Natural, Nutritious Letters for Cake Toppers and Snack Time

Matt and I are hosting our annual Valentine's Day party this weekend and the theme is My Funny Valentine!

I seriously can't get enough of Frank Sinatra, and I'm obsessed with the 50's, so I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone else shows up as! I'll reveal our costume soon--I'm sure you're waiting on pins and needles. ;)

If you follow me on IG, you know I love to bake cakes! I have a side hustle (vegan and allergy-friendly) cake business, Good Mama, in Miami with my friend, Kelly! We always make our cakes the way we would want them if we were serving ourselves, or Oliver. Before we started our business, I never really put a lot of thought into how unnecessary food dyes are, especially with so many creative, nutritious options out there. But Kelly, really got me started down this path using powdered freeze-dried fruit as dye for buttercream frostings and cake mixes. I love it! Especially because it packs in so much flavor and added nutrition.

I always love to add a creative element to my Valentine's parties. It really breaks the ice to invite our friends to engage in a simple creative project that doesn't take a lot of brain power--and is not just for the kids, but the adults, too. Basically, something that can be done over a glass of rose, kid on lap, chasing a kid, etc. So like, very simple!!!!

For this party, I made the world's cutest conversation heart cakes. The cake is raspberry lemon zucchini cake with strawberry lemon buttercream frosting. Everything is all-natural, vegan, allergy-friendly and free of any dyes. And vegetables, lots of veggies in the cake! So, instead of making another batch of sugary red dyed piping for my guests to decorate the tops of their conversation heart cakes, I bought small 1-2" letter cookie cutters from the craft store and cut words out of strawberries!

Here's how you can do it:

1. Cut a medium strawberry in half lenthwise.
2. Press the cookie cutter through the berry.
3. Cut the letter in half, lengthwise, so you have one "ombre" letter from the inside of the berry, and one red letter from the outside of the berry.
4. Apply the letters to any cake for decoration, or use them to practice letters and spelling during snack time!