Little Yoghurt and Orange Blossom Hearts for my Valentine!

"How much do I love thee? Let me count the ways.." Have you ever heard this one before? or how about this one, " Love is... Never having to say you're sorry". Whoever wrote this crap probably never ever had a relationship. Our wedding theme song was 'Never gonna let you down' (yeah, how naive were we?), just in case you've never heard it before, here's some of the lyrics..




Forever, I will love you
Forever, I will be true
Forever, I'll always be right here by your side
and every morning I'll be there when you open your eyes

Never gonna let you down
I'll always be around
I'll be there for you
because I love you
Ohhh...
(Never no never will let you down)



Have you had enough? Since that song was sung at our wedding almost 15 years ago, there's been countless times that Ming and I had let each other down and there were times we wondered if we did love each each other. What IS Love exactly?
Is it that warm fluttering feeling one feels in the stomach ? Nope. That sounds more like an early warning for food poisoning.




I don't know how Valentine's Day came to be a day of celebration for lovers and frankly, I'm not interested. Just hearing last Sunday's sermon on 'LOVE' and the staggering statistics of the divorce rate in the U.S. tells me that WE ARE ALL VERY DISILLUSIONED ABOUT WHAT LOVE IS. Marriage vows are spoken mindlessly and Pre-nuptual agreements are on the rise. Couples who go into marriage with pre-nupts are really setting themselves up for a Marriage break up, because a pre-nuptual agreement spells DISTRUST.




I have come to understand that we are all here for the one purpose of learning to Love. Sadly, some of us will never grasp the true meaning of 'LOVE'. 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 of the Holy Bible ( New Living Translation) states;

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand it's own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.





I have a lot to learn. How about you? I guess, when we can change the sentence from "I love so and so because of..." to " I love so and so in spite of... we are on the right track. As for Ming and myself, we are soldiering on, I hope that you will too. With that thought in mind, I made some Little Yoghurt and Orange Blossom Heart Cakes for my Darling Valentine, Ming Chong. I'm also submitting these little Love Hearts to Zorra's 'A Heart for your Valentine' event. Thanks, Zorra, you are a true romantic!

Little Yoghurt and Orange Blossom Cakes
(Adapted from Gourmet Traveller Annual Cookbook 2007)
Makes 6 Love Hearts

300 g (2 cups) plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
300 g vanilla yoghurt
60 ml (1/4 cup) buttermilk
200 g salted butter, softened
220 g (1 cup) white sugar
2 tsp ( rind from a whole medium sized navel orange)
4 eggs
100 g vanilla Persian Fairy Floss

Orange Blossom Icing

50 g butter
250 g pure icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp orange blossom water
1 tbsp vanilla yoghurt



Preheat oven to 150 degrees celsius, fan forced. Grease and line the bottoms of two sponge pans, allowing some baking paper to hang over the two sides of each pan for easy removal of the cake. ( sorry, I don't have the measurements). Sift flour and baking powder and set aside. Whisk yoghurt and buttermilk together in a bowl and set aside. Using an electric mixer, beat butter, sugar and orange rind until pale and creamy.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating briefly between each addition. With the mixer on low speed, add one-third of the flour and mix to combine, then add one-third of the yoghurt mixture and mix to combine. Repeat with remaining mixtures, alternating, until incorporated. Mix till the batter is smooth, then pour into the lined sponge pans, tapping the base to level the batter. Bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted draws clean. Cool completely in pans on a wire rack, then loosen the edges of the cakes with a spatula and then lift them out of the pans by holding on to the 'hanging bits' of baking paper.

Using a heart shaped cookie cutter, cut out as many hearts as you can. Keep the heart shaped cakes in an air tight container until ready to fill.

For the Orange Blossom Icing, beat all the ingredients in an electric mixer for 1 minute or until smooth. Add more yoghurt if necessary to adjust the consistency of the icing. Spread some icing on one heart shaped piece of cake and top that with another heart shaped piece of cake. Spread icing on the second piece of cake as well and top with a final piece of cake. Spread some icing on the surface of the cake and top with some Persian Fairy Floss just before serving. Enjoy!