Last year it seemed the big quest was perfecting vegan ‘milk’ chocolate. Of course, chocolate is naturally vegan if it’s ‘dark’, but milk chocolate isn’t. To get that creamy taste and mouth-feel, manufacturers tend to add plant milks, such as oat, rice or coconut in either liquid or powder form, lots of cocoa butter, or nut pastes.
I have tried lots and cared for little of it. However, all of Solkiki’s range is vegan and its Costa Esmeralda Ecuador 49% Milk (£7), is perhaps its obvious no-milk-milk. But although I liked it, the one I was really taken with was its Coconut Dark Milk 60% Salted Caramel (£7.50), which on paper really wouldn’t interest me, but you have to keep an open mind – and I’m very glad I did.
The bar took 80 attempts to finalise and has won loads of awards. Once tasted I understood why. The cocoa beans (very rare Organic Fortunato No 4 Pure Nacional, for the geeks) have natural notes of soft caramel and liquorice – but don’t let the latter put you off, it’s super subtle. The taste is also very complex and I ate a piece a day until it was all gone – no sharing with this bar. As a non-vegan I would definitely buy this again.
Also look out for Hotel Chocolat’s 45% Nutmilk batons (£6.50). Launched in January, they use hazelnut flour and proved to be a real surprise: extremely creamy and really nice. They keep selling out, so if you fancy these buy some quick. They are overpackaged, though. If they could sort that out they’d be on to a winner.
