If It's Fruit, It's Good For You...

I was walking innocently past various shops in Bluewater when I was cunningly ambushed by a window display: a huge cherry.

I'm not really into fruit. But this was no ordinary cherry. It had rather a lot of chocolate lovingly dripped over it. Now, when I was much younger, my mother (who is German) used to make me a proper Black Forest cherry gateaux for my birthday. And I mean a proper one. She used to get the cherries pre-soaked from some continental food specialist shop, and then she would soak the bottom sponge layer in kirsch (and we'd drink a glass of kirsch for good measure!) and the cherries were enough to send you over the limit (luckily, I didn't drive in my early teens)... and then more kirsch... Each year, one of my presents would be this cake: it was so much hassle to make that it was a once-a-year production!

When my (English) stepfather appeared on the scene, he wanted to get a really special Black Forest gateaux as a special birthday present, and went to Harrods and ordered one... but the sponge was typical shop-bought sponge, and there wasn't any kirsch, and the bottom layer of cherries was more cherry jam... but he'd meant well, and so, because we didn't want to hurt his feelings, that was the end of the home-made version. And a couple of years later I left home, and birthday cake was no longer on the menu, so to speak...

So, today, all of my birthday cake memories came flooding back in an instant. Mesmerised by the display, I wandered inside the shop... just over the threshold with half a toe... to be greeted by a shop assistant... with samples...

...ummm. And it must be good for me, because it's dark chocolate (55% cocoa solids) and cherries are full of vitamins.

To be fair, I think that Green & Black's chocolate is better. But this comes a pretty close runner-up, and if you're in the mood for a hit of kirsch, then this wins hands down. Even better (or should that be worse?) I find that they do online ordering... visit them HERE.