So what quintessentially British things would create great chocolate flavours? My first thought was curry! We experimented with curry a few years ago and it does go wonderfully with milk chocolate however we thought it may not be everyone's cup of tea and we did think we could be more British than that.
A search on the internet revealed some typically British desserts and top of the list was Eton Mess. Now there is a lot of mythical legend that surrounds the creation of Eton Mess. Originally served in the 1930s at an annual cricket match that Eton plays it was a creation of strawberries and cream or even bananas and cream. It is thought that meringue was added in the 70's. The legend part of the story is that at one stage it was dropped on the floor, picked up and still served! With a fabulous story like that we couldn't resist creating a strawberries, cream and meringue chocolate.
We were busy brainstorming flavours that go with dark chocolate when Earl Grey Tea came up. I personally love Earl Grey Tea. Tea is a very tricky flavour to bring out in chocolate. We brewed Earl Grey Tea in cream over night and then mixed it in with dark chocolate, YUM! Rumour has it Earl Grey Tea was developed for Earl Grey to suit the predominance of lime in his water at home.
Citrus is always a great mix with white chocolate and when I think of white chocolate I think of lemon, and what goes well with lemon - gin! England has an interesting history surrounding Gin. When international relations with France turned sour, England put a huge tax on imported liquor at the same time as allowing unlicensed brewing of gin, hip hip hooray it suddenly became very cheap to brew gin and there was a big demand. Of course this had ongoing ramifications that weren't particularly pleasant but I can say it goes beautifully with white chocolate and lemon.
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