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Chocolate Heart Cake | ZoëBakes | Photo by Zoë François

Valentine's Day Chocolate Cake!

I make these mini chocolate cakes shaped like hearts for Valentine's Day. The devil's food cakes are covered in decadent chocolate ganache and are tasty, fun and the perfect sized treat for all your Valentines young and old.

Ingredients

Devil's Food Cake

  • 1 ½ cups sugar (320g)
  • 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour (215g)
  • ½ cup cocoa powder (50g)
  • 1 ¼ tsp baking soda
  • ¾ tsp salt
  • 1 egg
  • 1 egg yolk
  • ¾ cup buttermilk ¾ cup plus 1 tsp lemon if you don't have buttermilk
  • cup oil
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • ½ cup coffee
  • cup rum use more coffee if you don't want the booze

Buttercream or 2 cups heavy whipping cream plus ⅓ cup raspberry preserves

    Ganache

    • 1 lb bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
    • 2 cups heavy cream

    Instructions

    • Preheat oven to 350°F.
    • Grease and line a 11×16″ Baking Sheet with parchment.
    • Whisk together all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Sift the cocoa and baking soda if they are lumpy.
    • Whisk in the liquid ingredients, until smooth. Pour into prepared pan and spread evenly with an offset spatula.
    • Bake for about 20 minutes or until just set or a tester comes out with moist crumb.
    • Cut the devil’s food cake with a Heart Cookie Cutter. Depending on the size of your cutter this will get you about 12 2-layer cakes per sheet.

    To Make The Cream

    • Whip the heavy cream until soft peaks, add the raspberry preserves and continue whipping until stiff peaks. Fill a Pastry Bag, fitted with a round pastry tip and pipe the cream on half of the heart shaped cakes.
    • Top the cream with another layer of cake. Cover the cake with plastic wrap and refrigerate while you make the ganache.

    Ganache

    • Heat cream until just to simmer. Remove from heat. Dump in all of the chopped chocolate, swirl the pot to make sure the chocolate is completely covered by the cream. Let sit for about 3 minutes and then gently whisk until smooth. Allow to cool slightly to thicken enough to cling to the cakes.
    • To pour the ganache on the cakes you will need to set them on a cooling rack that is over a sheet pan lined with parchment. You want to do this to catch all of the dripping chocolate.
    • Slowly pour the ganache over the heart cake, starting in the middle and working outward. Be sure to check all the sides as you go. As you can see there will be a lot pooled up on the parchment, but you will scrape that up and be able to remelt and use again. See my instagram video to make sure it is the right consistency.
    • If your ganache starts to get too thick, return the pot to the stove and heat on very low heat, just for a moment.
    • Allow your valentine’s day heart cake to set at room temperature for about 20 minutes. If you need to refrigerate them, they will lose their shine. Once you return them to room temperature the shine will come back.