Chocolate Cherry Love Bites..

With Valentine's Day looming, I present you with the most seductive Valentine's baking treat possible. These beautifully moist black cherry cakes are smothered in a silky ganache and one bite is just enough..!
These are the perfect present for your Valentine - so crack out your bakeware and enjoy!


To make 12 of these beauties, you'll need:

• 125g of Unsalted Butter, softened
• 125g of Caster Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 175g of Self-Raising flour
• 25g of Cocoa Powder
• 1 x 425g Tin of Dark, Pitted Black Cherries
• 150g of Dark Chocolate
• 75ml of Double Cream
• 75 ml of Whole Fat Milk
• 1 Tbsp. of Golden Syrup
• 100g of White chocolate

Drain the cherries from their tin for about an hour before beginning.

Preheat the oven to 180C Fan/400F/Gas Mark 6  and line your baking tin - I used a 23 cm square baking tin, but the choice is yours.

Then quarter your cherries and pop to the side.

Begin  your sponge by creaming together your butter and sugar until soft and creamy.

Add the eggs one at a time, don't worry if it looks curdled - keep adding them and mixing them into the sugar - butter mixture.

Then sieve the flour and the cocoa and stir into the mixture.

Finally add your cherries and stir into the mixture. Turn out into your lined baking tin.

Pop into the oven for about 30 -35 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Turn out immediately onto a clean board and leave to cool to room temperature.

Then using a heart cookie cutter, cut out your sponge hearts, press the sponge down to compact it a little if you are finding it all a little crumbly.

Pop to the side whilst you make your ganache.
Heat the milk, cream and golden syrup in a pan until just below boiling.

Then pour the mixture onto the broken chocolate pieces and leave for a minute. then stir the mixture thoroughly until you have a glorious chocolate mixture.

Now the ganache must be left for a couple of hours until it is spreadable, it's a tricky wait  - but it'll be worth it! (In the meantime eat the left over sponge!)

Then smother each sponge heart with the ganache - it'll be a messy job!

After covering the sponges, melt the white chocolate and place into a piping bag with a No. 2 piping nozzle attached. 

Pipe a heart around the outline of each chocolate bite.

And there you have it.. your very own Chocolate Cherry Love Bites - Happy Valentine's Day! 

Troubleshooting..

• If your sponge is very crumbly and it's tricky keeping the heart shape, leave the sponge to dry out for a couple of hours - it'll become much easier!
• If your chocolate ganache appears to split, it's likely the cream/milk mixture is too hot - bung the mixture in the fridge and it should keep together
• Remember that you cover the sponge heart with the ganache - it'll hide a multitude of sins!