.
..
With Valentine’s Day just around the corner,I thought it would be a good time to give you my long overdue chocolate update
Food Trends in Chocolate
You may have read in various magazines in the last 18 months that dark chocolate is good for you because it contains antioxidants. Whilst this is strictly true what they don’t tell you is unfortunately most of the antioxidants contained in the coco beans are lost during traditional manufacturing.
You will begin to see more products hyping up their antioxidant content, often started in California these new products gradually drift east. In the last year I have been sent 3-4 types of “new chocolate” from various companies from the UK and USA trying to come up with a healthier chocolate but all they succeeded in doing was to show me how hard it is to produce a great tasting chocolate that was healthier for you. Waxy, oily, unpalatable are just some of words that come to mind…. how these companies think these things will sell is beyond me?
Now Belgian chocolate maker Guylian, famous for its seashells have come up with a new product that seems to overcome this problem. Extra Sea Shells are filled with a Guylian’s famous hazelnut praline filling but the new seashells are covered in 74 per cent dark chocolate made through the ACTICOA™ process, which preserves the antioxidants that naturally occur in the cocoa bean but are normally lost through chocolate production. Being the brave unselfish researcher that I am I got hold of a box of the new seashells and performed a taste test. With several chef friends and my sister we did a series of tastings and wrote down our thoughts. In summary we all felt the Guylian Extra Sea Shells tasted like top quality chocolate with none of the problems the other “new chocolate” seemed to suffer from in texture and taste. So if you love chocolate but suffer from guilt…. go hunting for seashells.
More Zotter
For chocoholics who follow this blog last year I wrote about an extraordinary Austrian Master Chocolatier named Zotter and his amazing chocolate combinations. Amongst the products I didn’t mention are his now legendary chocolate drink bars, designed to melt when whisked into hot milk. On the Internet I chanced upon this story how a Café in Bury England is now selling Zotter chocolate drinks bars to enjoy at the Café or take home. http://www.citylife.co.uk/restaurants/news/11999_chocolate_fever_in_bury 
A link to the Zotter site: http://www.zotter.at/136.html
High Quality Chocolate at a Low Price
I’ve been meaning to share with my UK and European readers for quite some months the fact that bars of high quality chocolate are sold at Lidl supermarkets. Made especially for Lidl under the name of J.D Gross in Germany this range of premium plantation chocolate bars are definately great value for money. My favourite called Madagascar with 46% coco solids is without doubt the best milk chocolate I have tasted. With 46% coco solids Madagascar achieves a rare balance of rich and well rounded coco taste without the bitterness you get from darker chocolates, it’s what I would call a really adult milk chocolate. The other good thing about this range of bars is unlike other premium chocolate bars that you might find one week then can’t find them the next is these bars are always available in Lidl stores.
This is really wonderfull site.