It pairs well with chocolate cake, cookies, fresh as well as dried fruit. Toasted or grilled pound cake is a pretty tempting desert to experiment with this Valentine's day!
As mentioned in the link www.allchocolate.com there are chemical that activate the brain to induce pleasurable feeling after eating chocolate. Perhaps that's why its sold so much for the lover in all of us.
For this particular cake ,I laced it with a thin,invisible layer of strawberry filling with the butter cream so that when you bite into the strawberries and eat the cake simultaneously the flavors complement each other.
Most chocolate deserts pair very well with a good quality Port Wine I recommend Taylor Port Wine its dark, red with a berry scent.
But to to get from A to B if you choose to bake your own Valentine a delicious treat let me share a few tips I've learned over the years and I'm still learning.
1. Always, plan your decorations a few days ahead, especially if you never used the design previously.
2.Pay attention to balancing and the proportion of the fruit for the size of your cake.( this cake is a 6" round diameter cake) I love large,juicy strawberries but medium sized berries would be a better choice for aesthetics.
3. And do not buy your fresh fruit too early ( more than 4 days in advance ) the stems on the strawberries will wither and dried out terribly ruining the vibrant green color.
4. Dry the fruit completely before dipping- the texture of the chocolate will streak, clump and who knows what else.
Have a wonderful, safe and loving Valentine's Day!
