D.I.Y. Heart-Shaped Valentine’s Day Cake Recipe

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The kids and I created a heart-shaped cake for Valentine’s Day! This recipe is easy and tastes delicious. The heart cake is a vanilla cake with buttercream frosting. We used red food coloring to make the cake batter as well as the frosting pink and festive. The best part about this cake is that you don’t have to go out and buy a special heart-shaped pan. You can get the heart shape using one square pan and one circle pan. Try this easy-to-make Valentine’s cake recipe for kids. The kids and adults will love this pretty Valentine’s heart cake recipe. Happy Valentine’s Day from all of us at Made by Kids!

Ingredients

  • 3 and 2/3 cups cake flour (leveled)
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 and 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 2 cups granulated sugar
  • 3 large eggs + 2 additional egg whites, room temperature
  • 1 Tablespoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1 and 1/2 cups buttermilk, at room temperature
  • Red or pink food coloring (as much as desired)
  • Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
  • 1 and 1/2 cups unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
  • 5 and 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
  • 1/3 cup whole milk or heavy cream
  • 1 and 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • Red or pink food coloring (as much as desired)
  • Sprinkles (as much as desired)

Directions

  • Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C)
    Grease (or line with parchment paper) 9×9 (or 8×8 square pan) + a 9-inch circle pan
  • Whisk the dry ingredients together in one bowl including the cake flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda together. Set this bowl aside.
  • Using a stand mixer or hand mixer beat the wet ingredients including the butter and sugar together. Add the eggs and egg whites one by one. Add the vanilla until well combined.
  • Add the buttermilk slowly. The mixture will look like curdled milk. This is OK!
  • Add red or pink food coloring until you get the color you desire. You’ll need more color than you think to get the cake a dark pink or red!
  • Pour batter evenly into each pan and bake at 350°F for 23-25 minutes.
  • Let cakes cool for 30 minutes. Flip cakes over to remove them from the pans and let cool another 15 minutes.
  • While cakes are cooling, make your frosting.
  • Once cakes are cooled, you can turn the square cake to the side making a diamond shape. Cut the circle in half. These halves go on the top of your square to form your heart.
  • Add some frosting in between the shapes to help hold them together. Frost the cake and sprinkle as desired.

Tips Using cake flour helps to keep cake moist and fluffy. Ingredients brought to room temperature will help them combine easier making for a smoother batter.**

Check out the full baking video and episode outtakes below and on our YouTube Channel @ Madebykids!

PHOTOS: Ornament Making Party

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An ornament making party is a fun, festive way to spend time with friends and family and get some homemade ornaments at the same time!

Here are some inspiration photos to get a party of your own together. Remember, anything you can glue on, is fair game to personalize your ornaments!

Featured in photos:

Base Idea:

  • Plain white, silver, red and gold ornaments
  • Lightbulbs
  • Clothes pins

Add-Ons:

  • Jingle Bells
  • Glitter
  • Glue, glue guns, super glue
  • Gift tags, label stickers and letters – fun way to monogram/personalize
  • Wrapping paper
  • Ribbons, yarn, fabric and lace
  • Bottle caps- personalize your ornaments with your favorite brew
  • Pom pons, feathers, sequins & more!

Favor ideas:

  • A pair of individual scissors: It’s a take-home and you won’t have to share scissors
  • Individual kit box: scissors, glue stick, super glue + the box can double as a carry home container for their new ornaments
  • Monogrammed Ornament: Get each guest an ornament with their name or letter as a personal touch

That Time We Took Two Babies To Italy And Had A Blast – Traveling With Kids

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In between the bustle of the move, we packed the clan and set out for a 10-day trip to Italy! Packing for an 8 month old and a 2.5 year old was an intimidating task but I decided to go with the less is more approach. When I was planning for the trip, I did a lot of research from other parents to get some ideas for anything that would make the journey as smooth as possible. I wanted to share a post of what worked for us and what didn’t when traveling internationally with two small children. We had some wins and some fails for sure!

Our itinerary:

We decided to fly direct to Rome in the afternoon in the hopes that they would sleep on part of the flight since we’d be landing in the morning in Italy. On the way home, we left in the late morning, thinking they would take a long nap and then just push through to bed time in Chicago so we could get them oriented. We also flew home on Thursday so we’d have the weekend to get them acclimated. This system actually worked for the most part. The 2nd night back in the states was the night our baby was actually awake in the middle of the night. I’m thinking Thursday she was just so exhausted and then Friday it took her that full day to get her days and nights back together. Thankfully, she was back to sleeping through the night by Saturday.

In between Rome, we took a high speed train down to Naples where we would stay in the Amalfi Coast for the remainder of the trip. We didn’t want to have too many legs to the trip that involved carrying luggage and uprooting the littles so we stuck to day trips on ferries and one overnight stay away from our main hub in Sorrento. This was totally doable and it was awesome not to have to bring the full luggage around with us everyday.

Here’s a run down of what I packed for the kiddos and why:

  • Clothes – I stuck to the bare minimum!
    • 1.5 outfits per day
    • 2 pairs of shoes for each
    • 2 swim suits
    • 1 coverup
    • 1 swim hat
    • Sunglasses
    • 2 pairs of PJs
  • Sleepsack, lovey
  • Sound machine – our sound machine was plugged in to an outlet adapter and it fried on the 1st plug in! We ended up using the sleep pillow app on our iPad so beware of that! If you can use a surge protector or something similar you may be fine but ours short circuited and we had to toss it
  • 75% of the diapers needed and we bought more there to save suitcase room
  • A small backpack to use as the daily diaper bag
  • 2 baby carries, which were the best things to have…the sidewalks are often too narrow for the stroller and our toddler likes to run and walk and I was paranoid she would step off the street and right in to a Vespa! So for my own sanity, the carrier was amazing when she became overtired and wouldn’t hold our hands and stay on the sidewalk
  • Stroller- we left our double uppa baby vista, as we figured the wheels would be too big. We bought the Joovy caboose instead where our 8 month old could have a seat and our 2 year old count stand on the back or sit if she chose to. If you’re using this as a double stroller for long days walking, I wouldn’t recommend it. The seats aren’t conducive to two kids napping well. Often, I just had the baby on me and our toddler slept in the stroller. She did sleep but she always seemed uncomfortable. For quick grocery store runs or things like that, I think it’s great! But long days where you want them comfortable and able to take stroller naps, it was tough in this when you use both seats
  • Snack cups/Assorted snacks
  • Water cups
  • Small amount of assorted toys
  • My hand pump and 2 bottles to pump in to for after bedtime emergencies when I went out with my sister or my husband and the other was back sleeping with the girls *I’m still nursing her on demand so this worked well for me. If you need to carry on a cooler of milk, I’ve heard great things about companies that will ship it safely to your hotel and you can also ship it back to the states to your home. I haven’t used these services, but they’re out there and worth looking in to!
  • Travel bottle drying rack with ravel size dapple bottle soap
  • iPad
  • Headphones for our toddler – we purchased a pair of cloth headphones that can be worn like a headband thinking she would keep them on if she didn’t notice them…she didn’t even keep them on for a second! Maybe we’ll try again 
  • My sister! The most important tip I can offer is to bring help! It was a huge bonus to have an extra set of hands! This was a family vacation so she wasn’t there in an official childcare capacity but she helped imensely. If you’re planning a trip, it can’t hurt to ask family members if they’d also like to go. More formal childcare or nannies are also an option if you have someone available to ask. She was a life saver and it was some great sister/auntie time!

That’s the low down of our trip! It was a great time and even though it was daunting, it was completely worth it! The memories and pictures we have are something we’ll never forget. A lot of people said, it was crazy to go when the girls were too young to remember it but my husband and I have the memories and that’s priceless. If you’re considering an international trip with littles, know that there will be chaotic times and meltdowns but life is too short to stay home! Take the trip. When in doubt, always take the trip! This is the stuff you’ll remember about your life. Your baby being home for their 10:00am nap is not.

The Big Move

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WE. DID. IT. We actually moved. I realize, that our move was pretty average compared to a 5,000 square foot home, across the country or something of that scale, but to us it was a big accomplishment. The upside to moving from our condo, to an apartment and then to the home we’re now in, all in 8 months is that you definitely learn to purge. Even as I type this, I know my husband is rolling his eyes that I’m a hoarder but I’m really working on becoming one of those mythical minimalists.

Aside from the move, we’re also doing some minor cosmetic renovations including, re-finishing the basement floor, playroom built ins and giving the kitchen a mini-facelift complete with a new backsplash, new hardware, and a new faucet.

To add to the chaos that is moving with small children, we’re off on our first international trip with the kiddos in a week! Say some prayers for us!

From now until then we’re getting more and more boxes unpacked and the house is becoming a little more live-able. There’s a long to-do list in terms of organization and unpacking but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and that’s pretty exciting!

Here are some before photos and some plans I’ve drawn up on my new favorite website, roomsketcher.com (beware, it’s addicting!).

BEFORE PHOTOS (FROM THE REAL ESTATE LISTING WEBSITE)

THE WORK IN PROGRESS

 

Check back for the playroom reveal in a couple of weeks!

Making Space For Stuff

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I mentioned in my last post that room and space have been a constant struggle in our household recently. To give you a little back story, we sold our condo right before our daughter Lucy was born this past summer. A house we were purchasing fell through and we moved in to an amazingly convenient apartment just down the street. The apartment is really beautiful with a view of the Chicago skyline and the convenience factors can’t be beat. We have an elevator, a heated garage and our daycare is literally on the corner. From a commuting standpoint for me, my office is only a few train stops away so I can be door to door in about 20 minutes.

As a very pregnant person at the time of our move, I was reluctant to believe we could make it work in about 1,000 square feet. As I write this, I know I made a mountain out of a molehill  because we’re 7 months in and we have all survived just fine! Our apartment has a surprising amount of storage and we put anything nonessential in to another storage facility down the street.

Also as I write this, we are under contract on a new home. We’re set to move in May. I’m excited to start making a home for our girls and for our dog to finally have a yard of her own!

Living in the city we’ve always had to be creative with our space and storage. This home will be a huge space upgrade but as it stands, it could definitely use some better organization and use of space. It is still in the city and with two little ones, it’s easy to get every room taken over by toys and baby gadgets.

As a couple we’re actually not terrible at purging and donating. I definitely have a mild hoarding streak but I try to keep it in check. The cozy living arrangement of the past few months has put a lot in perspective for me. I don’t need half the stuff I have, the girls will grow up just as happy without that giant toy and babies grow out of stuff so quickly you have to save your energy for more important things.

I’ll be sharing quite a few posts in the near future on before and afters of various spaces in the home and some things we’re going to attempt to DIY.