Cloudberry Chocolate

After a hard day of scouring numbers in our central branch, His Lordship brought the dragons in their basket to see me. The sun was blazing down, roasting hot, so at Tsammy's insistence, we all stopped off at the Butcher's pub for a swift half. A cool glug (or a few licks in the lizards' case) and we were off for a quick nip around town to grab a new pair of work shoes and some Thorntons.

We had a nice poke about at the sale lines, picking up a nice 330g box for £3.50 (not a bad price) to enjoy later when the weather cools down.

Ooooh. New Limited Season range is out! I wasn't too fussed about the new praline, but the salted caramel, the cloudberry truffle and the banana pistachio was a must! The salted caramel had a sweet, firm dark chocolate shell that bit with a distinct "POP" (reminiscent of the way the Eden collection does - deeply satisfying!), releasing a thick, dark, almost dirty-flavour liquid caramel centre. They've balanced the notes well, avoiding the coffee-ish burnt flavour, but retaining the true feel of the caramel. Cloudberry is a strange one - I'd never heard of "cloudberry" before - and little surprise. They turn out to be one of the most expensive berries due to their rare environment; preferring to grow in Arctic, boggy land. In a chocolate truffle, it has an odd, delicate and elusive flavour, fruity and similar to... baked apples actually. The banana and pistachio was a real treat though and certainly my favourite. A light, sweet banana mousse (thankfully not overpoweringly artificial - it didn't taste a bit like a milkshake!) sat on a base of soft, squidgy, sweet pistachio nougat, contained in a smooth dark shell sprinkled with pistachio crumb. Heaven! (Image: chocablog.com - the salted caramel)

Jelly Question for you - why do jelly sweets melt and go rock solid in jelly pudding, even when made with cold water?