It’s rare I have to buy chocolate for cooking these days, but I do love a chocolate drop. Chocolate drops seem utterly decadent; there was no way I would have been allowed to buy them growing up, you chopped up a bar of regular chocolate. To me they scream luxe and what ‘other people’ have. So when I saw Duchy Organic Milk chocolate Drops (39% cocoa) reduced to clear in Waitrose for £1.25, I stocked up. The problem is that not many have made it into my cooking, they are so delicious.
Luckily, I had some high-cocoa content chocolate to bring me back in line. Luisa’s Philippines, 92%, £2.80, won gold at the Academy of Chocolate awards in 2019 – and I’m not surprised. Don’t be too scared by the percentage, it’s really creamy for how heavily it punches.
London’s Dominican Republic 85%, £6.90, is described as having a profusion of honey and berry sweetness with caramel and nuts. I didn’t get any of this. I was transported to a Parisian café, drinking espresso and thinking about taking up smoking again (don’t do it, kids). It was grownup, with a melancholy finish, in the way that being a grownup is.
Sorry to bring up Willie’s 100% again, as I did two weeks ago with the Date and Pistachio, but the 100% with Orange and Almond, £2.99, is brilliant. Just because we all know that in two weeks I’ll also be trying the third and final in the 100% inclusion range, let me tell you about it now: Raisin and Hazelnut, £2.99. Willie has done such a clever thing here with these bars and you should try them. Even if they are 100% cocoa.
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