Strawberry Vanilla Heart-Shaped Cake- with strawberry
Strawberry Vanilla Heart-Shaped Cake with strawberry buttercream. This impressive cake is perfect for Valentine’s Day! It’s also great for birthday celebrations. It’s a fun and easy cake to make as well!
Total Time
35 minutes
Yield
20
How to Make It
Today, I have a Valentine’s Day special for you guys, and I want to show you how to make a ‘Strawberry Vanilla Heart-Shaped Cake’ with strawberry buttercream. We’re going to start with the vanilla cake batter and bake the cake in a square and a round pan to put together the heart shape. Then, we’ll make a strawberry buttercream, fill the cake with some strawberry jam, garnish the cake with more frosting, and then add some Valentine’s Day sprinkles on top.
And I recommend using only unsalted butter for baking! If you don’t want to use butter, you can replace the butter with the exact same amount of cooking oil
Preparing for the recipes
Meanwhile, let's get started! I'm preheating my oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and I've lined an 8 by 8-inch square pan with some parchment paper. I also lined an 8-inch circle pan. And these are the shapes we're going to use to put together the heartin the end when we assemble the cake.
Vanilla Cake batter
we're going to get started on the cake batter. We're going to be using a large mixing bowl and I need to melt one and a half cups of unsalted butter. Drop the butter sticks into my mixing bowl, and then take them over to the microwave heat,them for about a minute or two until that butter is completely melted. Into the melted butter, add the half cups of buttermilk. And this soured milk is what's going to react with the baking soda and make the cake layers extra fluffy. We'll need two teaspoons of vanilla extract, and one and a half cups of white granulated sugar. And we'll need six large eggs. Drop in the eggs and I'll use my hand mixer to beat everything together for a few minutes, until the eggs are well beaten. On to our dry ingredients! I have three cups of all-purpose flour. I'll add in three teaspoons of baking powder, three teaspoons of baking soda. Now, that seems like a lot but this is a pretty big cake recipe. And, we'll need half a teaspoon of salt. I'll toss this all together. I'll grab a fine mesh strainer and we're going to sift the dry ingredients into the
cake batter. And this is super important because you don't want to end up with clumps of like baking soda or flour in your cake batter! It really just takes a few seconds. And then, I'll grab my mixer and mix the dry ingredients into the cake batter, just until it's smooth. You don't want to over mix at this stage.
To divide my vanilla cake batter between the square and the round pan. My vanilla cake layers are going to bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 28 to 32 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. And the square cake pan is going to take just a few minutes longer. Now, once these are done baking, Then taking them out of the pans, onto a wire rack, and let them cool down
completely.
Strawberry buttercream
Please check: how to make my strawberry buttercream.
It is up to high speed and beat for about three to four minutes, until a fluffy buttercream forms. This buttercream is so light, fluffy, and creamy! I'm going to set aside maybe about half a cup of white frosting. I'm going to use it for garnishing the top of the cake. And now we can add some strawberry flavor!
And check out this buttercream! I didn't add any food coloring, that's all a natural, strawberry pink color and it tastes incredible! I love having that real strawberry flavor in there. This is ready to be used.
Preparing the cake layer
Remove the edges around the cake. Spilled the layers in half
Assembling the cake
Take a cake turntable, place a square cake into a corner, and have also spilled my 8-inch cake layer in half. Now we are half heart shape. And now we have a heart shape!
Then used three-quarter cups of my strawberry buttercream. It is spread that evenly across this cake layer, just bringing everything together. I've transferred some of my buttercream into the frosting and you can use just about any type of tip. I'm using the Ateco tip number 847. Going to pipe a little border, as a barrier, to keep the strawberry preserves on the inside. This way, they won't leak out the side of the cake.
And we'll fill the inside of our heart cake with strawberry preserves. Spread those evenly to the edges. And now, we can finish putting the cake together. Add that, add the second cake layers on top, gently press them into place. And now that I have my cake shaped and filled, it's time to apply the crumb coat of frosting. And its job is exactly what the name implies - it'll seal in all the crumbs, so this is a thinner layer of frosting. I'll spread that evenly on the outside. And then I'll tuck the cake into the refrigerator for about 15 to 20 minutes.
Cake Decorating
But I'm not going to add too much more frosting to the top because we are going to add lots and lots of piped buttercream. And now, for garnishing the cake, I've transferred my white buttercream into a pastry bag tipped with the French star tip number four. I transferred the rest of my strawberry buttercream and I'm using Ateco tip numbers 827, 823. And, I have a little jar full of Valentine's Day sprinkles. This cake is just so pretty and stunning! The vanilla cake with strawberry