After several years of reviewing chocolate here at Chocablog, I don’t think there have been too many instances of me reviewing food which contains chocolate as opposed to being chocolate. Not through lack of willingness on my part, you understand, just because the opportunity hasn’t presented itself much.
Most of my friends know that I like most foods, not just chocolate. They also know that I like to try new and interesting foods (which is why I was given chocolate covered ants one Christmas) so when I was out doing a food shop & saw this on the shelf at Sainsburys, I knew I wanted to try it.
Adding dark chocolate to stews and chillis is nothing new. In fact it’s quite common in Mexican cooking (mole sauce anyone?) and this soup reflects that. It’s full of classic Mexican ingredients – smokey chipotle chillis, sweetcorn, rice and of course dark chocolate. I was very much looking forward to he tasting.
It’s also not hard to make. Throw in some water & a tin of tomatoes & it more or less takes care of itself. Perfect for people in a hurry (or lazy cooks). The packet even suggests that this soup base would make a decent chilli con carne with the addition of beef and beans. Versatile too!
After a short period simmering away (during which time the soup thickened considerably) it was ready to serve.
First impressions were good. The soup definitely has some chilli warmth to it but it won’t blow your head off, and the tomatoey, sweetcorn and spice flavours are indeed underpinned with hints of that dark chocolate.
Don’t get me wrong here, it isn’t a soup that tastes of chocolate, it’s a soup that uses chocolate as one of a set of ingredients, but without the chocolate it would taste quite a bit different. What the chocolate does is add a little body to the soup, plus a lovely undercurrent of chocolatiness.
They say the proof is in the eating, and we took care of this soup (with a few slices of home made bread) in not many minutes at all. Having read the ingredients I’d be tempted to make this myself from scratch (it’s not terribly complicated) but if you fancy a wee taste of Mexico in soup form I’d recommend tracking this one down.
Here’s another one of Rausch’s distinctively long, thin bars from their ‘Plantation’ range, and this one is the Daddy, with 80% Trinidadian cacao.
The ‘Plantation’ range first saw the light of day about twelve years ago, and you’re unlikely to find them in the UK I’m afraid (mine were bought on a holiday trip) but if you’re on the Continent there’s a very good chance they’ll be lurking on a supermarket shelf somewhere.
It’s a bit of a rare beast in terms of origin. We see so much cacao from South America but very little from the Caribbean. Small island producers tend to sell to the higher end, more exclusive chocolate makers (or in the case of Hotel Chocolat, they just grow for the company). I don’t recall ever having eaten much Trini cacao before.
Despite it’s hefty cacao percentage, the chocolate has a surprisingly mild flavour. There’s no getting away from the distinctive, earthy texture and mouth feel that high percentage cacao chocolate has, and some people do find that grainy, slightly coarse texture off-putting but happily this is one of the smoothest high-cacao bars I’ve eaten in a long time.
The characteristic ‘graininess’ of high cacao chocolate is evident to some extent but overall I was very impressed with how smooth and light it was texturally. The Trinidadian cacao has a good depth of flavour and a long finish. Overall, very impressive and certainly good enough to put Trinidadian cacao on my radar – I shall be keeping an eye out for more chocolate made with beans from the island.
Rózsavölgyi Csokoládé Matcha Tea
Paul A Young has done it – from a white chocolate bar speckled through with shards of green jasmine tea, to the irresistible Yorkshire Tea and biscuit ganache. Over at Melt, they’ve done a dark chocolate green tea bonbon, Earl Grey with a touch of rose, and a dark chocolate with Matcha.
But the haute chocolatiers Prestat think they were one of the country’s tea and chocolate pioneers, as managing director Bill Keeling told me when I caught up with him at the Speciality Chocolate fair.
Prestat came up with idea of using that quintessentially English tea, Earl Grey, ten years ago, sourced from their former South Moulton Street neighbours, HR Higgins.
They ground the tea into a fine, loose powder and mixed it into cocoa butter to infuse the flavours together, adding a dash of extra bergamot oil before turning it into a ganache. Radically, they favoured mixing it with milk chocolate into their trademark wafer thins.
Keeling says the thins swiftly became best-sellers, especially in that other nation of tea lovers, Japan. The success inspired a second chocolate, made specifically for that Far Eastern market, incorporating one of the country’s favourite teas, Sikkam.
A year ago came a white chocolate mixed with Matcha and a tiny hint of bergamot, and most recently a new chocolate bar, the friskily named Tea Time Frolics. That one, using milk chocolate again, mixes Earl Grey with a twist of essential lemon oil: it’s been on the market since May.
Prestat’s tea range is proving so popular there’s now another variety in the works, in time for winter – a hot chocolate, paired with chai spices, which should be available in about six weeks time.
Up in North Lincolnshire, self-styled Botanical chocolatier and inveterate tea drinker Fiona Sciolti has been working with various teas for about six years. “A lot of tea based products use inverted sugars and I thought it would be lovely to use our local honey instead, something much more natural.”
Sciolti Green Tea With Peach
She started working with Susan Gregory from Pause Teas, and has recently linked up with Equalitea who’ve won a host of Great Taste Awards for their blends: Fiona says she was especially impressed by their green tea with lychee pears – which even boasts its own Youtube video.
She favours dark chocolate for most of her tea based ganaches: “They really lend themselves to dark chocolate, it’s a wonderful carrier for all those flavours. Normally we use a 60% version, but we’ve got a 70% to use with lapsang as it needs a robust dark chocolate to match all those smokey notes”.
Her tea range, like the rest of her chocolates, is seasonal: for early summer there’s a fragrant jasmine, while later in the year there’s a peppermint and liquorice ganache which Fiona describes as “phenomenal”.
Proof, if it were needed, that tea is more than just a drink – but an ingredient in its own right.
Fancy a cuppa? Don’t mind if I do.
There are some foods that are just made to go together. Fish & Chips… Tea & Biscuits… Marmite & Chocolate…
Paul A Young has been working with Marmite for years. We first tried his Marmite Truffles back in 2009. In 2010, we looked at his Marmite XO Bar (which, of course we loved), and now it’s time for… the Marmite Brownie.
Here it is, in all its gooey glory.
“But wait!”, I hear you cry, “How doe Marmite work in a brownie!?”.
That’s a good question. And the answer is “Very well indeed”.
The Marmite acts just like the salt in a salted caramel, and actually enhances the flavour of the chocolate. Of course the Marmite flavour is quite strong, and if there were too much it would completely overpower the chocolate. But Paul has managed to get the balance just right. There’s enough Marmite to get a good hit from it, but what you mostly get is the sweet, gooey chocolateyness you’d expect from a Paul A Young brownie.
If you love Marmite, then I think you’ll love this too. If you’re one of the non-converted who doesn’t yet love Marmite, then I still think it’s worth trying for novelty value – and because it’s just a damn good brownie.
The Marmite Brownie is only currently available from Paul A Young’s Islington shop. You won’t find it in his other shops.
