I’ve been so busy this week I haven’t had time to update my blog. Every afternoon after work has been taken up with something: baking, trying to catch up on jobs around the house or even to go out for walks in the fresh air with the dog. It has been a crazy week. It’s now 4pm on Sunday afternoon and I’ve been baking since 9am. I am so tired and I haven’t even done half the stuff I need to do this weekend.

One of my special bakes I planned for Valentine’s Day was this special Chocolate Fudge Cake. I baked it in a heart silicone shaped mould which I’ve had a number of years. It came from Lakeland and to be honest I hadn’t used it for a while. The pan has been discontinued a while though as I wanted another one to match it to make a double layer cake and I can’t find an identical one anywhere! I thought it would be a lovely way of using the cake mould by baking a fudgy cake in it. I topped it with chocolate ganache and added some heart sprinkles found in my local Morrisons.

I must admit I get fed up with all the commercialism around Valentine’s Day. I think if you love someone, you should show it every day, not just on February 14th. Mr S and I do get one another a card and we have a nice dinner together. This year as Valentine’s Day is on a Monday night and a school night I think we will be staying in and there definitely won’t be wine. We only ever went out once for dinner on Valentine’s Day and it was a big disappointment. The tables were crammed together (definitely pre- Covid times here!) and the food was twice as expensive as it was the day before. We felt as if we could hear everyone else’s conversations except our own. The next day I went down with a stinking cold! Until I was in a relationship, I hated Valentine’s Day as there was always someone rubbing your nose in it that they’d got cards and were spoilt by their partners when you were on your own with your microwave meal for one. I feel a bit of a hypocrite typing this as I am selling Valentine’s themed cakes but then again I am only responding to demand.

The recipe for this Chocolate Fudge Cake is adapted from a Jane Asher recipe book which I have had for years. It is definitely out of print now but it was one full of simple birthday cakes which I used when I first started making birthday cakes. The recipe was at the front of the book and was easily adapted depending on your size of tin. I hadn’t got a lot of time for making fancy decorations from scratch, so the simple heart sprinkles would have to do.

A Chocolate Fudge Cake was also another challenge to scratch off on my #100bakeschallenge poster from Crumbs by Collette. Although I said to myself I’d try and do two of the challenges a week, this just did not happen last week! Sometimes life just gets in the way. I think the Fudge Cake ended up being number seven.

Happy Baking!

Love Sam xx