I am in Holt, north Norfolk, the upper belly of East Anglia.
It’s a magical town straight out of a Ladybird book circa 1950: small, independent shops aplenty to pop in and out of, if you are shopping with mother or anyone else.
Bakers & Larners, a concertina of a department store on the high street, dates back (albeit under different names) 250 glorious, continuous years. It is one of my favourite shops on earth and here I discovered Hadleigh Maid’s Dark Chocolate Truffle Walnut Whirls with an orange-flavoured filling. I had a major Walnut Whip obsession when pregnant with my first child, but have touched them rarely since.
A shade over £3 bought me two fairly hefty (50g each) whirly chocolate treats which, in this dark 56% cocoa version, are also vegan-friendly; I am not vegan, but I know lots of you are and you crave a chocolate treat that’s not just a 70% bar.
We turned home, me a passenger in a car heading west of Holt, marvelling at the scenery and thinking what a bad rap Norfolk gets; dipping my tongue in and out of the whirl’s skeuomorphic shape to retrieve the dense, fluffy orange centre.
I justified it by thinking it was less a chocolate, more a dessert and therefore really quite self-contained. There are six other variations, try the mallow version if you want something even closer to the whips of yore.
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