heart cake

Ok, usually I am a "from scratch" kind of girl, but when I decided to tackle this heart cake I decided to spend all my energy on making it look great, so I cut some corners and baked some box mixes (my family is all gasping right now, I just know it!)... try not to judge me too harshly!

 the goods:

4 white cakes (8" rounds)

1 red velvet cake (9x13 sheet)

frosting of your choice (I used 3 to 4 large cans of cream cheese)

Level all four white cakes. Add about 1/2 cup to 1 cup frosting to 2 white cakes and then put the second cake on top. You want two separate two-layer cakes at this point. Freeze the layer cakes for a couple of hours, this will make carving them so much easier!

Run a fork through the red velvet cake and add about a cup of frosting and combine well.

Take a knife and draw a shallow border on each cake (or if you're nervous, you can tie 2 toothpicks together with a string in between, place one toothpick in the middle of the cake and drag the other one around to make a perfect circle). Carve a v-shape out of one of the cakes (this should look like a big cone). On the second cake, start with your knife in the middle and carve out a little island (like an upside-down cone). Then move back to the outside border and carve a channel that meets the center cone. (I really should have taken pictures as I was doing this as I'm now realizing how hard it is to describe!) Now use a spoon to make your channel a little more rounded (think heart). Now fill each cake with the red velvet cake. Add some frosting to the edge of the bottom cake (make sure you remember which is which!). Now carefully flip the channel cake on top of the v-cake. Add some more frosting and do a rough crumb coat over the whole cake. Put this in the fridge for at least a half hour, or as long as overnight. Add more frosting and smooth it out, I had leftover red velvet, so I used that to garnish the cake, but if you don't you can always do some piping work! ;)