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How do you make this Hartenhuis cake?

Lotte and I set to work with the Hartenhuis cake for the 'Make a dessert that you do well with' campaign by Het Vergeten Kind. The recipe is in the Hartenhuis Christmas desserts booklet, which contains the most delicious desserts to make with your children.

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Making hearts house cake the easy way

I didn't stick to the recipe from the Christmas dessert book myself, due to a lack of time. My recipe below is therefore the easy way, but that does not detract from the fact that the hartenhuis cake from the book has provided my inspiration. There are also a number of other very tasty desserts in it 😉 .

Ingredients House of Hearts cake

  • Sponge cake mix (Dr. Oetker) + 5 eggs + 50 ml water
  • Buttercream mix (Dr. Oetker) + 100 grams of butter + 100 ml of milk
  • Lemon Curd (I used the delicious one from Bonne Maman, for sale at the AH)
  • Fondant
  • Edible marker
  • cocoa powder (I used chocolate mousse powder, be creative with what you have)

How do you make the House of Hearts cake?

Actually, it would be better to refer you to Hidde de Brabander's cake from the book of Het Vergeten Kind. But how I did it is as follows:

  • Bake the sponge cake as on the package, but in a cake tin with 90% of the batter.
  • The remaining 10% of the batter mix in the cocoa powder and spread it in a thick slice (about 1 centimeter thick) over baking paper. This will be the roof. Bake this in the oven for 7-10 minutes when your pie is ready. I put it in a bowl myself, that's also possible, but it's not really handy to get it out. Chances are it will break.

  • Make the buttercream as on the package.
  • Stir 3 large tablespoons of lemon curd through the buttercream.

  • When the cake has cooled down, cut off the edges and cut the airy cake part into pieces so that you make 'building blocks'.

  • You can 'glue' these building blocks together with a nice layer of buttercream with lemon curd as you can see in the picture.

  • The roof splits in two and (again with buttercream, of course) will be placed diagonally on your house.

Decorating the house of hearts cake

  • Unroll the fondant and make a rectangular slab of it that you place on the roof. Buttercream underneath ensures that your roofing material sticks.

  • A few tufts on top of the roof finish it off nicely.
  • Make a few more hearts that you can stick on either side of the house with buttercream.
  • For example, write your Christmas wish on the roof with an edible marker.
  • Let it set in the fridge for a while and then eat it!

Note to me… the Hartenhuis cake from Hidde de Brabander looks like the one above. It's a good thing I didn't become a pastry chef. And not a construction worker either 😉 .

A little 'loose' from this Hartenhuis cake

Besides the fact that I grant you the opportunity to make such a delicious and fun Hartenhuis cake with your child, I would also like to discuss the campaign itself. We've written about Het Vergeten Kind before and we don't do it for nothing. As a mother, you can't ignore it. The fact that there are children who miss dessert at the table is not so much about it.

The point is that these children often have a much greater lack. A lack that arises from the home situation that is far from optimal. A home situation with worries and problems. A home where there is no room for warmth and attention for whatever reason. To support these children, you can also be part of this campaign. Request the Hartenhuis recipe booklet!