Happy St. Valentines Day to you.

May your life be filled with peace, love and joy.

Oh, and cake.

I wanted the perfect valentines food. It needed to be sweet, decadent, and meaningful. If cherries don't give you that I don't know what does.

Cherries can symbolise fertility, merrymaking, and festivity . Almonds represent the inner truth at the core of life. 

A slab of this dense yellow cherry studded gloriousness is the epitome of love and desire.

Yes, I arranged cherries into a heart shape for you.

And, yes, I spent twenty minutes getting cherry sticky craziness off my table afterwards.

You are totally worth it.

INGREDIENTS 
200g glace cherries
250g self-raising flour
225g butter, softened
175g golden caster sugar
2  eggs
2 drops almond essence
100g ground almonds
3 Tablespoons milk

METHOD 
Butter and line a tin (I used a regular loaf tin)

Preheat the oven to 170ºC

Rinse the cherries under a tap to get rid of some of the syrup; this will prevent them from sinking to the bottom of your cake. Cut each cherry in half.

Beat the butter and sugar together until pale and well mixed.

Beat in each egg then gently stir in the almond essence, the flour and ground almonds.

Fold in the cherries and the milk and spoon the mix into the loaf tin and bake for 1 hour, or until golden brown and firm.

Cool completely on a rack, still in the tin, before serving.