Cooking With Divine Chocolate: Part I

Having found out all about Divine Fairtrade Chocolate (and Kuapa Kokoo) I was keen to use some of the chocolate in cooking.

The Bad (But Not Ugly)

My first attempt did not go well. I wanted to make a light coffee chocolate mousse using Divine coffee milk chocolate, the flavour I've consumed so many kilos of over the years. A friend passed on a link to a Raymond Blanc video in which he makes an egg white mousse instead of the usual egg yolk, butter and cream version. Of course, in his recipe he uses a completely different kind of chocolate. But I thought I could surely adapt the idea so I went ahead. The first problem I had was melting the chocolate. I use the microwave to melt chocolate these days and usually it does a fantastic job. For some reason, in this case, the chocolate seized up and the only way I could persuade it to melt was to add some boiling water and beat it into submission. Worried the egg white wasn't stiff enough, I am sure I over did it, beating it in the Magimix. With a sinking feeling, I went ahead and mixed together the melted chocolate, a tiny bit of sugar and the beaten egg white and poured it into some pretty dishes and popped it into the fridge. Sadly, it never did become any more solid than the thick liquid I poured from the mixing bowl and whilst it tasted very nice, it was a big fat failure.

The Good

So, for my second attempt, I was determined to use a recipe. And not just any old chocolate recipe but one from Divine's own recipe book, Heavenly Chocolate Recipes With A Heart.

Divine Chocolate's Stem Ginger & Chocolate Chunk Cake Recipe

This is a lovely, rich ginger chocolate cake. The flavours of the black treacle and honey both come through clearly and I like the little burtst of ginger flavour as you bite down on a piece of stem ginger. Having the chocolate in chunks is also a nice change from using cocoa powder in the cake mix. This one's definitely a keeper.

Ingredients
50 grams light muscovado sugar
2 tablespoons black treacle
75 grams honey
85 grams unsalted butter
100 ml milk
75 grams chopped glacé ginger (also known as stem ginger)
1 large free range egg, beaten
225 grams plain flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1oo grams Divine milk chocolate

1 pound loaf tin
butter and flour to line tin

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180C/ 350F/ Gas 4.
• Place the sugar, black treacle, honey, butter, milk and chopped ginger into a large pan and heat gently until melted together.
• Remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool for a couple of minutes before stirring in the egg.
• Sift the flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda into the pan and mix in well.
• Break up the chocolate into small pieces and stir in.
• Transfer the mixture to the loaf tin and spread evenly.
• Bake for 45-50 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Leave to cool in completely in the tin before turning out.
• Store in airtight container. Will last up to a week.

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Amazon has a great offer on the Divine cookbook at the moment. It's available at £12.47 instead of the RRP of £19.99.