How to make a realistic human heart cake. Something for real romantics.

We don’t really celebrate St. Valentine’s Day but that doesn’t mean I’d let escape the opportunity for some crazy baking. My brain cake was such a success that I made it several times and this time I though it was time for some new organ.

As you might already know, I take pride in the fact that my cakes not only look good, they also taste delicious. That’s why I avoid fondant as much as I can, because it doesn’t taste like anything but sugar. This human heart cake is actually cinnamon biscuit with marmalade and the heart is modeled from chocolate.

I apologize to all the doctors and other people who know about the human heart anatomy, I know my cake is not 100 % accurate.

Table of Contents

Supplies – tools:

cake springform, diameter 16 – 18 cm
silicone rolling mat
rolling pin
brushes
tools for cake decoration – not absolutely necessary but they make the work so much easier

Cake:

2 cups of sugar
3 cups of all-purpose flour
2 tbsp of ground cinnamon
6 eggs
4 tsp of baking powder
4 tbsp of white yogurt
some red gel colorant
pinch of salt
any marmalade

Chocolate and topping

tutorial on How to make modelling chocolate
400 g of white chocolate
130 g of agave syrup (or rice etc.)
red gel food colorant
red marmalade – black currant, strawberry, raspberry…

If you have a 3D model of human heart at home, use it. If not, look up some pictures and videos online.

How to make the human heart cake:

First bake the cake!

Separate the egg whites from the yolks, beat the whites to snow and leave them in the fridge. Mix the yolks with sugar, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and few drops of the colorant. The add yogurt and flour. In the end, mix in the egg whites very slowly and carefully. Grease the spring form and cover the grease with flour to prevent the dough from sticking to the form. Pour half of the batter into the form. Preheat the oven to 165 °C and bake 60 minutes. Take the cake out and let it cool down. Bake the other half of the batter.

So now you have 2 same biscuits.

Cut off the top and the bottom of both of them.

Cut both biscuits horizontally in half.

Put one of the cake top parts upside down, this will be the bottom of the heart. Cover it with marmalade – I used sour cherry jam. Put a flat cake part on top of the marmalade and cover it with marmalade again. Put another cake top on top of the whole thing. Now you are left with one flat part which you can use for another project like cake pops.

Then use the knife to shape the cake a bit like a heart. I start with cutting off all the surface and then I cut off the sides and make the cake narrower towards one side.

Then comes the chocolate

It’s time to make modelling chocolate! Find the tutorial HERE and use the measurements in this recipe. I used rather soft chocolate for covering the cake and for all the rest I used chocolate from the fridge that I knead a little on the table. As always – you need to find the consistency that’s comfortable for you to work with.

First, I made some veins.

I rolled out a part of the chocolate inside the rolling mat (it prevents the tearing).

I flipped the chocolate on the mat on the cake and then carefully peeled the mat off.

As you see, it’s not necessary to cover the whole cake with one piece.

I smoothed out the chocolate, especially over the veins.

Then I covered the rest of the cake.

Where the layers of chocolate overlap I smoothed the seams out with a wet brush.

Some of the smallest veins weren’t visible under the cover so I made them on top of it.

Oh sweet pulmonary vein

I made the pulmonary vein by making a barrel and then making a hole with my finger in it. Then I bent it a little.

Now to the way of attaching it to the heart – I used the same way to attach all the other parts as well. I placed the end of the vein on the heart and kind of rubbed the chocolate from the end of the vein into the chocolate covering the heart. The I rolled out a piece of chocolate to make a tiny “snake” and wrapped it around where the vein meets the heart. I flattened the snake and again rubbed it in the heart and the vein

I smoothed the connection with a wet brush.

This is what the attached pulmonary vein looks like.

Left atrium

Another part I made was the left atrium with veins. I first made the flat part that is shaped almost like a heart. Then I attached two smaller veins to it that I made the same way like the pulmonary vein, just instead of my finger I used chopsticks.

I attached the atrium next to the pulmonary vein.

Holy aorta!

Next was the aorta with two veins. I made it the same way like the pulmonary vein and I attached two smaller veins to it. The I attached the aorta next to the pulmonary vein.

If you think some of the attached parts could fall off, put something under it and place the cake in the fridge. When the chocolate hardens, the attachment gets stronger.

Right atrium

The last attached part was the right atrium – that’s the small thing on the left of the aorta.

There are two more angles of the completed human heart cake.

It needs the romantic red

To make the blood I mixed some black currant marmalade with some red gel colorant. You can try any kind of red marmelade for your human heart cake. With seeds or without, both give the blood a little different texture, so just experiment!