Are you looking for something fun to bake for Valentine’s Day but are thinking that it’s too late? Well, this may just be the cake for you. All you need is 2 boxes of cake mix (I used white & chocolate), a loaf pan, a 2-inch heart cookie cutter and pink (or red) food coloring. While I used a white cake mix tinted pink for the hearts inside of a chocolate cake, you could try pink hearts inside of a white cake, red hearts inside of a white cake, red hearts inside of a yellow cake and so forth. It’s really up to you.
To begin, I prepped a box of white cake mix per the directions and then tinted it pink with a few drops of gel food coloring. I then poured it into a loaf pan that I sprayed with baking spray and baking it in a 350 F oven for 40 minutes, the cake wasn’t quite done but was browning considerably along the top so I dropped the temperature to 325 F and baked it for another 10 minutes. I let the cake cool for about 20 minutes in the pan and then transferred it to a wire rack to cool completely.
After the cake cooled I sliced it into approximately 1 inch slices. Some of the slices were a little thicker, some a little thinner. In the end, it didn’t matter.
Next, using a 2-inch heart cookie cutter I cut hearts from the slice of cake and set them aside. Those mini heart were for a different project that turned out to be a fail… Oh Well.
You will have a bunch of cake scraps left, I ended up snacking on a few pieces and then tossing the rest. If you make cake pops, or have been wanting to make pops, save these scraps for that.
I then prepped the chocolate cake mix per the directions on the box. I spread about a 1/2 inch later of the batter onto the bottom of my loaf pan that I prepped with baking spray.
Next, I arranged the 2-inch hearts in a row down the middle of the pan, leaving a small space between the first and last heart and then pan, while making sure the hearts in the middle were as close together as possible. This is why I said that if your slices aren’t exactly 1-inch thick it won’t matter. Once you line them together it will all be good.
I used a ladle to slowly pour the rest of the batter along the sides and on the top of the hearts. You don’t want to just pour the batter into the pan, this could disturb the hearts and you could end up with chocolate in between them. I did make sure that the hearts were completely covered with the batter. You don’t want a heart peeking out of the top of the cake… that would ruin the surprise.
I then baked it in a 350 F preheated oven for about 40 minutes. I inserted a cake tester and the inside was a still a little underdone so I lowered the oven temperature to 325 F and baked it for an additional 10 minutes, similar to what I did with the pink cake. Once again, I let the cake cool for about 20 minutes in the pan then removed it and let it cool completely on a wire rack.
Once it was cool it was time to slice and see if my hidden heart cake was a succes… And it was!!!
Bead Yarn & Spatula 
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