Cake Cake Cake

In honor of Valentine’s Day and my ever-expanding waistline, my sister and I made a cake. Like a huge cake. Cake cake cake cake……and it’s not even anyone’s birthday.

To start this bad boy, first bake THE cake. Here I cheated and used a mix, whatever. Winnie was mad about this. Or did she just want to come back into the warm house?? You tell me.

Next, make a basic pastry cream. If you have a whole vanilla bean, use it. Those black flecks are gold.

For a sturdy and delicious piping frosting, make Italian Meringue Buttercream. Sounds intimidating I know, but it is really not. We made a 1/2 recipe here.

FEW TIPS: When boiling the sugar syrup, use a wet pastry brush to get rid of any sugar crystals on the side of the pan. Keep a close eye on the temperature of the hot sugar mixture because it goes through various heating spurts. Also, when pouring the hot sugar mixture into the whipped egg whites, try and avoid the sides of the bowl. You want a steady stream aimed at the moving center of your mixer. That way you won’t get little chunks of hardened sugar. (Believe me, I have had it happen before)

Flavorings: Salt and vanilla extract are your friends.

Coloring: Food coloring is your friend.

Once everything is nice and cool…..it’s ASSEMBLY TIME!

Cut the cakes in half, layer on fresh raspberry jam….

GIVE HER a good ole’ blob of pastry cream…

A top.

Perfect. Time to give her a crumb coat of buttercream….

Repeat for next layer. We did a tiered cake here, so there was a second, smaller layer. Refrigerate uncovered, until hardened. (roughly 1 hour)

Cover with another layer of buttercream… if you don’t love my sloppy, handmade look, you can smooth out seams by running your spatula under hot water.

THEN decorate your heart out.

Because we are clearly both obsessed with hearts, my sister made these awesome chocolate covered peanut butter and jelly bites. Aren’t they cute together?? (like me and Stephen Merchant??!!?)