The Bluffer's Guide to Chocolate by Neil Davey

Author:Neil Davey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bluffer's Guides

MATCHMAKERS

As has been (hopefully) established already, chocolate is potentially bursting with flavours. Never forget that well-made, well-sourced chocolate can contain more than 400 flavour profiles, which is how it can be turned so successfully into so many unusually flavoured things.

Knowing some of these odd combinations is a highly efficient way of implying your chocolate expertise. Similarly, being able to match a chocolate to a drink – be it tea, coffee, beer, wine or a spirit – can suggest a greater depth of knowledge than you actually possess.

You could spend hours matching different chocolates to different drinks or unusual ingredients. You could roll your sleeves up, get your hands dirty and actually make something unusual and chocolatey. But in the time it’s going to take you to bake, for example, a chocolate and beetroot cake, you could have read this chapter twice, taken notes and enjoyed a little nap. Admittedly, that way you don’t then have a slice of deliciously moist cake to enjoy – the sweet earthiness of beetroot works extremely well with chocolate – but the choice is yours. For many of you, the knowledge that chocolate and beetroot work well together will be sufficient. For those people, we’d like to point out that chocolate and courgette also make a fine cake. And if anyone ever guffaws at the suggestion – ‘vegetables in dessert?’ – ask them how many times they’ve eaten carrot cake and what they think might give that its name.

So, in the coming pages, prepare yourself for a look at some of the odd combinations of chocolate and food and drink that work well, including, where possible, an explanation of why; after all, conviction and a little evidence go a long way in bluffing.

CHOCOLATE AND CHEESE

Let’s start bold; after all, it’s the extremes, the unexpected combinations, that are going to best illustrate your perceived expertise. Chocolate and wine, chocolate and whisky, chocolate and fruit, etc., are all very well – and can actually be more problematic than you’d think – but they’re obvious pairings. Many – if not all – of your audience will have tried these in some way, shape or form. No, in order to impress, you’ve got to go hard or go home, hence the seemingly odd combination of chocolate and cheese.

Be warned: some of your audience may already have tried this. Several chocolatiers have produced cheese-based products, such as port and Stilton truffles. English chocolatier and pâtissier Paul A Young also has a spring chocolate of goat’s cheese and rosemary. Even the mainstream has got involved, thanks to that recent Philadelphia/Cadbury’s pairing which you’ll need to remember. Happily, though, for our purposes, chocolate and cheese still sounds like the work of mad scientists – the kind of combination that would make even Heston Blumenthal say, ‘Easy chaps, I think we might have gone too far…’

A fun fact to point out – probably best to improvise a gentle laugh or a wry smile – is that, actually, all of your audience members are likely to have experienced the chocolate/cheese combination.

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