Let’s drink to flavanoids, and eat to them too. Flavonoids are found in many food and drinks but there are particularly high levels in grapes; apples; green and black tea, soybeans and cocoa. Classed as antioxidants, flavonoids have many health benefits including reducing blood cholesterol levels and easing menopausal symptoms. They can also enhance the memory’s ability to remember and think clearly.

If you want to have a go at making a flavanoid-rich chocolate, walnut and cinnamon sponge cake, then try this Gary Rhodes recipe I’ve adapted. After lining a 10-inch cake tin and setting your oven to 180 degrees, get out the food processor and put in:

• 6oz butter (no margarine please!)
• 8oz soft brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 6oz plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder (I tend to fling in the equivalent 1:2 ratio of bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar instead)
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 4oz cocoa (Oxfam Finest Cocoa from Africa gives it a rich-chocolate taste)
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• 1oz walnuts
• ½ pint of Mackeson’s sweet stout (it must be sweet stout, not a traditional bitter stout like Guinness).

Blend until smooth and scrape it all out into your baking tin. Cook for an hour. When cool fill with apple jam and serve with a dollop of cream.
If, by any chance, you don’t eat this fast enough and it starts to go stale, don’t despair. Warm a thick slice up in the microwave and pour on some Bird's custard – guaranteed to moisten up any slightly past-it cake.

If you want something to wash it down with, try drinking up the rest of the can of stout or pour yourself a glass of Chianti.