Baking wasn’t easy during the recent heat wave; who needed the oven on? But when the storms came I started up again because baking is deeply comforting; I started making cakes and biscuits while still at primary school and have scarcely stopped since. Back then, ‘dark’ chocolate was Bournville, but at 36% cocoa it barely registers as that now.
Cooking chocolate is cheaper than regular chocolate because it doesn’t attract VAT; I am lucky to often have armfuls of very good craft chocolate to use, but if I don’t, I opt for Green & Black’s cooking chocolate in milk or plain (£2.50/150g) – it’s also perfectly good to eat. Although it’s not single origin – that would drive the price up – this does mean its flavour is consistent and not overpowering. Both milk and dark have good cocoa contents of 37% and 70% respectively. I prefer to chop my own chocolate for baking because doing so means you end up with the roulette-thrill of shards/chunks. But, sometimes, the lure of just scattering in ready-formed, uniform, chocolate chips is strong. As a domestic baker, procuring good-quality chocolate chips on the high street is harder than scoring drugs.
Good news! Waitrose is now stocking Guittard chocolate chips (£4.99/326g, which works out cheaper than G&B’s). Currently only in milk, 31% cocoa, or dark, 63%, but a glorious start.
Last week I cleared my office of chocolate that was about to hit its sell-by date and made chocolate rye cookies using almost half a kilo of chocolate. A finer use for rye flour I’ve yet to find.
