From delicious and daring 'cocoa-centric' restaurant menus to full blown chocolate art, this year's Chocolate Week is certainly demonstrating how versatile (and tasty) the stuff really is. Continuing this theme in style, the lovely people at Divine chocolate last night invited us to find out what they'd come up with over the past few months, and, well, it would have been impolite to say no.
The Kensington Gore hotel, where the event was based, had created two cocktails in honour of the occasion: a rich and creamy chocolate martini that was perfect to banish memories of the cold night outside, and a surprisingly refreshing summer berry and chocolate combination that was dangerously drinkable. Complimenting these drinks (the recipes for which are below) were a sumptuous range of chocolate cupcakes from Mallard & Swahn as well as Divine truffles, made by chocolate whizz David Greenwood-Haigh. The most memorable of the latter had to be the chocolate-covered cherry tomato, which, despite being something of a surprise, actually proved to be disturbingly nice and was apparently the most popular selection at a recent Divine tasting. If they count towards our 5-a-day then we're definitely not complaining!
Divine, as well as all the other chocolatiers associated with chocolate week, still have lots of events left before the week is over - check out www.chocolate-week.co.uk for full details.
Strawberry Chocolate Martini:
Mash 3 strawberries in a glass and mix with the following:
35ml Raspberry Vodka
20ml Raspberry
Dash of cranberry juice
4 teaspoons melted chocolate.
Choco-tini:
25ml Absolut Vanilla Vodka
15ml Kaluha
15ml Baileys
4 teaspoons melted chocolate
5ml single cream
