Do you remember the super fast and easy paper heart cake toppers I made for Valentine's Day last year? The cake was pretty cute with just the toppers, but I felt like it needed just a little something else...
A big, sprinkle covered heart. Yes, that's exactly what that cake needed.
Last year I taught you how to make the toppers, but I neglected to do a tutorial on the heart decoration for the side of the cake! I'm remedying that now. In fact, I'm going to teach you two ways to do it.
The first, most traditional way, is incredibly easy, but requires a full day to let the icing dry completely. Pipe a heart shape out of royal icing on waxed paper, then, while it's still wet, cover the heart in sprinkles. LOTS of sprinkles. Really mound it on there. (Yes! There's an icing heart under that big pile of sprinkles in the picture above!) The reason you need so many extra sprinkles is to be sure the sprinkles stick to every surface, even the sides of the heart-shaped puddle of frosting.
LET DRY COMPLETELY. A full day. And make extras, in case of breakage. Large, solid shapes like hearts are pretty sturdy, but if you try to peel it from the waxed paper too early, they're prone to break.
The benefit of this technique? Yummy, entirely edible cake decoration! The downside? It takes a full day.
But what if you don't have a full day? You need it NOW? I've got that figured out for you, too.
Start by cutting a heart out of paper. I used pink cardstock, because I have tons of scrapbook supplies and I liked the sturdiness it supplied.
Spread some icing on that paper heart, and cover in sprinkles. No need to wait for this one to dry--slap it right on that cake with a little blob of icing. Total time? About two minutes, and that included searching for the scissors my girls had forgotten to put back in the right place. Now, this isn't an edible cake decoration, obviously. But it is cute! And fast! And sometimes that's exactly what you need.