Heart Ombre Chocolate Cake

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For a lot of people Valentine’s Day is all about the chocolate.   There’s chocolate candy, chocolate cake, and chocolate cupcakes.  Stores sell a lot of chocolate at this time of year.   But I have a confession; I’m not a big fan of chocolate cake.   I like chocolate candy well enough but I don’t really like chocolate cake, chocolate ice cream, or chocolate cupcakes.

That doesn’t mean that I won’t make chocolate baked goods.   I often make chocolate cakes and cupcakes for family and friends.   I just usually won’t eat them.  I’m much more of a vanilla cake person.

The exception is this Heart Ombre Chocolate Cake.   I’m not sure why but it’s so much better then any other chocolate cake I’ve tasted.  My husband agreed and said it’s the best chocolate cake he’s had.  The funny thing is that I just threw together a bunch of ingredients and hoped for the best.  It turned out to be a chocolate cake that I actually like!

To make this cake I baked two layers of the chocolate cake.   While it was cooling I mixed up a batch of buttercream frosting.  I put aside 3/4 of the frosting to leave white and then divided then last quarter of it into three bowls.   I colored one red, one pink, and one mauve.   This will be the frosting for the ombre hearts.

I layered the cakes with frosting in between the layers and then frosted the cake with the buttercream.   After frosting I piped hearts around the sides from red to mauve to pink so it had an ombre effect.  Then I put fun heart sprinkles on top to finish it off.

The cake tasted great.  It was super moist and the frosting really added a nice sweetness to the cake.   There was a lot of chocolate flavor but it wasn’t overpowering.    It’s a really easy cake to make but it looks super pretty!  Give a try for your next Valentine’s Day party or bake it for your family.

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Heart Ombre Chocolate Cake

Yield: serves 16

Prep Time: 35 minutes

Cook Time: 35 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes

A delicious chocolate cake frosting with buttercream and decorated with red ombre hearts.

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Ingredients

For the cake:

• 1 stick butter, softened
• 2 c. sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla
• 1 3/4 c. flour
• 3/4 c. cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 c. milk

For the frosting:

• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 4 c. powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2-3 Tablespoons milk
• red, pink, and white food coloring

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put a parchment paper circle in the bottom of two 8 inch cake pans. Spray the parchment and the sides of the cake pans and set aside.
2. In a large bowl combine the butter and sugar and mix until well combined.
3. Stir in the eggs and vanilla and mix well.
4. In a medium bowl combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix well.
5. Add half of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix well. Stir in the milk and mix until combined. Stir in the remaining flour mixture.
6. Divide the batter between the two prepared pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool completely on a write rack.
7. To make the frosting put the butter, 2 cups of powdered sugar, vanilla, and 2 tablespoons of milk in a bowl. Mix with a mixer on medium speed until smooth. Add in the remaining powdered sugar a half cup at a time until desired consistency is reached. Add in more milk if needed.
8. Remove 1/4 of the frosting from the bowl. Divide that quarter of frosting into 3 bowls. Dye one red, one pink, and one mauve (or a color in between the red and pink).
9. Use 1/2 cup of the white frosting and frost one layer of the cake. Put the second layer on top of it. Use remaining white frosting to frost the cake.
10. Pipe pink hearts around the sides of the cake. Pipe a mauve heart underneath each pink heart. Then pipe a red heart underneath each mauve heart.
11. If you have any remaining white frosting pipe a pretty edge on top of the cake. Sprinkle with heart sprinkles or colored sprinkled.

Notes

Cake and frosting recipes are Hezzi-D original recipes. Idea for the Ombre Cake from Beyond Frosting