Chocolate 1: Meadowsweet flower in plain chocolate
Day 1 Meadowsweet, Filipendula ulmaria , with Pump Street Chocolate Solomon Islands 72% plain chocolate I love meadowsweet for so many reasons - its beauty (those tufts of cream coloured fluff); its scent (so evocative of summer walks); its history (we have been using this plant for many, many purposes for 1000's of years); insects love it - it is always a busy place, what is there not to love! According to Tess Darwin's 'The Scots Herbal', the name meadowsweet is derived from its use to flavour mead rather than it's contribution to sweet smelling meadows; however, it is now more popularly recognised for the sweet heady scent that it contributes to meadows and hedgerows on warm summer afternoons. The fragrance is quite hard to pin down, and can veer on the side of unpleasant to some; however, when mixed with white chocolate it seems to have an aniseedy quality that is really delicious. It has been used as a flavouring since Bronze Age or before, but also has an...