Michelle Darmody: How to bake a strawberry heart cake for your Valentine — and the mistakes to avoid
The powdered strawberry also adds a nice hue to the strawberry cheesecake icing, making this cake a perfect Valentine’s treat.
Baking a cake and sharing it with those you love is a timeless way to show you care.
Valentine’s Day can simply be used as an excuse to sweeten the path to someone’s affection.
Strawberry plants are only pushing the tips of leaves through the ground at this time of year. It will be a while yet before the berries become ripe and sweet.
In the meantime, there are alternatives for getting that delicious summer taste during the winter months.
You can use frozen strawberries, which are quite easy to access in the freezer section of most larger shops.
They work well in sweet cakes and desserts. This recipe, however, uses freeze-dried strawberries, which you can buy whole, or grind into a powder.
You do not need a large volume of the freeze-dried berries as their flavour is quite concentrated, in the way a prune is far more intense than a plum.
Both drying processes — the dehydrating of the plum, or the freeze-drying of the berry — removes the water yet keeps the taste and flavour.
The powdered strawberry also adds a nice hue to the strawberry cheesecake icing, making the cake a perfect Valentine’s treat.
Baking a cake and sharing it with those you love is a timeless way to show you care. Valentine’s Day can simply be used as an excuse to sweeten the path to someone’s affection. Servings Preparation Time Cooking Time Total Time Course Ingredients 250g self-raising flour 4 tbsp cocoa powder 1 ½ tsp bread soda 3 eggs 240g golden caster sugar 225 ml light sunflower oil 220 ml milk For the cheesecake icing: 230g cream cheese 25g freeze-dried strawberry powder 1 tsp vanilla 110g soft butter 380g icing sugar 1 tbsp milk, if needed Method Preheat your oven to 180ºC/gas mark 4. Line a heart shaped tin. I use a spring form one that is 8-inchs wide. Sieve the flour, cocoa powder and bread soda together into a bowl and set aside. Whisk the eggs, sugar, oil and milk until smooth. Gently add the liquid to the flour mixture until combined. Scoop the cake batter into the prepared tin. Place your tin into the centre of your oven and bake for 50/55 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool in the tin until cool enough to handle and then gently remove it from the tin. Leave it on the rack to cool. Whisk the cream cheese, freeze-dried strawberry powder, vanilla and butter until light and fluffy. If the icing needs to be loosened to help it spread more easily you can add the milk, bit by bit. Cut the cold cake horizontally through the centre, making two hearts. Spread a layer of the icing onto the heart which will form the base and then place the other on top of it. Ice around the sides and top of the cake. Decorate with berries or some Valentine’s Day cake decorations.Strawberry Heart Cake
Cover the heart in buttercream icing instead of the strawberry cheesecake icing used in this recipe. Something like coffee buttercream, which is always a good match with chocolate sponge, will completely change the cake.
Another option is an icing flavoured with orange zest and vanilla.
Whisk 160g of soft butter, 2 tsp vanilla, 300g of icing sugar with the zest of 4 oranges until light and fluffy. Add a teaspoon of milk if it needs to be softened.
This mixture can be used for cupcakes. You will just need to reduce the baking time to about 15 minutes.
You can use a skewer to test and make sure the centre is baked. The batter will make about 24 individual cupcakes.
In place of the strawberry cheesecake icing top the base of the heart with stewed peaches and stiffly whipped cream.
Sandwich the two layers of the heart together. Stir two teaspoons of apricot jam through some more whipped cream and swirl a layer on the top of the cake.
