Lemon and Raspberry Hidden Heart Cake

I'm on the fence about Valentine's Day. Always have been, but don't know if I always will be. I shunned the holiday a lot as a teenager/emerging adult because I had no one to share it with. My friends have hilarious stories of me ranting about useless flowers and ugly cards and crappy gestures, but now they find it hilarious that I sort of buy into it just a little bit because I do now have someone to share the day with.

I'm still not head over heels for it all, because I like to think I show Jason how much I love him every day of the year not just on Valentine's. The whole holiday became a bit more of a me thing, though, when on our first Valentine's together Jason text me saying "come out of your room" (we lived in student accommodation, him in the flat below me) and there it was, my first ever Valentine's gift: a giant Winnie The Pooh, practically half my size. Jason knew me so well already, and we still have the bear to this day. He sits proudly in the corner of our room, christened Mr. Bear because I have too many versions of Winnie The Pooh to count that we name them all! (See my Honey & Raisin Scones for more Winnie The Pooh love).

The following years haven't been quite so exciting, and the presents not quite so big, but what girl can't be happy with dinner out with her favourite person?

It pleases me at least, and what's great to come home to after splashing out on dinner is some homemade cake with a bit of a Valentine's twist. Enter the Lemon & Raspberry Hidden Heart Cake. A classic lemon drizzle loaf with a sweet, heart shaped raspberry centre that won't only surprise your Valentine but make their tastebuds happy too.

INGREDIENTS

For the raspberry hearts:
4oz margarine
4.5oz caster sugar
4oz self raising flour
2 eggs
160g fresh raspberries
Red food colouring

For the lemon cake:
6oz margarine
6oz caster sugar
6oz self raising flour
3 eggs
Zest of 2 large lemons

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 180˚C. Place the raspberries and half an ounce of sugar in a pan on a low heat and leave, stirring occasionally. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and sugar. Add the eggs, mixing until fully combined. Add the flour and mix again.

Check on the raspberries. By this time they should have dissolved and become juice with the seeds in. Take off the heat and pour into a sieve, extracting all the juice into a bowl beneath. Let the juice cool for 10 minutes, then pour it into the cake mixture and stir well. Add a dash of food colouring to intensify the colour (yes I know this is somewhat cheating to achieve colour but I wanted an extra special, bright colour for Valentine's day!) until it is the shade of red or pink you'd like (I have very strong food colouring so I only needed the tip of a teaspoon to achieve the pink colour of my hearts).

Place the mixture into a 6 or 7 inch round cake tin and bake for 20 minutes until the top springs back to your touch or a knife/prodder/whichever-utensil-you-use comes out clean.

Whilst this is cooking, make the lemon cake. Use the same method as the raspberry cake, but add the zest of 2 lemons instead of raspberry juice. Set mixture aside.

Once the raspberry cake is cooked, remove from the oven (do not turn the oven off!) and place on a cooling rack to cool for 15-20 minutes. When cool enough, place on a board and slice off a thin layer from the top of the cake. This is to remove the golden brown top so that when you cut into the cake, the heart is always perfectly pink.

Using a small heart shaped cutter, cut out 6-8 hearts, depending on the size of your loaf tin. Very carefully, cut off the very, very tip of each cut out heart and lay uniformly in the loaf tin, squeezing slightly at each end when all in so they bond together a little bit.

Now comes the tricky bit: getting the lemon cake mixture in the tin without knocking all the hearts out of place! Firstly, place the lemon cake mixture around the sides of the hearts, giving them support. You can then continue to add cake mixture, building up around the edges of the loaf tin until you can place the remaining mixture in over the top of the hearts. Be sure to push the mixture into all the nooks and crannies around the hearts and for good measure, bash the loaf tin on the counter once or twice to force it all to settle.

Place in the oven for 20-25 minutes at 180˚C until golden brown. Remove from oven when cooked and place on cooling rack.

When sufficiently cooled, place in front of your unsuspecting Valentine and cut open to reveal the pink hearts running through.

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I was so excited when I made my first cut into the cake. To see that it had actually worked and I had an adorable line of hearts through the entire cake was such a satisfactory moment. It was even better to see that my hearts had leant to the side a little when placing the lemon mixture in, so the cake had a quirky element to it as well.

On the taste side of things, I was blown away, if I do say so myself. Everyone loves a classic lemon cake, and combining it with raspberry is really something special. Having used fresh raspberries, the raspberry taste in the hearts is really powerful and zingy, melding perfectly with the tang of the lemon in the main cake. Everything is wonderfully sweet on the tongue but kicks with fresh fruit flavour.

This cake is a showstopper from all angles, visually and in taste. A smile spread across Jason's face when I showed it to him and it could be a cute gesture from you to your Valentine too. You can never go wrong with cake and this is such a simple way to wow with it and could be edited for many occasions from Easter to Christmas to birthdays.

The flavour combinations are endless too: chocolate and orange, coffee and walnut, maybe even strawberry and mango!

I hope you and your Valentines have as much fun making (and eating!) this cake as I did. And if your single this year then have a day of self loving and amazing indulgence by keeping this all to yourself!

Are you baking anything special this Valentine's day?