Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day makes me think of one thing...DESSERT! Forget the flowers and cards and all that mushy stuff...the way to this girl's heart is definitely through her stomach.So on the menu today: Heart shaped angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream (cake recipe borrowed from America's Test Kitchen).

Cake Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cake flour
12 large egg whites, room temperature
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsps lemon juice
1 1/2 tsps vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract

Preheat your oven to 325 and place the rack on the lower/middle level. Line two heart-shaped cake pans with parchment paper (typically this would cook in a tube pan, but I felt festive). On to the fun part...

Add the flour and 3/4 cup of sugar to a medium mixing bowl. In a separate mixing bowl whip the egg whites and cream of tartar together on low speed until foamy. Increase the speed to medium/high and whip the whites into billowy mounds, gradually adding the remaining sugar and salt. Continue to whip the whites until they form soft peaks (1-3 minutes).

Once the whites have peaked, mix in the lemon juice, vanilla extract, and almond extract, by hand. Sift in 1/4 cup of your flour/sugar mixture and gently fold into the whites - you want to keep that fluffy texture and just mixing it in would change the cake completely. Keep repeating that process in 1/4 cup increments until it's all incorporated.

Split your batter between the two prepped cake pans, or put it all in one, depending on what you're working with. Bake until golden brown (30-35 min for two pans, 50-60 min for one pan).

Now here's the part where two cakes is necessary - if you baked the standard tube cake I'd just use the strawberries and whipped cream as toppings and call it a day.

Since this is a super special heart shaped cake for valentines day, I diced up fresh strawberries, sprinkled them with sugar and put them in the fridge for about 1 hour. Once your cakes have cooled, put one on your cake stand, pile the strawberries in an even layer, then place the second cake on top. All that's left to do is cover it with whipped cream!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!'

- J