Last week I had a big professional meeting, not about chocolate, yet most of it was taken up talking about chocolate. I can’t think of another food stuff that can so bind people together. Maybe cheese, or chips, but chocolate talks to the child in all of us.
One of the questions I was asked was, ‘Where can I get a dark chocolate egg that has lots of nuts in?’ At Easter, I rarely go dark chocolate (although, see later), it has to be milk for me, but Venchi does some really good offerings of dark eggs so pebble-dashed with hazelnuts, from £13/70g, they are strangely, pox-like-fascinating. (For an egg with bits in, in general, nothing beats a Gabriella Cugno egg, but they sold out two weeks ago, 48 hours after launch).
Talking of ‘none betters’, I’ve spent a year trying to find better mini eggs than Chantal Coady’s Chocolate Detective Bird’s Eggs, £12.75. And I haven’t succeeded – the ones to go for are the chaffinch eggs, pink and plenty full of praline.
Bare Bones launched its first ever Easter egg this year, £22, a stupendous offering, in 60% Honduran milk chocolate, I am glad to say.
Luisa’s Vegan Chocolates has some wonderful flat bunnies, called Luigi, from £9.50, in dark chocolate or Casholate (cashew nuts therein) in ‘milk’ or white. But my absolute favourite here was the ‘flat’ 75% Solomon Islands chocolate egg with Sicilian orange peel, £9.70. So good I ate it all in one sitting.
Follow Annalisa on Twitter @AnnalisaB