Heart-Shaped Cake

Small kitchens mean making choices. Special shaped pans are just not that necessary. The heart shaped cake, though, is pretty easy to manage without the fancy pan. If you have both a square and round cake pan, try here for instructions. Basically, you cut the round cake in half and position them on two adjacent sides of the square cake. Then you have to give it up for the person using a a tube cake pan. Me? I'd probably just go at a round cake with a knife, a quick v cut at the top and a little off both sides. The bonus of this way is you have snack before you begin to frost the cake. If a two-layer cake is your goal, this approach could still work with two round cake layers. Or a sheet pan could work if you wanted to go completely freehand for a two layer cake. In either case a parchment or cardboard heart make work as a guide. Frosting and berries can hide any imperfections. And let's face it, if you go to the trouble of making someone a cake and they can't get past it's unique qualities, well then, they are just not your Valentine and it's best you found out now.