The summer heat requires special treatment of chocolate. Few experts would agree with keeping it in the fridge, but sometimes you have to gently shh them and do what feels right. Heist’s Milk and Honey Nougat is like a choc-covered torrone morbido: a big slab of milk chocolate covering honey-laced pistachio and almond nougat. It’s a disaster in hot weather. But, kept in the fridge … wow. The pre-marked pieces are so big and generous you can’t disobey them, slice your knife into it and then eat the piece within, say, three minutes before the whole lot turns molten in your fingers.
Pump Street has just launched a Walnut Brownie 60% Dark Milk Bar with Haitian beans. It features brownie crumb with English Sharpham Park caramelised, hand-chopped walnuts. It’s rich and deep in flavour.
My father used to have an ice-cream shop, and he made the best chocolate ice-cream (which I think is difficult to get right) because he’d mix the chocolate with chestnuts to give the gelato a wonderful mouthfeel. I keep meaning to try to emulate it. Not the same but a very worthy chocolate ice-cream, since it’s the weather for it, is Ottolenghi’s Salted Malted Chocolate ice-cream made with 73% cocoa Ecuadorian chocolate.
Soon I’ll be writing about making your own chocolate treats, but I am in love with Dominique Ludwig’s salted caramel bars, which feature an oat and almond base, nut butter and dates whizzed up into a dreamy caramel and drizzled with (for me, very high cocoa content) chocolate. I customise her recipe with more nut butter than she suggests and sprinkle a few roasted peanuts into the caramel innards to make a bastard child of a Twix and a Snickers. Shop-bought can go hang.
