A hidden heart cake for your Valentine.

Seeing as my younger daughter’s school has arranged Parents evening for the 14th February my hopes for a romantic meal will probably be dashed. Instead of a lovely meal, a glass of Prosecco and an early night I shall be hurtling around a school hall for the annual teacher parent speed dating extravaganza. Just as the person across the table gets to the interesting bit, a bell goes and you have to move on to the next date and begin the pleasantries all over again.

A typical parents evening.

Bell rings, move to new table, sit down. Shake hands, elbow teen to make eye contact with the teacher, brief run down of the GCSE course, where your child should be, just about to discuss their individual progress, bell rings, off we go to another appointment.  This happens eight or nine times, walk down the corridor, you get in the car, try to discuss any issues raised,  teen sulks all the way home.

So in order to make me feel like I wasn’t missing out on Valentines day completely, at the weekend I baked M and I a Valentines day cake. A cake with a hidden surprise inside was something I’ve been wanting to try for ages and now was my chance.

The recipe and method are surprisingly simple. I took my cue and method from a post by Jules at Butcher, Baker but used my own recipes, as I have go to cake recipe that works really well.

Pink batter mix

2 eggs weighed

same weight as eggs in SR flour

same weight as eggs in butter or Stork

same weight as eggs in caster sugar

1 1/2 tbsp milk

1 tube pink Dr Oetker gel colouring

• Pre heat your oven to 190 c
• Line a 6″ square cake tin with baking parchment.
• Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
• Beat in the eggs one at a time.
• Fold in the flour gently.
• Stir in the pink gel colouring and milk to slacken the mixture.
• 
• Spoon into the tin.
• Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
• Leave to cool completely.
• When cool take a heart shaped cutter and cut out hearts. They need to have the tops and bottoms trimmed. You need enough hearts to lay end to end in a loaf tin. Think Gala pie!

Chocolate cake to surround the heart.

2 eggs weighed

same weight as eggs in SR flour less 50 g

same weight as eggs in butter or Stork

same weight as eggs in caster sugar

1 1/2 tbsp milk

50 g cocoa powder

• Preheat the oven to 190c.
• Line a loaf tin with baking parchment.
• Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
• Beat in the eggs one at a time.
• Sieve together the flour and cocoa, fold into the mixture gently.
• Stir in the milk to slacken the mixture.
• Place half the chocolate batter into the base of the loaf tin.
• Put the hearts into the batter, point down and lined up to make a heart shaped log.
• Top with the rest of the batter, be careful not to move the hearts too much.
• Bake for 30 to 35 minutes until well risen and a skewer comes out clean.
• Cool in the tin.

Slice and share with your Valentine. Hopefully this will be someone you love and not as in my case eight or so assorted high school teachers at a girls school in Surrey!

Of course I must link this to the February Calendar cakes challenge hosted by Dolly Bakes and Laura loves cake.

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