For all of you screaming at me to include more supermarket chocolate I bring news of great joy! Sainsbury’s has launched five new single-origin bars. My favourite is, surprise, the 55% Peruvian dark milk. It’s described as smooth and fruity, but it’s far more creamy than fruity. It’s such a good, affordable (all the bars are £1.49 each) introduction to dark milk, there is now nothing to stop you.
There’s a 34% Ecuadorian that you should definitely pick up instead of your Dairy Milk or Galaxy: nothing scary here, just sweet gorgeousness. There are three other bars: 80% Madagascan – very lively, acidic and fruity, which isn’t overly my thing. I preferred the 90% Ugandan; it’s described as intense and smoky and I got neither: it was surprisingly smooth (thanks to cocoa butter) and utterly eatable for such a high-cocoa content bar. Last is the Venezuelan 70%. This is delicious: lots going on, like a conveyor belt of flavours – I did get smoky here.
But my real treat of the week has been Aurosó’s new launch: a Somerset cider brandy bar (aurosochocolate.com). At £7.50 for 45g it’s definitely not supermarket, but it’s a delicious little bar of 90% Madagascan cocoa filled with an 80% cocoa and cashew ganache, and what tastes like more than a dash of cider brandy. I’ve eaten a whole bar while writing this column, which is really unusual for me these days, but I found it addictive. Aurosó is a low-sugar brand – this bar has just 3.6g in the whole thing and 6g of fibre; practically health food – so I can’t feel too bad about it.
