Valentine’s Day Dessert Smorgasbord How-To!

“Say it with dessert.” I made this dessert smorgasbord for my family last week! The looks on my kids faces when they walked in the door from school and realized all this love was just for them was priceless! They were so hyped and surprised! They asked if they could just, “smell the sweets please” LOL! No fussing about eating all their veggies for dinner when they knew this was to follow.

Honestly it was too much dessert! I ended up sending the entire cake to my oldest son’s kindergarten class with a note to, ” save a slice for my younger son please!!!” This dessert station also could’ve easily been perfect for a Galentine’s get together!  My husband was out of town working the evening I presented the kids with all this dessert- but it was the perfect “welcome back home honey” gesture the next day!

Here’s what’s in the dessert smorgasbord:

• 3-tier 6 inch red velvet cake 
• 6 red velvet rosette mini cakes 
• Heart-shaped rice krispy treats drizzled in pink candy melts
• A dozen roses 

Recipe for the cake and rosettes:

INGREDIENTS: 

• 1 Package of Duncan Hines Red Velvet Cake mix 
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup of milk 
• 1 package of vanilla pudding mix
• 1/2 cup of sour creme
• 1/2 cup of vegetable oil 

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a rosette baking pan and 3 six inch cake pans with cooking spray and set aside . Using an electric mixer combine all the ingredients. Using a large cookie scoop, fill 6 rosette cups with cake batter. Evenly divide the remaining batter amongst the three 6 inch cake pan.

Recipe for Icing:

1. 2 cups of vegetable shortening
2. 1/4 cup of vanilla coffee creamer
3. 1/4 cup milk
4. 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
5. 8 cups of powdered sugar

Note: I normally make cream cheese icing for red velvet cake but I decided to use a standard buttercream icing because it holds better for piping and decorating. Sometimes cream cheese icing can get too soft for decorating.

DIRECTIONS:
Cream the first 4 ingredients in a stand mixer.
Slowly add in the powdered sugar a cup at a time on medium low speed. Once all the powdered sugar is in your stand mixer turn up the speed to high. You can add more milk 1/4 of a cup at a time to bring the stiffness of your icing t your desired consistency if it’s too thick.

Here’s the cake pan you need to make mini roses HERE .

I got mine from William Sonoma online.

Here’s what you’ll need to decorate the cake.

• 8-10 hearts cut out of parchment paper
• At least 8 oz of Valentine’s Day Sprinkles
• An icing decorator’s bag and a star tip. Please click on the YOU-TUBE link to watch the 30 second video tutorial

Please let us know if you tried the cake tutorial! We’d love to see how it turned out. Please tag us on Instagram!