Romantic Valentine’s Day Table Setting With Heart Cake Dessert & Spring Tulips

Welcome to the 802nd Tablescape Thursday! With Valentine’s Day just a week away, I decided it was time to bake some cute heart cakes. It has been ages since I made these for Valentine’s.

I did the dumbest thing this time, though! I always, always grease and flour a cake pan when baking a regular layer cake, but for some crazy reason, I didn’t flour the heart cake pan after greasing it this time. I couldn’t remember if I had always done that in the past, and I was worried that the flour would stick to the sides of the little cakes and end up showing underneath the powdered sugar. So I ended up not flouring the pan. Big mistake!

I also overfilled the little hearts with cake batter, something I tend to do each time I make these since the recipe makes a lot of batter. This time, it seemed to make even more batter than usual. I wonder if using “cake” flour made the cake batter extra fluffy? Even with filling the little hearts way more than 2/3rds fulls (as specified in the recipe) I still had enough batter left over to make a little cake in a small loaf pan.

Fortunately, with this cake pan, if you use too much cake batter and overfill the hearts, it’s easy to slice off the overfill once the cakes are done. I’ll spare you the photo of all the tops that I cut off, but let’s just say I’ll be eating cake for days without even touching the heart cakes! lol Since I foolishly didn’t flour the pan after greasing it, I had to really work to get the cakes out of the pan. Also, the cake texture itself was a lot fluffier/looser, maybe due to using cake flour this time around. In any case, using a knife around the edges to loosen them for prying them out, kinda made a mess of the normally pretty, fluted sides. To partially hide that, I used a lot of powdered sugar—way more than I normally would. So if the cakes look extra sugar-powdery in today’s table, that’s why! Next time I make these, I think I’ll use all-purpose flour to keep them a bit firmer, and I will definitely be flouring the pan, not just greasing it!

I almost didn’t use a tablecloth for this table setting, but at the last minute, I decided to use a red damask tablecloth that I’ve had for many years.

For the centerpiece, I brought out these beautiful, realistic-looking faux tulips, a find back in 2021.

I think I’m going to buy a few more of these tulips, I love how realistic they look in photos and in person!

Amazing how realistic-looking faux flowers can be! I prefer real flowers when they are available, but these work great when spring flowers aren’t in bloom or available.

These tulips are available in many colors where I purchased mine, here: Faux Tulips.

I’m sure you recognize these tartan plates from Williams Sonoma. I love using tartan dinnerware all throughout winter. It adds an extra coziness that I really crave this time of year. The rattan chargers were a find this past autumn and surprisingly they are still available and on sale here: Rattan Charger. I love them and can’t believe how many times I’ve already used them in table settings. I think this is the third table that I’ve used them this fall/winter. They pair so beautifully with a lot of my fall/winter dish patterns. I have a feeling they are going to work great for spring/summer, too.

The salad plates are American Atelier and the design is called Origami Red. Not sure if it was intentional, but this pattern always makes me think of red hearts, perfect for a Valentine’s Day table setting. Do you see red hearts, too?

I powdered-sugared these little heart cakes within an inch of their life. Ha! The icing is a simple confectioners sugar frosting that’s easy to make and super yummy since it includes a few drops of vanilla and almond extract. I had not baked in so long, my Wilton’s food coloring concentrate had become extra concentrated. Thankfully, I had enough to color the icing a bright Valentine’s Day red. On the rare occasions that I want colored icing, this is the food coloring I prefer to use: Intense Icing Food Coloring Concentrate. A tiny bit goes a long way since it is very concentrated. (Note: A printable recipe for these heart cakes and the icing is available here: Heart Cakes Recipe.)

I love using these red napkins at Christmastime, but they also work great for a Valentine’s Day table, too. The scalloped gold trim of the inner napkin, along with the gold beading of the outer napkin, add a bit of glitz and sparkle for this Valentine’s Day setting. Both napkins are from Pier 1, back in the day.

Sparkly, gold-tinted, snowflake napkin rings (originally from Pottery Barn, but a find on eBay) work well in this wintertime Valentine’s Day table.

Hope this table provides a bit of inspiration as you celebrate Valentine’s Day this year with your loved one(s). Happy Valentine’s Day! ❤️

Looking forward to all the beautiful tables linked for this week’s Tablescape Thursday! (Pssst: If you enjoyed this post, subscribe for email updates (it’s free) so you’ll know when a new post is available. Subscribe here: Subscribe for post updates.)

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