The Lemonista: Shades of Love (knock-off) Valentine's Day Cake Tutorial

I love William Sonoma catalog. So many neat products and inspirations. A highlight for me this winter--a beautiful Shades of Love Valentine's Day cake!

After bending the catalog corner and going back to stare at this six inch $100 cake, nine or ten times, I knew there was really only one thing left to do... Make the darn thing myself.
So that's what I set out to do, as simply and cheaply as possible.
Here's my version of the Shades of Love cake. Hope you enjoy.

To make this cake you will need:

1 box of white cake mix
Ingredients to make one batch of butter cream icing or 1 can of store bought white icing.
Pink food coloring: I used AmeriColor 114 Deep Pink
Red food coloring: I used AmeriColor 119 Red Red
1 quart container of my FAVORITE vanilla Whip'n Ice (found in refrigerated section at any bakery supply) or Wilton's butter cream incing or store bought icing.
Ateco #864 decorating tip.
6" cake pan

I only own one 6" cake pan (A vintage pan of my grandmother's from the 1930s!). So I just used it four times to make my four layers. I greased and floured my cake pan for each layer and added a circle of parchment paper to the bottom of the cake pan each time to prevent the cake from sticking.

Make the cake mix according to the directions on the box. I made the version with egg yolks since white cake mix does give you a "no-yolk" option.

Add small amount of pink food coloring.

Measure a generous cup of batter and pour into your prepared cake pan..

My 6" cakes took 21-23min at 350 degrees.These cakes are small, so keep a close eye on them

Add more pink food coloring to your batter.

Wash and prepare your pan again. Pour in a generous cup of your next layer of batter to be baked. Repeat baking instructions.

Add more pink food coloring to the batter.

Wash and prepare your pan again. Pour in a generous cup of the next layer of batter to be baked. Repeat baking instructions.

Now it's time to add the red food coloring.

Pour the rest of your batter into the prepared pan and follow baking instructions above.

Allow all layers to cool. Remove parchment paper. I placed mine in an airtight container and refrigerated them. **tip** Cold cake is easier to decorate. Prepare butter cream icing, if making your own.

Butter cream Icing
1/3 cup soft butter
3 cups confectioners' sugar
3 tbsp. cream
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Blend together butter and confectioners' sugar. Mix in cream and vanilla until smooth. I left the butter cream icing white. Or Wilton's recipe is fine to use here too.

Time to start putting our pretty cake together. Starting with the red on the bottom, stack the layers, spreading butter cream in between each layers. After stacking all four layers, run a wooden kabob skewer down the center of the cake and trim the top of the skewer so you do not see it. This anchors your cake and keeps it from sliding. You can spread any extra butter cream in a thin coat around the outside of your cake. Refrigerate your cake for 1 hour to allow the butter cream to firm up.

Next, make the Whipn' Ice and tint it light pink. If using store bought icing, remember you will need quite a bit. The rosettes take a lot of icing.

Skim coat the entire cake with the light pink Whip'n Ice whipped icing. Remember, you're going to cover the entire cake with rosettes so this doesn't have to be pretty.

Put 1/4 of your icing in a pastry bag with a #864 tip and pipe rosettes on the top and sides like so. Literally just squeeze the bag while making a circle and then stop squeezing. Wink. You can do a few practice runs on a plate to get the feel for this.

Just like we did with the cake batter, your going to add more pink food coloring to your icing and repeat this process for the next ring of rosettes. (Making sure you wash out and dry your pastry bag between colors).