Enjoying a meal with someone special is a sensual experience when you’ve prepared it yourself. This week celebrities share their Valentine’s Day secrets.
Radio personality Jeremy Mansfield and his author wife, Jacqui, love cooking for each other every day and don’t make a big fuss of Valentine’s Day. “But this year it falls on a Saturday so we might do something meaningful to us such as having chocolate cake in bed late in the morning.” This recipe is taken from their cookery book Zhoozsh! which was published by Struik in 2007.
Harry Sideropoulos’ mom’s chocolate cake
INGREDIENTS: 4 slabs (200 g each) dark chocolate; 2 cans (397 g each) condensed milk; 20 ml melted butter; 5 packets (125 g each) finger biscuits; 250 ml full-cream milk; 1 litre cream; 10 strawberries, quartered; fresh mint leaves.
METHOD: Break the chocolate into squares and reserve a few squares for decoration. Put the chocolate squares in a large glass bowl over a saucepan with a little boiling water. Melt the chocolate over very low heat. Stir in the condensed milk and mix well.
Grease a round 28 cm spring-form cake tin with the melted butter. Crush about 10 finger biscuits and spread the crumbs evenly in the bottom of the tin. Dip the remaining finger biscuits in milk and arrange them on top of the crumbs. Spoon half the melted chocolate mixture on top of the biscuits, followed by another layer of biscuits. Spoon the remaining chocolate mixture on top. Chill the chocolate cake for 4 hours.
Whip the cream until stiff peaks form and spread over the cake. Melt the remaining chocolate squares and drizzle over the cream. Decorate with strawberries and mint leaves.
Serves 6-8
- For other romantic meal ideas see the latest issue of YOU (12 Feb).
