This cake idea literally came to me in a vision and after I saw it, I thought really hard on how I should make this cake come to life. I had a vision of a heart floating with veins wrapped around it and sticking out of the bottom and top of the cake like they were growing out of the cake.

It pretty much looked like a sculpture, which is something that I was to create with my cakes since it is a form of art. I knew that it would have to consist of some type of gravity structure in order to look like it was floating in the air. I thought about going to the hardware store and getting the materials to make this cake.

But then I had a clever idea to use my cake tower for the structure of the cake. I know this may sound pretty crazy, but it actually worked out pretty well. I just knew that I wanted to make this cake and would try different things to make it come to life, exactly the way I saw it in my vision.

Please keep in mind that this tutorial was spur of the moment and YES you can use Cupcake Towers for gravity cakes. This cake was a little difficult to make but with the proper tools and patience of course, you will be able to shock everyone for Valentines day with this cake.

Please feel free to check out the video tutorial!

Supplies needed:

• Cake (pre baked)
• Buttercream or Ganache
• Rice Krispy Treats
• Red Fondant
• Floral Wire
• Floral Tape
• Tooth Picks
• Black edible spray paint
• Red Edible spray paint
• Brown Gel coloring
• Cake Tower
• Wood Grain Mat
• Small Paint Brush
• Fondant Rotary Cutter
• 6 inch cake board
• 1 inch cake board
• Cling Wrap

Preparing your Cake:

I pre-made and froze two 8 inch layers of Red Velvet cake. I also pre-made the cream cheese frosting, red and white fondant, and rice Krispy treats as well just to have everything ready to go when I started on this cake.

To make my cake structure, I screwed in only the top 6 inch layer of the tower and the bottom part as the stand and cake board, that way it was just one pole with one layer for the tower.

Putting together the Cake Tower/Structure:

After I tightened the screws in the tower, next I began wrapping the rice Krispy around the pole as the bottom half of the heart.

I noticed that the rice Krispy was not staying in place, so that’s when I made a tiny cake board and unscrewed the cake tower, placed the tiny cake board on top of the screw and screwed the cake board in between both poles so that it was tight and wouldn’t move.

This was something that I did not think about then the idea for the cake came to mind, but I now know that it’s best to make sure that your structure is secured the cake properly.

Carving the bottom half:

Once I finished putting all of the Rice Krispy treat on to the cake tower, I began to carve the Rice Krispy to round off the sides and made the bottom tip more pointed, just the way an actual heart looks.

After I carved the side of the rice Krispy treats, I then pushed in the Rice Krispy with my hand so that it would be smooth on the sides without any lumps, which is horrible for your cake because the lumps will be visible after its been covered with fondant.

Carving the top half:

Next, I used a small circle cookie cutter (about the same diameter of the tower pole) and cut out two holes directly in the middle of the cake layer and then placed the two layers of cake on top of the Rice Krispy bottom half. In between the cake and the Rice Krispy, I placed the 6 inch cake board on top of the 6 inch tower layer.

After I placed the cake on top of the cake board, I began to carve the top half of the heart. I started out cutting directly in the middle on the edge of the cake a “V” and did the same on the opposite or back side of the heart as well.

Once I cut the front and back sides of the top half, I then started to round off the sides of the top half with the bottom half of the cake.

Once my cake started to look more like a heart, I pulled the cake off the top half of the cake and began to crumb coat the cake.

Crumb coating the heart:

After the cake was fully crumb coated, I tightly wrapped the cake using cling wrap and placed it into the freezer for one hour.

This helped me to carve the cake without it crumbling, giving it a more defined and precise look of a heart.

If you don’t work in a timely manner when carving cakes, they will start to defrost and that will make carving your cake very difficult.

After the cake was carved for a second time, I put a second layer of icing on the cake and placed it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to crust over.

Covering the heart in Fondant:

Before covering the cake in fondant, I place little pieces of fondant on to the cake so that it would look like veins were inside of the heart.

After adding a few pieces of fondant onto the cake, next I rolled out the fondant and used the same circle cookie cutter to cut out a small hole directly in the center of the fondant. I did this so that when I wrapped the fondant over the cake that the tower pole wouldn’t tear a bigger hole in the fondant.

I have to admit, covering this cake in fondant was pretty difficult. I had to slowly work my way from the top to the bottom of the cake, making sure that none of the fondant folded together or ripped at the same time.

It took me a while to get this cake covered, but thankfully I managed to get it done.

Once the cake was fully covered, I also covered the top and bottom poles of the cake tower so that it would blend with the finished look.

Painting the cake:

To give the cake a more blood red look, I mixed red and black spray paint together and began painting the cake and poles using a small paint brush.

I sprayed both colors into a bowl so that it wouldn’t get everywhere, I love making cakes but don’t quite like the part where you have to clean up your mess. I painted two coats of paint on to the cake and in between each coat I allowed it to dry for at least 30 minutes.

Decorating the cake board:

This part was some this I thought of off the top of my head. You can feel free to decorate the board however you choose, but in this particular tutorial I decided to go with a wood grain texture. I rolled out a large circle of fondant, close to same size of the bottom Cupcake Tower.

Next, I used the same small circle cookie cutter to cut a small hole in the middle of the fondant. Then I used a rotary cutter to cut a line from the edge to the center of the fondant, where the hole was cut out using that small cookie cutter.

Next, I placed the fondant on to the cake board and pieced the line that I cut in the fondant back together and smoothed it out using a fondant smoother. To achieve the wood grain look, I used my Wood Grain Mat and sat it on top of the fondant and used my fondant smoothers to press it on to the fondant. I did this all around until the fondant was fully covered with the wood grain texture.

Painting the cake board:

To paint the cake board, I used a small amount of brown food coloring mixed with a small amount of black spray paint and began to paint it onto the cake board.

I allowed each coat to dry for 30 minutes before putting on another coat of paint. Altogether, it took only 2 coats of paint to achieve the tone that I was going for.

It’s completely up to you on how dark you’d like it to be because you can either stop at one coat of paint for a lighter oak tone or add a third coat for a more darker tone for the wood grain.

Making the Veins:

To make the veins, I added a little Tylose Powder to the red fondant and wrapped the fondant around the floral wire. After I made couple of them, I used the same paint that I used for the actual cake and painted the veins so that they would have that same blood red tone as well.

For the bottom veins, I attached tooth picks to the bottom of the floral wire and wrapped it together using floral tape to poke into the bottom of the cake. I did this because I realized that I needed something stronger to poke into the small cake board at the bottom of the cake.

Once all of the veins were complete, I wrapped floral tape on the ends of the floral wire and then stuck then into the top and bottom of the cake.

It is now Complete!

Now that I’ve showed you guys the in’s and out’s to making this cake I hope that you’ll use this idea to make something greater. Along the way I found areas for improvement and I will definitely make this cake again to see how it comes out the next time.

This is a really fun project for Valentines Day and more than anything I love how it looked like a sculpture or something that you would see in an Art exhibit. I hope you all will try this tutorial and I would love to see how it turns out for you all!