I came late to spices. They didn’t feature large in my mamma’s cooking (herbs, yes). Now, I love them. But in chocolate? I’m not so sure. I love the idea of them: what could be more evocative of autumn cosiness than the warming spices of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, etc, in chocolate? But the reality doesn’t always do it for me. Chocolate-coated ginger nuggets, now that’s another story. Try Cocoa Runners’ version, £9.95/145g, or Tosier’s gorgeous, very dark chocolate-coated crystallised, £8/120g.
But, if you like spiced chocolate, do give some of these a go.
Tosier’s Smoked Cinnamon Almonds, £8/120g (it’s actually the cinnamon that’s smoked), are exquisite, even if not absolutely to my taste. Luisa’s Pumpkin Spiced Casholate, £2.80/25g, from her excellent casholate range (contains cashew nuts) is super spiced. Dormouse’s Pumpkin Spice Bar, £6/55g, is new to the range and has just about every spice you could hope: nutmeg, clove, ginger and cinnamon paired with milk chocolate. If you fancy something lighter, its new Bramble Crumble bar, £6/55g, is a dark bar with just a hint of cinnamon (I could hardly taste it, but the blackberries do come through).
I resisted the Tony’s Gingerbread (ginger, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon) milk chocolate, £3.50/180g, for days, in the end giving in to the colourful, chunky bar. It’s milk chocolate with gingerbread pieces in it. Luckily it didn’t do it for me (I have form with Tony’s, having in the past eaten a whole bar before leaving the supermarket car park, but those days are long gone), but some of my testers went crazy for it.
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