Sunday is Valentines day – the day when the whole world celebrates love in some form or another. It doesn’t matter whether Valentine existed  or not or whether the day itself originated in ancient Rome or ancient Babylon. The only thing that really matters is that the world is prepared to dedicate an entire day to that one thing that’s in such short supply these days – love. Yes, it’s commercialised and yes, retailers are abusing the day but nobody’s telling anybody what they need to do – so if money’s tight, pack a basket or a light a candle and spend the day celebrating love and everything it means.

There were three prominent Valentines – all of who were, in all probability martyred.

• A Roman priest that was martyred on the Flaminian Way by the Emperor Claudius in 269 AD.
• The bishop of Terni who was born around 175 AD and who was taken to Rome to be martyred.
• A martyr in the Roman province of Africa – we know little else about the man.

The accounts of martyrdom of all three Valentines are legendary but there’s never any smoke without fire, so one assumes that there are a few grains of truth in each tale.

SEXY CHOCOLATE PUDDING

Ingredients

• 240 g dark chocolate, 70% cocoa solids
• 240 g butter
• 8 egg yolks
• 4 egg whites
• 150 ml sugar
• 4 tsp Maizena (corn flour)

The sexy filling

• 150 ml hot espresso (or good quality strong instant coffee)
• 150ml plain chocolate – we prefer darker chocolate but for those of you with a sweet tooth, use a milk chocolate.
• A generous pinch of ground chilli

Method

• Make the sexy filling by melting the chocolate in hot coffee and pouring into ice cube trays to freeze – fill the cubes until about ¾ way full, then freeze until you need them (it can easily be done a few days in advance).
• Butter 8 individual moulds and set aside (or any small oven proof dishes suitable for making a pudding).
• Melt the dark chocolate and the butter, once melted remove from the heat (use any tried and tested method to melt here).
• Whisk the egg yolks and the sugar until pale and fluffy and combine this with the melted chocolate, mixing well – then sift the flour into the mixture.
• In a separate bow, whisk the egg whites to soft peaks and fold this into the chocolate mixture – set aside for about an hour (this is a great pudding to make before dinner and finish during or after the meal.)
• Spoon a little of the chocolate mixture into the moulds (they need to be about 25% full) unmould the ice cubes and put one in the middle of each small pudding before pouring in more of mixture until it’s about 75% full.
• Bake at 180C for 10 – 13 minutes until the pudding rise.
• Remove and allow to rest for a few of minutes before turning them out onto a serving dish, dust with cocoa or icing sugar and serve with whipped cream or mascarpone.

THE LEGENDS

Many historians, including Robert C. Bulla who wrote the book, St. Valentines Day, believe that the day originated in ancient Rome with feasts held to honour the god, Lupercus, who protected the Romans from wolves – this was very important in ancient Rome because wolves were a terrible danger at the time.  It all changed with the advent of Christianity when the Church, quite wisely, gave them someone else to honour and so St. Valentine’s Day was born.  At the beginning of the festival of Lupercalia, a special order of ‘priests’ (known as the luperci) gathered around the caves (image below) where Romulus and Remus were born* and sacrificed a goat for fertility and a dog for purification.  Young men

would then slice the goat’s hide into thin strips, dip the strips into the sacrificial blood and run through the streets, slapping the women and the crops (?) with these strips. The women loved it because they believed that it would make them more fertile and then, just before nightfall, all the women would put their names into a large urn, the bachelors would pick a name and that was his woman for a year! Bear in mind that it was also the beginning of spring which was a time for purification – homes were spring cleaned, salt and spelt was sprinkled throughout the home and the 15^th of February was the birthday of Faunus – the Roman god of agriculture. In 496 AD Pope Gelasius I proclaimed the Feast of Saint Valentine but qualified it by saying that Valentine’s good deeds were known only to God – in other words, very little was known about the man. The feast of Saint Valentine became popular, were dedicated to him and then, in 1969, the Catholic Church changed their mind and removed his feast from the general calendar – they considered it prudent to remove those saints whose origins were based primarily on legends. This doesn’t mean that Valentine isn’t a saint anymore –  in Balzan and Malta (where his relics are apparently kept) Saint Valentine is still celebrated liturgically on February 14. On the Catholic general calendar, Saints Cyril and Methodius are now celebrated on the 14^th but Catholics are not forbidden to celebrate St. Valentine.

CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES

It’s imperative that you use the best quality chocolate that you can find – ordinary milk chocolate simply won’t do the job and if that’s all you have, make something else.

Ingredients

• 200 g dark chocolate, 75% cocoa solids, chopped
• 200 g whipping cream
• 1-2 tbsp unsalted butter, diced, at room temperature
• Unsweetened cocoa powder, for dusting
• 250 ml very dark chocolate, melted – this is optional
• A cooking thermometer would help here.

Method

• Warm a mixing bowl until it feels warm but not hot to the touch, add the chopped chocolate and set the bowl aside.
• Gently heat the whipping cream until just below boiling point at which point you immediately drizzle 25% of the heated cream into the middle of the chopped chocolate.
• Stir the cream and chocolate in one direction, keeping the spoon at the centre of the mixture, until the chocolate pieces have melted and the mixture is smooth and well combined.
• The whole process may seem laborious and unnecessary but it isn’t really because it’s a vital part of the process of making truffles.
• Drizzle in the rest of the cream, a little at a time, stirring the mixture in the same direction, then gradually working the spoon to the edges of the mixture until it is well combined and silky.
• Set aside until the temperature is about 37 C and start adding the butter, a little piece at a time and stir until the mixture has the consistency of mayonnaise – it’s important to note that you may not need all the butter.
• Now set the mixture aside in a cool place, preferably overnight so that it can cool to about  15C (you can test it with a cooking thermometer).
• When the truffle mixture has cooled sufficiently, use a teaspoon to scoop up portions of the truffle mixture and, using cool hands, shape each portion into a small ball – you should be able to make about 20 truffles.
• Dredge the truffles in cocoa powder until completely covered, then serve.
• If you want to preserve the truffles for longer than a day or two, dip the truffles into the melted chocolate and set aside to cool before dredging them in the cocoa powder.

There aren’t any records and there are many legends but it does seem that St Valentine was a priest who served around 270 AD during the reign of Claudius II. Deciding that single men would make better soldiers than those married with children, the emperor outlawed marriage for all young men who would make up his league of likely warriors. “Valentine, realizing the injustice of the degree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.”  (Image of Valentinus marrying Christians above.) While the humble priest was imprisoned, he fell in love with the jailer’s daughter who visited him throughout his interment and the night before his execution, he wrote her one last letter and signed it from your Valentine – as we still do today. Another legend tells how  Valentinus was killed for trying to help Christians escape from Roman prisons – they were horribly tortured and usually beaten to a pulp by the Romans. Nobody really knows whether the good deeds attributed to St. Valentine are all true but what it is pretty sure, is that he was a good, kind and sympathetic man.

In the 1840’s the first mass produced Valentines started appearing in 1847. In some schools, it is a custom for classes to exchange valentine cards with all other students in the class. While secular customs associated with Saint Valentine’s Day are either morally neutral or even good, the modern secular holiday has little connection to the original saint(s) or feast. In the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, the oldest known valentine, written in 1415, still in existence is a poem written by Charles, the  Duke of Orleans to his wife during his imprisonment in the Tower of London, can be found.Years later, HenryV hired John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois – like many kings at the time, he couldn’t write. In the 17th century, Great Britain began celebrating the holiday. By the middle of the 18th century, it was common for friends and lovers in all social classes to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritten notes. By the end of the century, printed cards began to replace written letters due to technological improvements of the printing press.  Below is a 1790 Valentine’s card that is, probably, the world’s most expensive antique card  – it can be seen at the British Postal Museum and is a handcrafted puzzle that unfolds to expose poetic letters – the face of the card reads:

My dear the Heart which you behold,
Will break when you the same unfold,
Even so my heart with lovesick pain,
Sure wounded is and breaks in twain.

By the end of that century, thanks to new technology, printed cards replaced handwritten letters – bear in mind that direct expression of one’s feelings were not in vogue (in fact, it was discouraged) in England so the ready-made cards did the job and with the drop in postage rates, the trend grew even more. Americans started a little earlier – in the early 1700’s and today, over a billion cards are sent annually – with 85% of them sent by women.

MOIST CHOCOLATE CAKE

Ingredients

• 200 g dark chocolate, about 70% cocoa solids
• 200 g unsalted butter , cut in pieces
• 1 tbsp instant coffee granules – use really good quality coffee here
• 85  g self-raising flour
• 85g plain flour
• ¼  tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 200g light muscovado sugar
• 200g golden caster sugar
• 25g cocoa powder
• 3 medium eggs
• 75 ml buttermilk
• grated chocolate or curls, to decorate

Icing

• 200g good-quality dark chocolate , as above
• 284ml carton double cream
• 2 tbsp golden caster sugar

Method

• Grease a 20cm round cake tin and line the base with parchment paper.
• Preheat the oven to 160C.
• Break the chocolate into pieces and put into a medium, heavy-based pot with the butter, the coffee and about 125 ml cold water and warm over low heat without overheating.
• In the meantime, sift both kinds of flour together with the bicarbonate of soda, the sugar and the cocoa and, in another bowl, whisk the eggs and pour in the buttermilk, mixing well.
• Now carefully pour the melted chocolate mixture and the egg mixture into the flour mixture, stirring just until everything is well blended and you have a smooth, silky but quite runny consistency.
• Pour this into the cake tin and bake for 85 – 90 minutes until a skewer put into the centre comes out clean and the top feels firm – don’t stress if it cracks a little.
• Allow to cool in the tin and then turn out on the wire rack to cool completely.
• Once the cake is cold, cut it horizontally into three (use strong cotton thread here – it’s so much easier than a knife)
• Make the icing by chopping the chocolate and putting it into a heat resistant bowl.
• Pour the cream into a pot with the sugar and heat until just before boiling point, remove from the heat and pour over the chopped chocolate, stirring until the mixture is smooth and everything has melted.
• Sandwich the layers together with a little of the icing and pour the rest over the cake, allowing it to fall down the sides and smoothing only the top with a palette knife.
• Decorate with grated chocolate.

* Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa.