Christmas is going to be a different shape for lots of people this year. There will be people missing, for a variety of reasons; I know there will be in my house.
Most of my childhood Christmases were spent in England, which was great, because in Italy we didn’t get our presents until the Befana visited and filled our clogs with gifts (or coal if you’d been naughty) ridiculously late, on 6 January. My mum, I mean Santa, would fill our stockings at home in London with various thoughtful things, two regulars of which were marzipan fruits and these little chocolate coffee beans, the like of which I’ve never found since. They resolutely weren’t chocolate-covered coffee beans, but instead had a centre of almost molten coffee.
If you have some stocking-shaped holes, can I recommend Tony’s Chocolonely, but personalised (yes). Go to the Tony’s website where you can customise the wrapper (colour/pic/writing) and then choose the flavour. I honestly had to restrain myself from buying a bar for every person I know and running up a huge bill. The more you order the cheaper per bar (top price: £6).
If you haven’t already tried my Introduction to Craft Chocolate Box that I curated for Cocoa Runners, please do. It’s £37.95 with a donation to Camfed for every box sold. The beauty is you can divvy up the five bars among the family (don’t forget yourself).
Firetree has launched some fabulous mini bars, 7 x 25g bars for £19 and Bare Bones has 4 x 20g bars for £9. Both are perfect for real chocolate lovers.
