Valentine's Day always requires some special preparations - you must buy gifts, then prepare a festive dinner. And we offer you a more interesting and creative alternative - to express all your immeasurable love for family and friends, just bake the "Heart" cake, which has a suitable design for such a holiday.
Why cake?
Before we break into the cooking process itself, we want to explain our choice to you. Undoubtedly, many people prefer to receive a delicious gift, for example, a festive lunch or dinner, which can be composed of several dishes. To take in use various outlandish products, and then all this is beautifully presented.
But we still believe that the most interesting part begins just after the main meal. It’s time to drink tea, and what better way to combine with it if not for the “Heart” cake made by your caring hands?
In addition, desserts are easier to decorate in order to emphasize their direct purpose, and thanks to the unusual shape of our dish, you are sure to immediately kill everyone who wants to celebrate February 14th.
List of ingredients
To make it easier for you to navigate in this article, we will break it down so that the components used go straight to the point. That is why we will start with the most important thing, with the test. You will need:
- chicken eggs - 4 pcs;
- sugar - 150 g;
- flour - 100 g;
- vanillin - 1 tsp
Stage One: Cooking a Biscuit
- Separate the proteins from the yolks and place them in separate containers, previously wiped from the water.
- Sift the flour carefully so that there are no lumps left in it.
- We prepare the mold in advance by making a “French shirt” with butter and flour. Just grease all surfaces, and then sprinkle with flour, and then remove the excess.
- In a separate container, beat the yolks with two types of sugar, until it dissolves and clarifies the total mass. In this case, you can use not only a hand mixer, but also an ordinary whisk, with which it will also be easy to achieve the desired result.
- Also, whisk the proteins with added sugar separately until soft peaks, and then divide into three parts of equal mass.
- Add one part of the protein mixture to the yolk mixture, introduce all the flour, mixing gently so that it does not scatter, and then interfere with the remaining proteins.
- We spread the dough into a mold and send it to the oven, preheated to 180 degrees for 30-35 minutes. Still, do not forget that everyone’s ovens are different, so after 25 minutes of cooking, check the cake by piercing it with a long skewer.
- We leave the finished biscuit for the night, after covering it with a towel or film.
- We give the finished cake a shape with the help of a finished or home-made paper stencil. This way we get a heart-shaped cake.
List of Impregnation Ingredients
After we baked the cakes and left them to rest, it's time to prepare an impregnation that will make them more juicy and soft. Since the “Heart” cake on February 14 requires some special and bright notes, we will create them using alcohol.
But don’t worry, it will completely disappear, leaving only distinct notes of fragrant spices. So you need:
- sugar - 130 g;
- water - 120 ml;
- alcohol - 1 tbsp. l
Preparation of syrup impregnation
- Pour sugar into a clean small saucepan, then fill it with water.
- We wait and do not move away from the stove until the sugar is completely dissolved in water, without bringing the liquid to a strong boil.
- Remove the syrup container from the stove, then cool it to room temperature.
- Once the liquid has cooled, add alcohol to it, which can be easily replaced with fruit juice or a ready-made drink, such as coffee. Thus, you can independently adjust the tastes and experiment with new additives.
List of ingredients for cream
Cake "Heart", the recipe of which we are carefully considering today, will not be able to become truly delicious without a gentle and dense cream. It is him that we will now prepare from very simple and improvised ingredients. We will need:
- butter - 200 g;
- condensed milk - 1/2 cup.
Making a gentle cream
- We get the butter in advance from the refrigerator so that it stays for about 30 minutes and slightly melts.
- Beat soft butter with a hand mixer or whisk until light, after which we begin to gently pour the condensed milk, while continuing to mix the mass.
- As soon as all the components join together, we can assume that the cream is ready. It can be used both for a layer of cakes, and for external coating. By the way, since decorating the Heart cake is rather difficult, you can add a few drops of liquid dye to the cream to give it brightness.
Making a cake
- We take the cakes that have been lying down and, having given them a heart shape, we soak them in syrup. You should not add it too much, as the cakes can get wet, and the Heart cake will turn flimsy.
- In the pre-prepared form, put the first cake so that the outer crust looks down, and then cover it with a good layer of freshly prepared cream. If you do not have a finished form, then you can easily replace it with a homemade version of the foil.
- We take the second cake, and put it on our entire “construction” with the crust up.
- We cover it with souffle made from gelatin and milk. This is very simple and quick - soak the gelatin in a glass of milk, and then leave it for 1-1.5 hours. After swelling, you need to bring the liquid to a boil and dissolve the gelatin, and then quickly remove from the stove. Separately, whip the cold cream and add them to the milk mixture. Cool the resulting souffle in the refrigerator, and only then apply the next layer on our Heart cake.
- Since we are preparing the Heart cake without mastic, it means that berry jelly will serve as the top decoration for us. You can buy ready-made, but you can use berry juice and gelatin. To prepare it is as simple as pronouncing its name, and most importantly, these are exactly the same actions as when creating a souffle. Of course, without adding cream, as jelly is not required.
- In no case do not apply hot jelly to the cake, because in this way you spoil everything right away. Just wait until it reaches room temperature, then pour into a chilled form with a cake. Ready dessert is best left in the refrigerator for the night.
Cake decoration
How to make a Heart cake so that it’s breathtaking for tasters only at one glance? Of course, decorate it in the best way!
There are several options for decorating the dessert, and only you can decide which one you choose, but we are sure that everything needs to be soaked in pink and red colors.
- First idea. You can use our homemade cream with condensed milk. If it is well cooled, as well as given color with liquid dyes, then you can perfectly mask all the irregularities on the sides. Using a pastry bag or, in extreme cases, an ordinary spoon, you can betray the edges of some original relief or even replace it with roses.
- Second idea. No one doubts that with such a cake bright greens of mint leaves will look good. They can not only be put on top for decor, but also fixed with cream in some places on the sides. But still, be careful and do not overdo it, since mint can be very bitter.
- The third idea. Using berry jelly for the top final layer, we can easily take fresh berries and fruits for decoration. Large berries of strawberries, blackberries and raspberries will look especially healthy, but if they are hard enough to find, then you can replace them with the usual kiwi, peaches or bananas. And so that the whole structure holds firmly and does not fall, it can be fixed with cream.
- Fourth idea. A heart-shaped cake will look very good if we use chocolate chips and other sweets. In the first case, you can decorate the edges with it, creating a velor effect and a very beautiful texture. And in the second case, you can simply decorate the top with chocolate candies, various bars and sweets, with which you need to be careful, because they can begin to melt from the warmth of the hands.
In extreme cases, you can always use the help of powdered sugar and decorative pastry toppings, which are very easy to find at present. Edible beads, chocolate curls and just plain plain color will look especially good.
Thus, you will not only get the coveted "Heart" cake, but also unforgettable impressions and a huge number of memories that will definitely warm your heart. So this article ends here, and in the place with it your baking and confectionery opportunities increase!