

When you think of Valentine’s Day you might think of candy and flowers with a sweet card from your significant other, but there are so many things you can do to make Valentine’s Day fun for everyone around you. From arts and crafts (See my article here for all sorts of fun things you can do: Valentine’s Day: Arts and Craft Tutorials for All Ages!) to homemade candy, cookies and cakes.

Let’s look at cakes for a moment. Cakes can be made for many age groups, and you can involve your children in making some delicious goodies for their friends at school and for their family; you can even make special cakes for your spouse to show your affection.

Think outside the stereotypical Valentine’s Day chocolates from Hershey’s, or Russell Stover’s.

When you get down to it, there are lots of things you can do with Valentine’s cakes to be creative this year.

Flavors

Cake Flavor

Food coloring can take any ordinary Valentine cake and make it amazing! Betty Crocker has some great gel food coloring that you can drop into the batter before you put it in the oven that can make your cake any color your heart desires. Do you prefer a rainbow cake or gradient style? There are lots of Valentine’s cake ideas out there.

Here is a really cute Heart Shaped Cake Recipe that I think is adorable!

What about doing a Red Velvet Cake Recipe? I love this cake with Betty Crocker’s cream cheese frosting.

If you want to go real crazy, try the Marvelous Valentine's Recipe: Strawberry Milk Cake by The Kitchn!

Filling

The first time I set out to do filling in a cake was actually in cupcakes because I was not prepared and thought it would be very difficult to do it like the professionals do on television shows like Cake Boss, Cake Wars, and all the other baking shows that have hit cable networks. It actually isn’t hard at all to add delicious filling into baked goodies. Allow them to cool and cut out a hollow “cup” that you can fill and replace the “lid” and there you go, a filled cupcake is born.

· Raspberry, chocolate, orange, lemon, mocha buttercreams.

· Jam fillings in more ways than you can imagine: Raspberry, strawberry, peach…

· Chocolate Mousse

· Whipped cream

· Vanilla Custard

A liqueur can be brushed on a Valentine cake for an added boost of flavor. Coffee, lemon juice, orange, hazelnut, almond… here's a yummy Choc-Orange Liqueur Cake Recipe that I plan to try soon.

You can even add things such as ice cream and nuts to the inside of your Valentine’s cupcake or cake.

Here’s a great tutorial on how to Fill and Stack a Cake.

Frosting

When it comes to frosting a Valentine cake or cupcake you can have fun with using food coloring once again. There are numerous colors you can make using the coloring in your white frosting, but the tried and true Valentine’s Day colors are pink, red and white.

Make sure to use a gel food coloring if you intend to make red frosting to maintain the flavor of your frosting; liquid food coloring can make your frosting bitter if you use too much, and red uses quite a bit.

Chocolate frosting can be used as well and looks especially delicious on a red velvet cake.

Valentine’s Cake Decorating Ideas

There are so many unique decorating Valentine’s cake ideas out there when it comes to making that cake filled with love.

Here are just a few things you can use to top Valentine’s cakes:

· Colored sprinkles in pink, red, white and purple.

· Strawberries

· Colored sugar in a variety of colors.

· Chocolates

· Reese’s peanut butter cups

· Nuts

· Coconut

· Caramels

…and much much more!

Mastrad Orka makes a great silicone duo heart shaped cake pan that is the only way to make two hearts into one. You bake a large cake with a heart shape hole with the larger silicone portion, and then you turn the mold over to bake a small heart of a different type. Place them inside one another and you have a double heart cake that is super adorable!