Darker milks are my perfect middle ground in chocolate: neither too sweet, nor too austere.
My first real introduction to it was Montezuma’s Dark Side 51% cocoa (£2.59/100g); it remains a favourite, but is not – for some unfathomable reason – easy to find. At Christmas, I worked out that John Lewis in Oxford Street sold it downstairs, by the stationery, and I would stock up. Otherwise it was ordered online or, occasionally, I would find it in a little shop somewhere unexpected.
This won’t be my only foray into dark milks - a huge and popular arena - but for now here are some others I’ve tried and liked.
Tesco dipped a foot into darker milks, successfully, a few years ago, then retracted. But three other supermarkets excel with single-origin dark milks: Asda’s Peruvian 43% milk, (£1.40/100g) (thanks to reader Francesca, who recommended it) which has a creamy, toffee flavour; Marks & Spencer’s Dominican Republic 46% (£2.10/100g) which is as close to buttery chocolate as I’ve ever found. And, for a good priced, tasty but not difficult darker milk (also chunkier pieces!) Waitrose’s No.1 49% Dominican Republic, (£2/100g) is unbeatable.
At the moment (it’s an EU directive so liable to change; #Brexit), milk chocolate has to contain at least 14% milk solids. So you can still go pretty dark, but still be milk. Chocolat Madagascar’s darkest milk is a whopping 80% cocoa (£5.95/85g), but still a milk chocolate: if high-cocoa chocolate has always scared you, see what the addition of milk does for you.
