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3 Easy Valentines Day Cakes
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Sep 6, 2024
In this step by step tutorial I'll show you how to decorate 3 easy Valentines Day cakes: a pink ombre cake, a cake for a chocoholic with watercolour chocolate frosting and chocolate cake truffles, and a cake decorated with hearts made with a homemade stencil. To sign up for my free course on 10 Frosting Techniques click here: www.britishgirlbakes.com/10-days-of-frosting-techniques The other tutorials mentioned in this video are: 4 Minute Buttercream Frosting: https://youtu.be/MFKfXbnU1Lw Perfectly Smooth Frosting and Sharp Edges: https://youtu.be/s2kDZue0Tig SUBSCRIBE to my channel for new cake decorating tutorials every week!
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hi! I'm going to show you how to make these three fun mini cakes for Valentine's Day
0:05
I'm preparing a few shades of pink buttercream for my first cake, which is an Ombray cake
0:10
and putting the buttercream in piping bags without piping tips to apply easily to the cake
0:15
I'm starting by attaching my cakeboard to my turn table with some masking tape so it doesn't slide around
0:20
and then securing my first layer of cake with a bit of buttercream. Spreading on a layer of buttercream filling, placing on my next layer of cake
0:30
buttercream, cake, and now I'm going to apply a crumb coat to trap any crumbs that come off the cake
0:36
It's easiest to chill the cake before applying the crumb coat, because the cake is less crumbly when it's cold, but also
0:41
especially with a small cake like this one, which is just four inches wide. When you press the spatula against the cake to apply the frosting, it's easy to knock the cake over
0:49
But if you chill it after securing it to the cake board with some buttercream, the buttercream sets and anchors the cake so it's less wobbly
0:56
Now that I finish the crumb coat, I'm going to chill the cake for about, 30 minutes in the fridge so that it sets and now I'm ready to apply the
1:03
Ombray frosting. I'm holding my first colour against the cake, spinning my
1:08
turn table and applying pressure to squeeze the buttercream out. It doesn't matter
1:13
if it looks messy at this point because we're going to smooth it out next. I'm
1:17
using my four-minute buttercream frosting and I've put the link in the description below and in the screen. I'm changing colors to get darker as I
1:25
go up the cake and making sure the buttercream goes up above the top of the cake
1:29
to avoid any gaps in the frosting. Now I'm using my bench scraper to smooth the frosting
1:34
There are a few air pockets so I'm touching those up with some more frosting and then
1:39
smoothing again. If you're enjoying this tutorial, please click the thumbs up button and
1:44
subscribe to my channel for new cake decorating tutorials every week. I haven't frosted the
1:51
top of the cake yet, so I'm going to do that now and smooth the top with my offset spatula
1:56
then go around the cake again with my bench scraper to fix that bulge caused by spreading the frosting on top
2:03
and then wipe any frosting sticking up into the middle of the top of the cake
2:09
For the finishing touch, I've filled my piping bag with all of the frosting that I've scraped off the cake
2:14
so it's a nice blend of all three shades of pink. I'm using a round tip. This is a Wilton 1A tip
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I'm squeezing the buttercream out of the bag and releasing the pressure as I lift
2:26
the bag, making these nice neat peaks of frosting. If you lift the bag quickly, you'll find
2:31
that your peaks might be neater. And I love that these are different shades of pink all
2:36
blended together, because it looks pretty and also because it's a great way to use up all of the
2:41
extra frosting you scrape off the cake. The next mini cake for Valentine's Day is perfect
2:48
for chocoholics I trimmed the domed tops off my cake layers and I crumbling them into a bowl and mixing half of the crumbs with a bit of chocolate buttercream and the other half with some strawberry buttercream made by boiling some strawberries with a bit of sugar
3:03
letting it cool and then mixing it with my four-minute buttercream. I don't measure the crumbs or frosting when I do this
3:09
Instead I just check the consistency. The mixture needs to have enough frosting to hold the crumbs together to be able to roll them into balls
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but you don't want too much frosting because the balls won't hold their shape
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I'm rolling the balls the same size, you can use a tablespoon or measuring spoon for this if you like
3:27
and now I'll chill them while I prepare the cake. Now I'm taking my chocolate buttercream and adding some more melted chocolate to it
3:34
stirring it just a little bit, not mixing it in completely, to give it a watercolour or marbled effect
3:40
Okay, time to build this cake. I'm attaching the first layer of cake with some chocolate butter cream
3:45
and then layering chocolate buttercream filling, cake, filling and the top layer of cake
3:52
Now I'm using the marbled chocolate buttercream to frost the cake, using an offset spatula to spread the frosting onto the cake
3:58
which I've chilled for about 30 minutes in the fridge. Unusually, I'm not doing a crumb coat for this cake
4:04
because the frosting's gliding on so easily, and because the cake is chilled, there aren't any crumbs coming off into the frosting
4:12
Now I'm smoothing the frosting with a bench scraper and tidying. up the top. I have a very detailed tutorial on how to get perfectly smooth frosting with sharp
4:20
edges and I've put the link in the description below and in the screen. Now I'm going to
4:25
till the cake in the fridge for about 30 minutes before I apply a drip to the cake. I've used
4:30
chocolate ganache in a condiment bottle, holding the bottle above the outer edge of the cake
4:34
and spinning the cake on a turn table. Leaving a trail of ganash around the room of the cake
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and wherever I want to drip, I move my hand outwards slightly to let the ganache fall over the
4:43
edge of the cake and drip down the sides. I'm applying the same amount of pressure to the bottle the whole time
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I've made this ganache by heating two tablespoons of heavy whipping cream, also called double cream
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and then adding a quarter of a cup of semi-sweet chocolate, and letting it sit for five minutes
5:00
then stirring it all together, pouring ganache onto the top of the cake, spreading it around
5:05
with my offset spatula, and then refrigerating it to set the ganash before piping on top
5:15
I'm taking the frosting I scraped off the cake as I smoothed it, and I'm putting it in a piping bag fitted with a 1M tip
5:23
I'm piping a wiggle onto the cake, applying consistent pressure to the piping bag to squeeze out the frosting and wiggling my hands back and forth from side to side, so the frosting wiggles up, folding over itself to make these nice raffles
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I'm doing four opposite each other, so 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock, 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock, and then piping a wiggle in between each so that they're evenly spaced around the cake
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cake I like to count a three or four while I do this so that they all the same height Then I start to lift the bag and release the pressure to make these nice peaks I pressing a little cake ball into each wiggle
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alternating between the ones made with chocolate and strawberry frosting. And there it is
6:06
The third and final mini cake for Valentine's Day is covered with pretty hearts and finished off
6:10
with piped buttercream borders on the top and bottom. After building my cake and frosting it
6:15
I'm going to chill the cake for at least an hour in the fridge so that the frosting sets and holds its shape
6:20
Meanwhile, I'm going to make my own stencil. I'm using parchment paper, which I've wrapped around the cake to make sure it's the same length as the circumference of the cake
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Now I'm drawing a heart on a piece of paper, and if you have a cookie cutter or a sticker, you can trace around that
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Or you could print out a picture of a heart and cut it out and trace around that. I'm free-handing it, which is taking a few attempts, but that's okay
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I'm cutting out the one I like most and I'm going to trace this onto my parchment paper stencil
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To minimize the tracing and cutting I'll have to do, I'm folding my parchment paper in half twice
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horizontally and then three times vertically and holding up my heart to check the measurements
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And I'm going to put a heart on each horizontal line between two vertical lines
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I'm folding the parchment back up again and tracing my heart onto it, just one column of hearts and I'll cut through the folds of parchment to make the whole stencil of hearts
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To cut out the hearts, I'm folding the parchment to make a cut in the center of the heart
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and then sticking my scissor blade through that incision to angle around and cut out the heart shape as neatly as I can
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Doing it three times for this whole column of hearts, and then when I unfold the parchment, I have a complete stencil
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I'm going to use these pins to attach the stencil to my cake. I'm wrapping the parchment around as tightly as I can
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This is why it's important to have a cold cake, so you don't damage the frosting when you do this
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Then I'm pinning the ends of the stencil into the cake so it doesn't move around
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Now you can be really creative with how you decorate these hearts
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You can keep it simple, spreading buttercream frosting onto the stencil to leave a heart shape behind when you peel off the stencil
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And I've tinted my four minute buttercream a few shades of pink, and as I spread the frosting onto the stencil
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I'm spreading from the outside of the heart cut out towards the middle, because if you spread towards the edge of the cutout, you might push frosting under the
8:14
you might push frosting underneath the stencil. You can use acetate to make your stencil
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and it's thicker and stronger, but this parchment paper technique works well as a quick and very cheap option
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You can leave the hearts like this, or you can press sprinkles into the fresh, sticky frosting
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to add more color and texture to the cake. I'm making my own sprinkle mix here
8:34
with different colors and shapes of sprinkles. The first way I tried to apply the sprinkles
8:38
was to pour my sprinkle mix onto a tray and then roll the cake in it. This works really well if you want to cover the entire cake and sprinkles but it doesn work well for the stenciling technique because the sprinkles indent the frosting all over the cake not just where the hearts are because the parchment paper is so thin and doesn protect
8:55
the frosting from the very solid sprinkles on the tray, especially these big round balls
9:01
So, lesson learned, don't roll the cake. Use your hands to press the sprinkles into the cutouts
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on the stencil. I'm scraping off any unwanted sprinkles with my offset spatula, and this works
9:11
well because the cake is chilled so I can scrape off the frosting without damaging it
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Now when I peel off the stencil I'm left with frosting hearts on the cake. You can tidy them up
9:21
with an offset spatula or a toothpick or any sharp object to take off any buttercream that
9:26
creeps below the stencil. Now for the final hearts I'm going to pipe on some texture with
9:32
different colors and different piping tips. I'm using a Wilton 4b and a 199 tip and squeezing
9:38
the frosting onto the hearts to cover them completely. Where my sprinkles indented the cake, when I tried to roll it in sprinkles, I'm just touching up with some butter cream and smoothing it onto the cake
9:56
You'll be able to skip this part if you don't try rolling your cake and sprinkles
10:00
Now I'm going to make some pretty borders on the top and base of the cake
10:05
I'm putting all of my piping bags of frosting into one bag and squeezing the frosting out so I can pipe three tones
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frosting out of this new piping bag. This is a Wilton 1M tip. I'm piping a little
10:18
swell of buttercream in the shape of a letter C and then curving back around to make
10:22
another ring, only going up to the middle of the previous swell, so overlapping half of that
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swell. When I need to adjust my grip on the piping bag and push the frosting further down into
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the bag, I lift off at the midpoint of my swirl, because I'll be covering that up with the next
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swell so you won't see the join. Then I can continue piping swells all the way around the
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the cake, watching to keep them all the same size and to make sure they're the same distance
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from the outer edge of the cake. When I get to the end of the ring, I'm finishing the final
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swell and then adding some sprinkles to the top of the border and the center of the cake
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For the bottom of the cake, I'm also using a 1M tip and I'm holding the bag as vertically as
11:00
possible, with the tip pressed almost against the side of the cake, and I'm squeezing
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the bag to push the frosting out, as I move the bag back and forth, piping the frosting away from me
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and then back towards me, overlapping the previous frosting by about half each time
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This is an easy way to cover up the base of the cake, where the cake meets the cakeboard
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When you get to the end, the waves of the frosting ruffles overlap seamlessly, and you don't notice
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the join at all. Happy Valentine's Day! Thank you so much for watching. I have a free course
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on 10 different frosting techniques, and I've put the link to sign up in the description below and in the screen
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Remember to subscribe to my channel for new cake decorating tutorials every week
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