My trips to London are tricky these days. Whereas once I had lots of family there, now there are none. It feels strange and empty at times, and I fill that void with being fantastically busy and meeting up with lots of friends when I’m there. A packed diary is a great anaesthetic.
So, too, is chocolate, and I was craving something chunky (read about meeting my match with chunky in a few weeks’ time) and comforting. But I’ve lost my super-sweet tooth, so chocolate that is too full of sugar I can’t eat. Willie’s Cacao 54% Milk of the Stars, £2.35, is in my top 10 of milks. I always forget how good it is, because I don’t let myself eat too much of it and when I do, I wish every newsagent stocked it.
Recently, I went to Selfridges to see what was new. A friend had confided that despite having a cupboard full of craft chocolate, she kept going back to the Venchi. It’s too easy to eat. I went for a Milk Chocolate with Hazelnuts bar, £6.30/100g, reassuringly heavy and thick, with hazelnuts – not sugar – as the primary ingredient.
But in my rush and greed, I didn’t notice I’d bought the 70% less sugar version. The second ingredient was chicory root fibre (nearly a quarter of the bar is this). This helps bring down the sugar content to just over 11g/100g. I’m not sure if it alters the taste compared to the usual milk/hazelnut bar. (If you’ve tried it, LMK what you think.)
My testers thought it was delicious. But if you eat as much as I did in one go, beware, that chicory root can give you a tummy ache.
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