How Make a Heart-Shaped Cake (Oval or Ellipse Method)

Heart-shaped desserts are fun to make for girls' birthday parties, bake sales, or Valentine's Day. If you want to make a heart-shaped cake, but you don't have any heart pans, you can still make a perfectly symmetric heart using an oval or ellipse. (If you don't have any oval cake pans, see the companion article How to Make a Heart-Shaped Cake Using a Square & Circle.)

For the non-geometrically inclined, there are heart-shaped cake and cupcake pans.

Step 0:

Bake a cake in an oval-shaped pan!

Step 1:

Using a knife and straight edge, lightly mark the major axis and minor axis of the ellipse. Where the two lines intersect is the center of the cake. See the top-left image below.

Step 2:

Next, mark two more lines that pass through the center of the cake and make 45° angles with the first two lines. Be sure to measure and mark the angles as accurately as possible. (If you need a guide to make a 45° angle, take any rectangular sheet of paper and fold it at the corner so the two adjacent sides meet. The angle of the fold is 45°.) See bottom-right image above.

Step 3:

Using the lines you made in Step 2 as a guide, cut the cake into three pieces as shown in the figure below.

Step 4:

Rearrange the three pieces of cake to form a heart as shown in the image above.

Step 5:

To prevent your heart-shaped cake from coming apart, "glue" the pieces together with frosting and ice the top and sides of the cake as well. You can decorate the finished cake with heart candies or heart-shaped strawberry halves.


© Had2Know 2010