Making a Valentines cake is always a fun surprise but this version truly has a surprise inside! Hidden Heart Valentines Pound Cake shows your love when slicing; a heart in every serving! Works with gluten-free or other cake mixes.
I have been chomping at the bit to get into Valentine’s food. I have always loved Valentine’s Day. It is such a happy occasion, just dwelling on love with the color pink abounding everywhere.
Ever since I was a child I’ve relished creating Valentine’s cards with secret messages in conversation heart candies and hours of artistry ensuring no one was missed. The proof of that is in the Valentine’s recipes available on BoulderLocavore.com!
Sometime last fall a clever photo on Pinterest caught my attention.
There was no corresponding recipe or article so I’m not even exactly sure what it was.
It looked like maybe some seasonal bread with a spice bread pumpkin shape in the middle.
I was instantly smitten. Loving anything ‘with a surprise inside’ I marveled at what a delight it would be to cut into a loaf of bread and find a pumpkin.
As time goes, the whirlwind of the holidays whisked the image from my memory until recently when I was experimenting with some gluten free pound cake mixes. Though I love to make everything I can from scratch, it’s not always possible in the life of a busy mom-blogger.
When I can I like to try out mixes so if I’m in a pinch I have a ‘go to’ selection and am not experimenting late the night before a special treat is due somewhere early the next day, knowing from experience not all gluten free mixes are created equal.
During my experimentation the bread-in-the-bread popped to mind again. I also have a passion for figuring things out, re-engineering and repurposing so decided to couple the two endeavors together to see if I couldn’t pull off a gluten free Valentines-themed surprise; a Valentines cake with a surprise heart inside.
I’m NOT a fancy baker. I admire ‘Martha’ and the rest of the beautiful bakers out in cyberspace who create flawless confections that look to be made from porcelain but have come to terms with the fact that knack does not dwell actively (or dormantly) in my culinary DNA.
I’m more of a rustic dessert girl. Being that as it is, I generally have low expectations that anything hinting at a fussy creation will work at my more broad-brush baking hand.
Can Hidden Heart Cake be Gluten-Free?
YES! In fact the cake shown in the photos IS gluten-free.
The technique can be used for any cake mix. I chose pound cake due to it having more substance and feeling it would stand up to the technique best.
How to Make Hidden Heart Pound Cake
All the specific steps to make Hidden Heart Valentine’s cake are in the recipe below (it’s printable too). Here is a high level summary:
- The pink cherry-flavored pound cake is baked and sliced the depth of the cookie cutter being used. Example: if the cookie cutter is 1-inch deep, the cake slices should be 1-inch. (photo 1)
- Slice the entire pink pound cake and cut out hearts from all slices. Set the extra parts of the slice aside to eat OR make pound cake bread pudding! (photo 2)
- Mix the chocolate pound cake batter and spoon some in the bottom of the loaf pan.
- With a helper, line up the pink cake hearts with the bottom point in the chocolate batter and the hearts next to each other (no spaces). NOTE: there will be space in the front and back however to take a photo the pan was on its side so no space shows on the bottom of the pan in the photo above. (photo 3)
- Fill in the rest of the pan, spooning the chocolate cake better on either side of the pink hearts to support them then covering them on top.
- Bake and cool as specified in the recipe card below. Slice and enjoy (photo 4)!
After carefully engineering what I hoped would be an unexpected, smile-invoking confection I crossed my fingers and pulled out the serrated knife. Mere words cannot express my excitement when cutting into the molten-brown, chocolately pound cake to reveal a brilliant fuchsia heart beaming from the center of every slice.
I witnessed the magic of the surprise on the faces of my familial taste testers as well. As enchanting as is the visual is of this pound cake, the flavor is truly the star. Deep, dark chocolate enveloping a glorious cherry-flavored heart. Yin and yang, kismet, meant to be; two flavors comingled in their destiny to create a happy bite.
How to Make Hidden Heart Valentines Cake Recipe – Step by Step:
Hidden Heart Valentine’s Pound Cake
Ingredients
Ingredients:
- Favorite Vanilla or Butter Pound Cake recipe or mix (1 loaf)*
- Favorite Chocolate Pound Cake recipe or mix (1 loaf)**
- 1/8 teaspoon Pink Food Coloring (I used Wilton ‘Rose’)
- ½ teaspoon – 1 tablespoon Cherry Extract
Supplies:
- Heart-shaped Cookie Cutter (3 ½ inches at the widest spot by 3 inches tall)
- Serrated Knife
- Loaf pan
Instructions
- Preheat oven to the temperature specified for the butter or vanilla pound cake.
- Assemble the vanilla pound cake per the recipe or mix directions. To make the brilliant fuchsia heart, add 1/8 teaspoon Wilton Rose coloring to the mix (if desiring a more tame pink, begin to add small amounts dipped from the container with a toothpick, mix and add more if needed; it is very concentrated coloring). Mix incorporating the color uniformly in the batter.
- Begin adding cherry flavoring by the ½ teaspoon until reaching desired flavor. Note: I used a natural Cherry flavoring and wanted a strong cherry flavor to stand up to the chocolate in the outer cake so ended up using 1 tablespoon.
- Pour batter into a prepared loaf pan. Bake as instructed in recipe or mix directions. Remove, cool and remove from the pan. Allow to cool completely.
- Reheat oven to specified temperature for the chocolate pound cake recipe or mix.
- Place cherry pound cake on a cutting board. Using the depth of the heart cookie cutter as a guide, cut the pound cake into slices the same thickness as the cookie cutter (e.g. my cookie cutter is 1 inch deep so I made slices that were 1 inch thick).
- Place each slice flat on the cutting board and using the cookie cutter cut one heart out of each slice. Set aside scraps.
- Butter a loaf pan the same size or larger than the pan used for the cherry pound cake. Place cherry pound cake hearts in the middle of the prepared pan; point down, back-to-back touching each other.
- Prepare the chocolate pound cake recipe or mix according to the directions.
- This step is easiest accomplished with a helper! Begin on one end of the loaf pan, with one person holding the hearts upright on their point, place a spoonful of batter on one side of the first heart and then a spoonful on the opposite of the first heart. Proceed up the pan in this manner until there is a small amount of batter on either side of all the hearts; this will stabilize the hearts and ensure they stay on their point during baking. Fill in the remaining batter on both sides and cover the top of the hearts. Note: the top may be rounded due to the shape of the top of the hearts.
- Bake the pound cake to the directions for the chocolate pound cake. Check for doneness earlier than suggested. Due to the pre-baked cherry pound cake center the pound cake may done earlier than if baking regularly.
- Remove from oven; allow to cool for 15-20 minutes in the pan on a cooling rack. Remove from pan and cool completely before slicing. Note: I found the gluten free pound cake sliced best after refrigerating. Can be kept in the refrigerator tightly wrapped for up to a week or frozen and then defrosted to be eaten at a later date.
- In the next Boulder Locavore post will be a recipe to use up the leftover scraps of the Cherry Pound Cake!
Recipe Notes
*{Gluten Free} For the Cherry Pound Cake I used Pamela’s Classic Vanilla Cake Mix prepared to the ‘Pamela’s Pound Cake’ instructions on the package.
**{Gluten Free} For the Chocolate Pound Cake I used Pamela’s Chocolate Cake Mix prepared to the ‘Pamela’s Decadent Chocolate Pound Cake’ instructions on the package.
Sommer says
I’m definitely going to make this for my kids this Valentine’s Day!