Love Heart Cake

It was Anna's birthday last week and to celebrate we had a lunch with a small group family and close friends on Sunday to celebrate. She has recently discovered a love for dim sims so we went to Yum Cha which delicious and lots of fun.

The brief was: a 'lub heart' cake with pink and sprinkles please Mum.

This one was very much a home style cake. I know I've made much fancier cakes in the past, with professional piped icing and decorating, but this time I went for a more rustic, easy approach. (aka I didn't have much time and I had a bunch of other stuff to do!)

I also had a bit of a baking fail. I must have knocked the oven dial somehow - I have a fan forced oven that bakes cakes nicely at 170C. After a while baking it was giving off a burnt smell - I checked the oven and it was set to over 200C! Eek! The outer edge was a bit burnt so I ended up cutting all the edges off and trimming the cake down.

I can't take credit for the musk stick border (which I love, mainly because musk sticks are a huge favourite of mine!) My friend Anne from Domesblissity shared a picture of a cake she made for her daughter's birthday a few months ago. She used the musk sticks around the edge and I loved how it looked so I copied her :) I used little candy hearts for the four, which I got at a specialty lolly shop at my local shopping centre, and the finished the edge with sprinkles, as per Anna's instructions.

A big discovery during this cake baking project was Abby's pan coat to grease the cake tin, which was not a non-stick tin. She gave me some the other day to try - the recipe is on her blog here - it was brilliant! I just brushed it on my cake tin and not one single crumb stuck. If you bake a lot you MUST make up a batch.

One happy girl and one yummy cake which didn't last long. Especially with my father-in-law around-  I think he had four slices!