Valentine’s cake

I made this cake to take to my first visit to my local group of the Clandestine Cake Club, the theme for this event being “He loves me, he loves me not”.

Valentine’s cake

This was a quick cake to put together (just under 2 hours) owing to a packed weekend. It is very much a dessert-type cake and is a variation of one of my signature cakes: using light sponge, passionfruit, Amaretto, raspberries, chocolate and cream. It might not have been my most elegant of cakes but I was happy with it.

The Clandestine Cake Club

I had a marvellous time meeting a group of lovely fellow cake lovers who had brought stunning cake that tasted as amazing as they looked…so many inspiring creations, not to mention the intoxicating aroma of cake…heavenly! I cannot wait for the next meeting!

There are groups of the Clandestine Cake Club all over the UK and further afield: if you love making and eating cake, and chatting to fellow cake lovers, I would urge you to look up your local club: it really is a great social event.

The Valentine’s cake:

I used a heart-shaped tin that I bought years ago and rarely used, and made a genoise sponge. The proportions I used here was:

• 5 eggs
• 155g plain flour
• 155g vanilla caster sugar
• grated zest of 1 large lemon
• 50g melted unsalted butter

The method for making the sponge is in an earlier post here.

The sponge layers were brushed with Amaretto. I then filled the cake with double cream that was whipped with icing sugar and vanilla extract, after which a little fresh passionfruit curd was folded through.

The cake was then crumb-coated with some of the cream before being surrounded with a thin wall of tempered dark chocolate: there has to be chocolate!

Fresh raspberries, brushed with a glaze of raspberry purée, a little sugar and more Amaretto, topped the cake.

Author: Philip

Finalist on Britain’s Best Home Cook (BBC Television 2018). Published recipe writer with a love of growing fruit & veg, cooking, teaching and eating good food. View all posts by Philip