Even if You Don’t have Time to be Awesome You can Still Make this Easy Heart Shaped Cake for Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day totally got away from me this year.

Last year I was all Super Pinterest Mom, and David took these cool homemade Valentines to school.

But I can’t be awesome all the time.

Just today I finally went to the store and bought Valentine’s. David’s taking Angry Bird cards to school on Thursday. Birds trying to kill pigs over eggs. So romantic. And despite the messages on the Valentine’s all being completely platonic, there was still a great deal of Second Grade Angst over which card to give to whom.

“I can’t give a boy a card that says, ‘You’re the bomb.’ I’m giving E the card that says, ‘We make a good team,’ because I play with her a lot at recess, and she’s my best friend. (This was news to me that his best friend is a girl.) I don’t really feel like J is a ‘great friend.’ ”

Of course the whole time I was like, “Just write somebody’s name on it. You have 19 more to do!”

I felt like I still needed to do something nice for my family to celebrate The Day of Love. So I made a heart shaped cake. It looks fancy, but it’s so easy. You probably already have everything you need to make it.

First you need a chocolate cake. Use a mix or make it from scratch. I used this recipe for Hershey’s Perfectly Chocolate Cake. It’s simple to make, and tastes delicious.

Once you have your cake batter mixed up divide it evenly between a round cake pan and a square cake pan. Make sure you grease and flour the pans well so your cakes pop right out after baking.

After the cakes are baked, let them cool completely.

Now you need something big enough to put your cake together on. I made the mistake of not thinking this part through, and ended up using a cookie sheet flipped upside down, wrapped in a white trash bag. Not pretty, but I didn’t have any cardboard or tin foil to make a cake board, and I didn’t want to go to the store. So it was the best I could do.

Put your square cake on your board so that it looks like a diamond. Cut your round cake in half, and use the two halves to make the top portion of your heart.

 How easy is that?

Frost with your favorite frosting recipe or use store-bought. This cake has a lot of surface so it took a lot of frosting. I used two batches of homemade frosting.

I kicked my cake up a notch by slicing my pieces in half, and filling the cake with homemade strawberry jam, then garnishing with strawberry slices after frosting.

So pretty, and so easy. Prettier if it wasn’t on top of a trash bag. Oh, well. Like I said, I can’t be awesome all the time.