How to Make a Heart-Shaped Cake

I’m a big fan of celebration cakes, but I prefer not to stock my cupboards with specialty cake pans and tools I may only use once or twice in the course of my cooking career. I’m sure you don’t feel much differently, which is why I’d like to share some simple tutorials on how to make themed cakes without the use of one-time baking pans or complicated kitchen tools. My kitchen cupboards are crowded and I have no space for anything other than my basic baking supplies, so if I can use those to make fun-shaped cakes I feel that I’m further ahead.

We’ve tackled the simple football cake and I thought it would be fitting to learn how to make a heart-shaped cake without the use of a one-time kitchen tool or gadget.

My mother-in-law taught me how to make this simple cake. It was her go-to creation for classroom parties when my husband and his brothers were in elementary school, and it really couldn’t be easier to make.

She liked to use a cake mix for her cake, but I prefer to make two batches of the easiest chocolate cake you’ll ever make. It’s cake-mix simple and allergy-friendly, and takes less time to assemble and bake than it would take you to drive to the grocery store and back. As I’ve said before, this cake is my go-to chocolate cake, and it works very well in this recipe.

To make this cake, pull out a standard 8-inch square baking pan and a standard 8-inch round baking pan. Fill both with batter and bake as per your recipe directions. Cool completely and remove the cakes from the pan. Turn the square cake so it sits in a diamond shape, then slice the round one in half, and affix each half to the two adjacent sides of the square cake. Voila! You’ve just made a heart! This is so simple even the kids can do it.

how to make a heart-shaped cake