There are many stories about how the heart came to represent love, and of course Valentine’s Day. One suggests it came from an illustrated verse, written in the 13th century, that depicts a poetic lover handing his beating heart to his beloved. The image shows his thumb making an indentation in the top of the heart, thus creating the symbol we all know today.
Our Valentine’s Day offering, a seductive Chocolate Chestnut Cake with Chocolate Frosting, employs no such poetic subtlety. The luscious, velvety chocolate and chestnut interior and its sensually smooth frosting make for some serious indulgence.
If chocolate isn’t your thing, try the heart-shaped Raspberry Meringue Cake you’ll find on the cover of our cookbook, Sweet Revenge. It’s seductively sweet and creamy and covered in raspberries – red for the colour of love.
Or forget the cake and the card and give a copy of Sweet Revenge itself, with its picture perfect Valentine’s Day cover and abundance of tempting recipes.
How could you go wrong?
Rosie
CHOCOLATE CHESTNUT HEART WITH CHOCOLATE FROSTING
Serves 2, of course, for Valentine’s Day (with lots of left-overs).
Or 6 on any other day.
200 gm dark couverture chocolate, melted and cooled
6 eggs, separated
200 gm caster sugar
1.5 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
300 gm unsweetened chestnut puree (purchased or home-made)
1 tablespoon warm water
90 gm almond meal
Preheat oven to 175°C. Line a 1.5 litre heart shaped cake tin with non-stick baking paper bringing the paper 4cm above the rim of the tin.
Beat egg yolks and sugar together until thick, pale and creamy.
Add vanilla and cooled, melted chocolate and beat until combined.
Tip chestnut puree into a small bowl and mix with the 1 tablespoon of warm water until smooth. Add to chocolate/egg mix together with the almond meal and beat until pale and thick.
Whisk egg whites until firm. Fold into the mixture.
Bake for approximately 1 hour or until a metal skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool in the tin.
Frosting
200 ml cream
150 gm dark couverture chocolate
60 gm unsalted butter, cubed, softened
Bring cream to a boil. Place chocolate in a heat proof bowl and pour the cream over the chocolate, stirring to combine. Allow to cool.
Beat cooled mix, adding soft butter cubes until frosting is light and fluffy (6-8 minutes).
Spread over the top and sides of the cake. If refrigerating before use, ensure the cake has come back to room temperature before serving.
Serve with whipped cream.
Sweet Revenge Stockists: Purchase anytime on line from our website or from:
Gleebooks, Glebe; Brays Books, Balmain; Bookacino, Avalon; Accoutrement, Mosman; Cornersmith, Annandale; DeansSwift Books, Nowra; Decadence Cakes Gifts, Nowra; Nourish, Berry; Lindfield Bookshop, Lindfield and BareBones, Swansea, Tasmania.