Preheat the oven to 180° and grease and flour an 8 hole texas muffin tin

In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

In another bowl, mix together the eggs, buttermilk, canola oil and vanilla until smooth.

Add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients until just combined. Gradually add the hot coffee while stirring gently. Finally fold in the chocolate chips.

Divide between the texas muffin tins.

Bake in oven for around 15-20 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean (make sure you aren’t just hitting the chocolate chips though!). I made these in a temperamental oven, so be careful with cooking time as I can't be 100% sure that mine was at the correct temperature! Leave to cool for 15 minutes.

Gently remove from tins and set aside to cool completely

In a small bowl or cup, dissolve the cornflour in 2 tablespoons of the water.

Place the sugar and remaining water in a small pot over a low heat, stirring until all the sugar has dissolved.

Add the lemon juice and cornflour/water mixture, turn the heat up to medium, and continue to stir constantly until it comes to the boil and starts to thicken.

Set aside to cool.

Combine all ingredients in a small sauce pan over low heat until combined and defrosted (if your berries were frozen). Cook for about 10 minutes to thicken, stirring occasionally so the compote doesn’t catch.

Taste to adjust the sugar levels.

With a fork or spoon, break up the berries as much as you can against the side of the pot, then strain through a fine sieve, getting out as much of the compote as you can. The aim here is to get rid of all the seeds for a smooth, dark red/purple berry compote that you can use as ‘blood’.

Add the butter and icing sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer (or use held mixer). Beat together until the butter is light and fluffy, about 4 minutes.

Add the cocoa and vanilla and beat for another 2 minutes or until there are no streaks of white.

Add the heavy cream and whip for another 2-4 minutes or until light and fluffy. Set aside.

See the construction notes as to whether you want to make ovoid/ellipsoid, more anatomical heart shapes (slightly bigger), or just use a single chocolate cake per heart (more spherical), and use the photos above as a guide to making them.

To make the ovoid heart shape, cut a curved piece out of one of the mini-cakes so it sits snugly against the edge of another. Then, on the cut cake, slice a piece of each side so it comes to a rounded point at the end opposite where it sits against the other cake. See the photo above where the heart-shape is sitting on top of the fondant for this.

Divide the fondant into 200-250g pieces, depending on the size of your heart.

Roll out the fondant on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar (not flour!) into an elliptoid/oval shape about 3mm thick (again, see photo above)

Place the heart-shaped cake into the centre of the oval. Spread some of the chocolate buttercream frosting between the two pieces of cake to keep them together as you wrap it up in fondant.

Quickly and gently, lift up the sides of fondant and wrap up the cake, bringing the fondant together at one edge (or towards one edge) of the heart cake. (again, see photos).

Use the edges of the fondant at the top to form three arteries - this is tricky, but I did it differently for each heart. Just mold the fondant gently together into three circles at the top. Don’t worry about creases in the fondant - they look great later on when covered in piping gel.

Repeat with your remaining chocolate cakes, buttercream and fondant.

When ready to paint on the blood, carefully colour your piping gel. First gradually add red food colouring until it is dark red, then add a tiny bit of black (seriously tiny) to get the red a dark, bloody colour.

Using a soft paintbrush, generously paint on the piping gel, making sure to get into all the crevasses of the heart.

When ready to serve, add the berry compote into the arteries and drip it down the sides and base for a really gorey look.