With just a small bit of ingenuity, turn everyday food into something cute using Kaori’s recipe series! With a few simple ideas, an ordinary recipe magically transforms into a cute dish. Today we’ll be looking at a recipe perfect for Valentine’s Day – a super delicious chocolate gateau!

1: Ingredients

・15cm diameter round bowls

・ 200ｇ coverture chocolate

・ 150ｇ unsalted butter

・ 4 egg yolks

・ 50ｇ salt

・ 25ｇ wheat flour

・ 25ｇ Van Houten cocoa powder

・ 4 egg whites

・ 30ｇ granulated sugar

2: Mix the egg yolks and sugar well.

3: Melt the coverture chocolate and unsalted butter in a bowl over hot water. Add this to the egg yolks and sugar and mix.

4: ① Whisk the egg whites and granulated sugar until soft peaks form and add a small amount of this to the mixture made in step 3.

② Sieve the wheat flour and cocoa powder into the mixture.

 ③ Add the remaining egg whites into the mix and stir well.

④ Spread the mixture into a baking tin. (As the mixture will rise then sink whilst being cooked, it is ok to fill the tin up to 9/10 of the way.

5: Put the cake mix into the oven at 170℃ for 10 minutes and then turn it down to 160℃ for 20 – 25 minutes. After rising, a dip will form in the centre of the cake.

6: Make the decoration cookies for the top of the cake. (See Kaori’s Hello Kitty Halloween Cookies recipe: https://www.moshimoshi-nippon.jp/65290 )

You will need 50g of icing sugar and 9g of egg white to make the icing for the cookies. Add the egg whites bit by bit to the icing sugar whilst mixing well. After mixing, you can start decorating the cookies. (Today I’ve put the icing on using my finger).

Once the icing has hardened, melt a chocolate pen (or any kind of chocolate) and use a toothpick to draw Hello Kitty’s nose and eyes in the centre of each cookie. Fill the hole in the centre of your chocolate gateau 8/10 of the way with fresh cream and then add the cookies and some strawberries to the top to decorate.

※ A few important points*

１. The cake will still be delicious after 3 days.

２. This cake is best enjoyed at room temperature. If you store it in the fridge, I recommend leaving it out at room temperature about an hour before serving.

３. If you are going to give this to somebody as a gift, then I recommend either avoiding the fresh cream or decorating just before presenting to the recipient. Today I’ve put my cake in a gift box purchased from Seria.

Kaori invites you into her world of character-themed dishes in her recipe series! Please check out her Instagram where she has uploaded many pictures!