Piece of my Heart (Cake)

Valentine's Day may have been two months ago, but Valentine's-themed decor has a special place in my *heart* any time of year.

Project number two this week was inspired by an picture I came across on Amy Atlas' blog.

(The original picture and link will go here as soon as I find it. 
I think it might have even been in an ad on the side bar.) 

I thought it would be a pretty simple undertaking that would give me a chance to make some more of that delicious Swiss meringue buttercream, and practice my frosting technique.

But placing the strings on the cake ended up being real lesson in patience. In hindsight, I should have used butter cream and the "string work" decorating technique I learned back in my Wilton method class, but of course I went for my handy-dandy fondant extruder to do the job instead. Trying to drape the strings of fondant nicely on the side of the cake just marred the smooth frosting I worked so hard on.

I didn't use any support to keep the heart standing straight up, so it was flat on top of the cake by the time we cut it at a friend's house. I think it looked adorable all the same.

My biggest fan Zoe - eats frosting exclusively.