Love Bake Nourish - a Review

One wet lunchtime at work, I was browsing around Waterstones as I occasionally do and I spotted the title Love Bake Nourish by Amber Rose. The title drew me in, so I picked up the book and had a look. I knew then that she had beaten me to it: this is exactly the kind of book I wish I had written. The central premise is about making delicious cakes and bakes, but making them as nourishing as possible - just what I have been doing (mostly) on my blog all these years. After flicking through the recipes for a while, I felt I wanted to know more about the author so I turned to the introduction. Well, what a surprise I got. It turns out that Amber Rose grew up on a small holding in New Zealand and puts her love of good food down to her horticulturally inclined mother Kay Baxter, who not only grew and prepared the food, but was an excellent cook. It was at this point that that my curiosity was really aroused. Could this be the very same Kay Baxter who CT and I had visited one particularly wet and windy day at Koanga Gardens in Northland, New Zealand? The simple answer was yes, she was the very same. CT wrote about our visit (amongst others) to Koanga Gardens on his From Our Owen Correspondent, it's worth a read. A short while later, I was sent the book to review.

The subtitle of the book says it all: healthier cakes, bakes and puddings full of fruit and flavour. Spelt and other non wheat flours such as buckwheat, rye and barley are used throughout and many of the bakes are gluten free. My only complaint here was that Amber used white spelt rather than wholemeal or even a mix of both would have done. Unrefined sugars are used, with maple syrup or honey playing a starring role in many of the recipes. A plentiful supply of fresh fruit, flowers and herbs are also used. But don't be put off if this sounds too worthy for you - the joy of both baking and eating runs throughout the book. Food that is nourishing for the body as well as the soul is something Amber mentions quite frequently; she is definitely a woman after my own heart. The recipes use butter, cream, creme fraiche, cheese and free range eggs. This got a sigh of relief from me as I am generally not keen on manufactured low fat options. There are layer cakes and fairy cakes smothered with icing. There is a whole chapter on tarts and meringues; the rosewater and pistachio pavlova with strawberries had me week at the knees just looking at the picture.

Virtually every recipe in the book appeals to me and the pictures are very tempting, but sadly, the chocolate recipes are few and far between. In fact there are only six; but when have I ever let that stop me? I was hoping to make the chocolate and cherry pots for this review, but I've not yet come across any English cherries. I'm not sure if that's because it's a bad season, it's a late season or if I've missed the boat entirely. I did however make the caramelised pear and buckwheat pudding cake, although I adapted it slightly to include carob. It was deliciously light and aromatic and I loved the affect of the sunken pears.

Having studied the book in a lot more detail since I first browsed through it at Waterstones, I am definitely a fan. The final chapter was the clincher: Herbal Teas. A good slice of cake is definitely more enjoyable if accompanied by a nice cup of tea. I drink a lot of herbal tea, fresh from the garden when in season and dried out of season. Lemon balm and blackcurrant leaves is one of my favourite combinations, but I also like lemon verbena and lady's mantle. Amber gave me a few other combinations I haven't tried before and my new favourite of the season is fresh mint and nettle tea. I've never really liked nettle tea even though I know it's good for me, although strangely, I love cooked nettles. The simple act of combining them with mint turns the tea into something quite refreshing. In this chapter, Amber also talks of her love of good quality tea and talks us through some of the different types of Black, Oolong and Green and the best way to prepare and taste them.

Other chapters include: Seasonal Cakes, Puddings, Small Bakes and Creams, Custards and Compotes. As I said earlier, there is very little in this book I am not keen to try, but Amber has come up with some really interesting combinations that I find particularly appealing. I'm looking forward to the apple season to try her apple and polenta cake. Her passionfruit and lime syrup cake is on my must bake very soon list as are the fig and mascarpone tarts and the buckwheat drop scones with apricot butter. Oh and did I mention the blood orange and rosemary tart?

Image from Love Bake Nourish

I particularly like Amber's use of fresh flowers - it must be something to do with her name - and many of the bakes in the book are decorated with them. Some are used just as they are and others are crystallised. Instructions on how to crystallise flowers are included and also a useful list of flowers which are not only edible but are good to use. These are divided into: savoury herb flowers, mild herb flowers, sweetly floral flowers and mild floral flowers. There are several in the list I would not have thought of using.

The feel of the book is nostalgic and evokes a bygone era that probably never existed yet one which I long to return to. The book itself is quite beautiful and has a vintage country style which is both homely and elegant at the same time. It is country living but without the pretension of a certain glossy magazine. The photographs are lovely, although there is by no means one for every bake. They have a matt finish and depict some of the bakes along with beautiful or whimsical vintage china or rustic props. Perhaps I should coin a new phrase - rustic chic?

Amber scatters "A word about ..." certain ingredients around the book whereby she highlights their qualities and health benefits. Coconut oil is amongst those mentioned as are ancient grains, heritage fruit and olive oil.

I shall be working my way through the book and although I doubt my photography will be quite so evocative, I will be posting some of the bakes here in due course.

Published by Kyle Books, Love Bake Nourish is a 208 page hardback and retails at £18.99.

Caramelised Pear, Honey and Carob Cake - Random Recipes #29

Pear, Carob and Honey Cake

When I was living at home as a teenager, my mother and I went through one of our sporadic health kicks and didn't eat or drink any chocolate for a few months. Carob powder was the substance we used to replace it, both in drinks and in baking. It was an acquired taste but really rather nice once I got used to it. Whilst the only comparison to cocoa was its form and colour, it had a pleasant flavour which was not at all bitter. When I saw some carob in a health food shop recently, I had a yen to make a carob cake again and remind myself of its qualities.

Dom has decided to go on a health kick this month, so for Random Recipes we are tasked with picking a "happy and healthy" recipe. I immediately thought of my new book, Love Bake Nourish by Amber Rose. I shall be posting a review of this at some point, but suffice it to say I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. Although there are only a few chocolate recipes in it, I asked CT to pick any page number in the belief I could always add chocolate if it wasn't already present in the recipe.

Page number 46 gave me Caramelised Pear and Buckwheat Pudding Cake. This couldn't have been more fortuitous; I had just been sent a surprise tray of South African apples and pears from Beautiful Country, Beautiful Fruit, so was really pleased to have landed on this one and the recipe sounded delicious. However, the more I scrutinised it, the more I thought it just didn't lend itself to chocolate. As I was about to ask CT to pick another number, I had a brain wave - carob might work. This was a "free from" cake, having neither wheat nor sugar, so why not make a "free from chocolate" cake too?

The recipe called for maple syrup, but as I didn't have any of that, I used a mixture of honey and my homemade dandelion honey instead.

This is how I made:

Caramelised Pear, Honey and Carob Cake

• Ground the seeds from two cardamom pods in a pestle and mortar.
• Peeled, quartered and cored two firm Williams pears.
• Melted 25g unsalted butter in a pan with 2 tbsp dandelion honey on a medium to low heat.
• Added the cardamom powder and stirred to distribute.
• Added the pears and left for about 5 minutes to brown a little. Turned them over and did the same to the other side.

• Whipped 150g unsalted butter with 125g New Zealand thyme honey until light and creamy.
• Beat in 2 large duck eggs, one at a time.
• Sifted in 75g buckwheat flour and 50g carob powder.
• Folded this in together with 75g ground almonds.
• Spooned this into a 22 cm cake mould.
• Placed the pear quarters in a fan shape on top of the cake and scraped the remaining caramel over the tops.
• Baked at 170C for 40 minutes until the cake was risen and a skewer inserted into the middle came out clean.
• Left to cool in the tin for 20 minutes, then turned out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
• Dusted the top with icing sugar.

Gluten Free Pear, Carob and Honey Cake

I was really pleased with the appearance of this cake, with the batter rising above the pears giving an appealing sunken look to the fruit. The crumb was close textured, but not in the least bit heavy with a melt in the mouth quality. I was right, carob, caramel and pear make for an excellent combination. It was a delight to get reacquainted with carob and I'm wondering why its been so many years since I've used it.

Random Recipes is a monthly cooking challenge devised by Dashing Dom of Belleau Kitchen, whereby you get to cook a recipe from your cookbooks that has been chosen randomly. I've been in from the beginning and this is my favourite blogging challenge (excluding We Should Cocoa of course); I look forward to it with some trepidation each month - you never know what you are going to get.

I'm also submitting this to Javelin Warrior's Made with Love Mondays whereby everything must be made from scratch.

Blueberry and Chocolate Muffins

Blueberry and Chocolate Chip Muffins

I try to draft a post as soon as I have made something so I don't forget what I've done. However, for one reason or another I don't always publish immediately and some drafts get forgotten about. This is one such that I have just discovered from nearly two years ago. Sadly, the photographs are not up to much and I can no longer remember whose recipe I used as a guide. But I do remember they tasted good, so these blueberry muffins are finally getting an airing.

August 2011
Having just picked up some cut price blueberries I thought I'd better hotfoot it back to the kitchen and make some blueberry muffins. Can you believe it? I've never made blueberry muffins before. This seemed a prime opportunity to use the flowery blue muffin cases that a friend gave me for my birthday, still lying homeless in my kitchen.

This is how I did it:

• Melted 50g unsalted butter in a pan.
• Sifted 150g flour (50g spelt, 75g white, 25g coconut), 1/2 tsp baking powder, a pinch of salt and 1/8 tsp cinnamon into a bowl.
• Stirred in 75g cardamom (golden caster) sugar.
• Mixed 50ml creme fraiche, 50ml milk and 1 egg until all smooth.
• Made a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and poured in the egg mixture.
• Tried to mix this, but oh dear, it was way too dry!
• Added the butter hoping that would sort it out, but still to dry.
• Added some more creme fraiche and milk (nearly the same again) until I had a consistency I was sort of satisfied with.
• Roughly stirred in 50g 40% milk chocolate drops.
• Roughly stirred in 100g washed blueberries.
• Spooned the mixture into 6 muffin cases initially, but realised I had too much mixture, so added a couple of extra.
• Baked at 180C for 20 minutes.

Well eight muffins has got to be better than six. This gave me license to munch my way through the two extra ones whilst they were still warm - mmmmm - a very nice way to eat them. In my gluttonous haste I managed to burn my tongue with the first bite into the hot blueberry juice. I doubt I'll learn the lesson though. The blueberries had burst and were all fruity and jammy with juice running everywhere. These were not very sweet and had more of a scone consistency than a muffin one. However, the coconut flavour was nicely evident and the tart fruit and semi-sweet chocolate was a very nice combination.

These muffins fit very nicely into a new challenge newly created by Victoria of A Kick at the Pantry Door. Feel Good Food is all about delicious but healthy food and this month it's all about blueberries.

I'm linking this to Mrs M's Recipe Link Party

I'm also linking this to Four Seasons Food as blueberries are in and it's meant to be summer - with Delicieux and Chez Foti.

Homemade Yogurt and a Giveaway #30

We eat a lot of yogurt in this household. It contains Lactobacilli which are supposed to be very good for you and as a vegetarian it provides a substantial proportion of my protein. Although my standard breakfast is toast made with my own rye sourdough, we do sometimes have yogurt with muesli or in smoothies. Many of our evening meals incorporate or are accompanied by yogurt and I use it a lot in baking. I find it helps to keep cakes moist and gives them a more substantial texture, whilst at the same time helping them to rise. Buying a lot of yogurt can be rather expensive though, so when I was offered an EasiYo yogurt maker to try by Yoghurt Direct, I didn't hesitate.

Kiwis have a reputation for innovation and imagination when it comes to inventing things. The EasiYo was born in a New Zealand garden shed over twenty years ago and has clearly stood the test of time. The yogurt maker is rather like a large plastic thermos flask which for some reason I find strangely tactile. When it arrived, I was rather surprised at quite how large it was, but I guess a litre of yogurt needs a decent layer of insulation around it. The kit came with two sachets of powdered yogurt base. I chose Greek style yogurt, one plain and one with honey. The method was simple and the instructions easy to follow. It involved mixing one sachet of yogurt with cold water in an inner container, giving it a really good shake, then immersing it in hot water in the outer flask and leaving overnight. This is simple but effective technology. With no mechanisation and no moving parts, there is little to go wrong, so the yogurt maker should last many years.

Is it Yogurt or Clotted Cream?

Both came out looking like clotted cream, which made them particularly appealing to an unreconstructed Cornish cream lover. The honey yogurt was way too sweet for us, but the plain was fine, if a trifle on the acidic side. I have subsequently made up two further batches of plain yogurt by adding milk to a couple of tablespoons of the previous batch and then following the same method. From previous experience of making my own yogurt, I expect I will only be able to do this two or three times before needing to start with a completely new mix.

Yoghurt Direct sell both yogurt maker and yogurt base which come in a comprehensive range. Prices vary according to type and flavour. The yogurt maker itself costs under £10, which I think represents good value for money.

Giveaway

Yoghurt Direct have kindly offered an EasiYo yogurt maker and two sachets of the yogurt bases of your choice to one lucky Chocolate Log Blog reader.

To be in with a chance of winning this yogurt making kit, please fill in the Rafflecopter below. You will need to leave a comment on this post which then gives you additional chances to enter if you so wish. Rafflecopter will pick a winner at random from the entries received. Please give me some way of identifying you in the comment section as I will be verifying the validity of entries and will always check back to the comments to ensure that part has been done. Any automated entries will be disqualified. This giveaway is only open to those with a UK postal address. You need to be 18 or over to enter. Winners will need to respond within 7 days of being contacted. Failure to do this may result in another winner being picked.

Prizes are offered and provided by Yoghurt Direct and Chocolate Log Blog accepts no responsibility for the acts or defaults of said third party.

If you need some help using Rafflecopter, here's a quick clip to show you how.

Closing date is Saturday 6 July 2013

You might also want to take a look at my giveaway page to see if there is anything else you would like to enter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Mini Chocolate & Rhubarb Pavlovas

Chocolate Roasted Rhubarb Pavlova with Rhubarb Curd

Last weekend my mother turned up with a lovely bunch of rhubarb from her garden. Rhubarb used to flourish on our allotment and we had a big glut every year. Since moving down to our plot on the field, however, rhubarb has persistently refused to grow and I really miss it. One of the things I used to make was rhubarb curd and I had a sudden yearning to make some again. However, as this was back in pre-blog days, I couldn't remember exactly how I made it or what recipe I used, so I cobbled something together with a little help from Belleau Kitchen. My yearning was partially stimulated by a desire to make chocolate meringues and top them with rhubarb curd in a grand vision I had for chocolate and rhubarb pavlovas. For the chocolate meringues, I again did my own thing using the Riverford Farm Cook Book as my initial inspiration.




This is what I did to make:

Chocolate Meringues

Chocolate Meringues

• Separated 3 large duck eggs and whisked the whites in a large clean bowl until foamy, reserving the yolks for the curd.
• Added a pinch of cream of tarter and whisked until soft peaks had formed.
• Added 200g vanilla sugar (golden caster) a spoonful at a time, whisking in between each one.
• Sieved in 3 teaspoons of arrowroot (I generally use this instead of cornflour as it has similar properties and is said to be beneficial).
• Sieved in 4 teaspoons of cocoa powder and whisked until stiff peaks had formed.
• Spooned the mixture onto lined baking trays to form eight circles, leaving plenty of space in between each one (just as well I did as the meringues virtually doubled in size).
• Formed into nest shapes. leaving a large indentation in the middle.
• Sprinkled a little cocoa powder over each one.
• Baked at 150C for 10 minutes, then at 125C for a further hour. Switched off the oven and left the meringues inside until cold.

Meanwhile I made:

Rhubarb & Elderflower Curd

Rhubarb & Elderflower Curd

• Chopped 400g of already trimmed rhubarb stalks into chunks.
• Put them in a pan with 2 tbsp elderflower cordial and simmered until soft, about 5 minutes.
• Used a stick blender to puree.
• Mixed the 3 egg yolks in a bowl with 100g vanilla sugar (golden caster).
• Placed over a pan of simmering water and stirred - I didn't want it so hot that I got scrambled eggs.
• Added the hot rhubarb puree and continued to stir.
• After about 10 minutes of regular (but not continuous) stirring, added 50g unsalted butter.
• Stirred for another 5 minutes or so, until the mixture had thickened.
• Poured into sterilised jars & sealed.

Next step was to make:

Roasted Rhubarb

Rhubarb Roasted with Elderflower Cordial

• Cut 200g of already trimmed rhubarb sticks into finger sized lengths. 
• Cut this into batons lengthways.
• Placed in an ovenproof dish together with 1 tbsp elderflower cordial.
• Sprinkled with 1 tbsp of vanilla sugar (golden caster).
• Roasted at 200C for about 10 minutes, until the rhubarb was soft but still held its shape.

Assembled to make:

Mini Chocolate and Rhubarb Pavlovas

• Spooned a tbsp of rhubarb curd onto a meringue.
• Topped with a teaspoon of clotted cream.
• Decorated with fingers of roasted rhubarb in what was meant to be an arty, chefy sort of way.

Chocolate & Rhubarb Pavlova

Mini Pavlovas is something of a misnomer; they actually ended up being rather large. The grand vision I had didn't exactly come to pass, but goodness gracious, the pavlovas were scrummy. The combination of zingy rhubarb curd with chocolate meringues complemented each other perfectly. The contrasting textures of smooth and crunchy added to the overall enjoyment. The rhubarb curd was delicious in it's own right and I was really pleased with the lovely orange colour it turned into; I was thinking it might just come out as a rather unlovely muddy brown.

I am sending this off to Javelin Warrior's Made with Love Mondays where anything submitted must be made entirely from scratch.

As rhubarb is still in season, I am also entering this into Simple and in Season with Ren Behan.

The rhubarb was home grown, making this summery dessert inexpensive, so fitting nicely into the Credit Crunch Munch remit with Fab Food 4 All and Fuss Free Flavours. This month's event is hosted by Anneli of Delicieux.

The inclusion of elderflower cordial, made with my own fair hands, using foraged elderflowers means I am also entering these to Herbs on Saturday with Karen over at Lavender and Lovage.

These mini Pavlovas are perfect for al fresco eating in the lovely weather we are currently experiencing. I am thus submitting these to a new monthly blogging challenge from Delicieux and Chez Foti, Four Seasons Food. This month's theme is Picnic food and Outdoor Nibbles.

Calendar Cakes is all about jam this month. Luckily, fruit curds are included, so this is winging it's way to DollyBakes. This challenge is co-hosted by Laura Loves Cakes.

I forgot to check what the letter is for Alpha Bakes this month, but have just done so and fortuitously it is R. So I am entering my R for Rhubarb to The More Than Occasional Baker who is hosting this month. Caroline Makes hosts alternately. 

Pin it Forward UK

Pinterest should come with a health warning: it can be seriously addictive. When I first heard about Pinterest a couple of years ago, I didn't quite understand why people were getting so excited, but as soon as I realised it was all about collecting and organising images that act as reminders or inspiration, I was hooked; let's just say it appeals to my librarian mind again.

Picture courtesy of Jac from Tinned Tomatoes

So what is Pinterest exactly? The easiest way to think of it is as a giant virtual pinboard of images, divided into sections. Pictures from the internet or ones that are downloaded from private collections are pinned onto boards according to theme. These pictures can be seen by anyone and subsequently repinned onto someone else's board and so it goes on. All pins link back to the original source, so if I pin a picture from Chocolate Log Blog, wherever it gets pinned and by whoever there will always be a link back to my blog. As with all social media, it's all about sharing. Group boards are another example of this; they can have any number of invited members who can pin directly to that board, creating a more diverse range of pins or for sharing very specific topics.

Unsurprisingly, with my passion for food in general and chocolate in particular, my boards are mostly food related, whether it's growing, preparing or eating it. The first board I created was Chocolate Log Blog, which features chocolate creations I've posted on my blog. My other chocolate related boards include Chocolate to Love, We Should Cocoa and Chocolate Bakes. The last two are group boards. The former is shared with We Should Cocoa participants (a monthly blogging event) who can pin their entries directly. The latter is a board for sharing chocolate bakes with like minded chocolate fans. Recently I have become interested in goat's cheese and chocolate as a combination, so last week I started a new chocolate and cheese board which I'm quite excited about.

Picture courtesy of Jac from Tinned Tomatoes

Chocolate is by no means my only food interest. We grow and forage some of the food we eat and preserving this is key, so I have a board on ideas of how to achieve this: Fermented and Preserved. I am a vegetarian and always looking for inspiration on how to expand my cooking repertoire; Food to Make is the board where I pin recipes I've spotted and would like to try. A small but hopefully growing board is The Field where I pin pictures of food we've grown or would like to grow. Last year was such an appalling season, that I had nothing to pin.

If you haven't already joined Pinterest, I invite you to do so now and follow my board Chocolate Log Blog.

As with all the big social media applications, Pinterest was conceived in the United States just a few short years ago. Not surprisingly it has a bit of an American bias but Pinterest are keen for this to change. They have launched a Pin it Forward UK campaign to not only make Pinterest more welcoming to UK users but to showcase some of the terrific UK bloggers who are pinning out there.

Pin it Forward UK is a means of passing on the news from one blogger to another. Jac of Tinned Tomatoes introduced me and now it is my turn to introduce Katherine MacGregor who blogs over at Lady loves Cake and has rather a mouthwatering selection of posts on her afternoon tea experiences. On Pinterest, she has an eclectic mix of boards reflecting her interest in not only cake, but also travel, fashion and London, to name but a few. I am now keenly following her London Afternoon Tea board in the hope of making it up to London one day, loaded with cash to make a tour of the capital's chocolatiers and tea shops. Do pay Katherine's blog a visit tomorrow to find out more.

Kondito & Cook Chocolate Biscuit Cake

Well, that temptress Tango Like Raindrops from Elizabeth's Kitchen, made this chocolate biscuit cake for We Should Cocoa last month and I just couldn't resist. If you haven't seen the mango round-up yet, do take a look.

I have seen the recipe many a time in my copy of Green and Black's Unwrapped, but was always put off by the use of a raw egg. However, when I thought about it, I realised the egg should be pasteurised by the heat of the chocolate mixture and indeed when I read the recipe properly, that is exactly what it says. I decided to use cranberries and ginger rather than cherries and add a little Amaretto to the mix. I also used my newly created dandelion honey rather than golden syrup. Other than that, I pretty much followed the recipe!

This is how I made

Chocolate Biscuit Cake

• Melted 125g unsalted butter in a medium size pan over low heat with 3 tbsp dandelion honey and 200g dark chocolate (G&B 70%).
• Beat in a medium egg until well incorporated.
• Added a slug of Amaretto
• Added 100g of roughly broken digestive biscuits (should have been 50g, but I do like digestives in tiffin).
• Stirred in 50g whole walnuts, 50g raisins, 25g died cranberries and 25g crystallised ginger.
• Poured into a lined 20 cm sq tin and placed in the fridge to set for three hours.
• Cut into 16 squares.

This should come with a serious health warning: it is very addictive and if you have as little willpower as I do, a locked fridge might be a good idea. Despite it's deliciousness, it was messy to eat with a very soft texture which melted all over our hands. I'm glad I've finally tried making tiffin with an egg, but I think I will stick to my firmer and egg fee version in the future.

Naive Chocolate - a Review

We all know about the great chocolate names in Belgium, Switzerland, France, Italy and these days the UK too, but watch out Belgium and the rest, here comes Lithuania.

Bean to Bar chocolate production was a rare occurrence a few years ago, now it is burgeoning, albeit slowly, with only 150 such producers world wide. Born from the slow food movement Chocolate Naive is an ethical business deep in the Lithuanian countryside, creating interesting and wholesome ice-cream and chocolate. Many of the ingredients used are sourced from within a ten mile radius, thus building co-operation and resilience within the local community. Not the chocolate of course. Chocolate Naive use high quality beans sourced directly from growers in various regions around the world and they pay a fair price for them too. They are roasted, winnowed, tempered and conched to reflect the character and provenance of the beans. Like our own Willie Harcourt Cooze here in the UK, Domantas Užpalis is a mad visionary who believes in following his dream and has done so. For a more detailed account of the story behind the business, there is an interesting interview with Domantas Užpalis at Chocolate & Zucchini.

I think I may have found the best chocolate bars yet.

These cute little bars gave me an inordinate amount of pleasure. The presentation is meticulously done. They came in a simple white box with the Naive logo of a man on a penny farthing and the words Encyclopedia of Chocolates embossed on the top. The words alone had me enthralled. I opened the box carefully, having little idea what to expect and found eight delightful bars of chocolate all lined up like books on a shelf with spines presented outwards so the titles were immediately obvious. Printed on the inside of the box lid were the following words which I found thoroughly endearing:

Every chocolate bar is like a chapter in the chocolate Naive story book. Taking you through the mountains of Peru, confessing first love, recollecting childhood memories, gazing at bees. Please enjoy our little Encyclopaedia of chocolates.

As a Librarian I love to catalogue and categorise, so the packaging couldn't have been more suited to me if it had tried. I was smitten with this chocolate before ever I got to try any. To me it represented a chocolate tasting library and I couldn't wait to start consulting the volumes. On the back "cover" the type of chocolate used is given, along with the percentage of cocoa contained, the conch rating and the level of roast. When the front cover has been opened, there is a page of description to read and tempt you even further before you finally get to the chocolate contained within. CT likened the set up to a gene bank, but with flavours instead of seeds. He could imagine people in white coats carefully stacking and unstacking the specimens under contolled conditions.

The bars weighed in at 15g each, making a grand total of 120g in the box. These were just the right size to not only truly savour the flavours, but also to share the delight. I was pleased to see there were three bars of milk chocolate to accompany the five of dark; I often find that milk is neglected in the upper echelons of chocolate making society.

Starting with the lowest cocoa content and working up to the highest, CT and I applied our palates to the most enjoyable and challenging part of the exercise. Each bar had the distinctive Naive logo embossed on it. All the bars were solid chocolate, but came in a range of colours and flavours. None were too sweet and all were very smooth with complex flavours that excited the tastebuds and infused the whole palate leaving behind a delightful memory on the tongue. These bars may be small, but they have plenty of character. As is often the case, I asked CT to test these blind; he is surprisingly good at identifying the flavours and I reckon he might be a supertaster.

Milk Chocolate with Hazelnut Cream - This was a praline of the best kind, otherwise known as gianduja. The creamy hazelnut melts in the mouth, filling it with unctuousness and the flavour of hazelnuts. This was CTs favourite and he expressed the desire to roll it around his mouth for as long as humanly possible. With 33% cocoa solids, this was the sweetest of the bars, but it was thoroughly decadent and delicious with the balance of hazelnut to chocolate just right.

Milk Chocolate with Salted Caramel - 38% - With smells of burnt sugar I couldn't help but try this one first - salted caramel is one of my favourite flavours after all. This was pure bliss with a whole load of flavours rolling around my tongue. Salt and caramel were definitely present, but the flavour of good milk chocolate was also very much to the fore. CT likened this one to the flavour of the skin on top of a rice pudding, but it also reminded him of another childhood favourite, Caramac, albeit an upmarket one. The salt balance was just right, augmenting  the flavour but without dominating.

Milk Chocolate Java / Papua New Guinea - 53% - On opening the wrapper, I noticed it smelt particularly fruity. It had a good snap and the high cocoa content gave a robust flavour with notes of coffee followed by roasted hazelnuts. It had a smooth mouth feel but was slightly drying on the palate, usually a sign of high cocoa content. Delicious.

Dark Chocolate with Creamy Coffee - 65% - If I thought I could taste coffee in the previous bar, there was absolutely no doubting it in this one. This is a coffee lover's chocolate and I couldn't detect much else besides. CT thought this was a morning after the night before wake up type of chocolate. It was just the right side of being too powerful but its smoothness helped to balance the strength of flavour - an iron fist in a velvet glove, according to CT. Bracing.

Dark Chocolate with Forest Honey - 67% - The predominant smell here was bitter. Although the taste of honey was present, the notes were more citrussy than sweet with CT detecting distinctly woody notes like that of the forest itself.

Dark Chocolate with Sugar Crystals - 70% - Strangely enough, this bar smelt of tobacco and although I don't generally chew a lot tobacco, it tasted of it too, but in a nice way. Despite the presence of sugar crystals, it wasn't too sweet. They gave a bit of crunch, which encouraged munching rather than leaving the chocolate to melt in the mouth - as one really should with this quality of chocolate. The texture was slightly granular reminding CT of Kendal mint cake thus giving the tongue something to rub up against. Both CT and I liked this one despite thinking it was going to be too sweet.

Dark Chocolate Trinidad and Tobago - 70% - With its smoky notes, this bar was reminiscent of Lapsang Souchong tea. Whilst it had a very smooth texture and was creamy, it was also drying in mouth presenting us with a cognitive mismatch, which made us sit up and think.

Peru Pure Nacional Dark Chocolate - This limited edition 78% bar was smooth and fruity. Nacional was a variety native to Ecuador, but now only grows in a hidden Peruvian canyon. The trees grow at the highest altitudes ever recorded and have a high percentage of white beans in the pod. It was strong and robust but very smooth. When it comes to dark chocolate, it is unusual for CT and I to want more than one bite at a time. This however, was distinctly moreish.

If you'd like to try some of this exciting chocolate, you can buy bars direct from the Chocolate Naive website.