A couple of days ago I decided to make some festive treats and upon completion, found myself with this lovely little Valentine’s Day Heart+Arrow cake and some XO brownies.  Pretty cute, right?!

The Heart + Arrow cake and the XO brownies don’t need much of a tutorial as they’re pretty self-explanatory, but see below for a couple of tips to easily replicate these in your own kitchen.

For the brownies: Use letter cookie cutters (or cut out by hand) a few X and O letters. Select two complementary icing colors and pour each mixture into a disposable pastry bag.  Then, get to decorating!  If you’re new to icing tips and decorating, I suggest you head on over to YouTube for some icing tutorials – the Wilton YT channel has a lot of very helpful videos.  And with a little bit of practice, you’ll be an icing expert in no time!

For the cake, use a heart cookie cutter (like the one I used for the  heart krispies) to cut out 2 heart cakes, each approx 1″ in height. Ice in between the cake layers and then cover the entire cake with a crumb layer. Once the crumb layer is set, add 1 more icing layer to achieve a smooth cake and let it set.  Once that is ready, decorate!  I used mint green icing to add a decorative swirl to the sides and piped pink icing onto the top to finish off my cake.

For the arrow, you will need a cookie stick (or skewer), 3 Starburst® candies, and some edible gold glitter.  Place the Starburst® candies in a bowl and heat in the microwave for 10 seconds until soft.  Remove and mold the candies into an arrow pattern, using scissors and/or a knife to achieve the intricate details.  Once you have achieved your desired arrow shape, lightly dust with edible gold glitter or spray. And lastly, stick the arrow in your cake!

(Hint: If you’re having trouble with the arrow, check out my acorn + leaf cake topper tutorial for another look at working with Starburst® candies)