Day 14: Smoked sea salt and milk chocolate





As all good things do, this started out as a mistake!  I had ordered some Cornish sea salt, for the sea salt caramels – this was a time that predated any Scottish salt makers!  I somehow misordered, and what arrived was a lovely tub of Smoked Cornish Sea Salt!  I quite like smokey flavoured things and wondered if I could find a chocolate that might match it.  We went with a milk chocolate, and settled on the Callebaut Java 33% milk chocolate – this also predated any UK bean to bar makers producing milk chocolates as couverture.

We loved it, as did our customers and we found a transfer sheet that summed it up beautifully to make the thins we made even more delectable.  And we won an International Chocolate Award Gold for it in 2015 – ICA awards would not now consider an entry made with a commercial couverture, but 10 years has seen a huge amount of change in the craft chocolate world!

Over the years we have used different salts – we loved the Hebridean sea salt, and although they did not smoke it, the Poolewe smokehouse did that for us.  And then the Hebridean sea salt company went bust, and we went back to Cornish; and then more recently used a combination of Cornish smoked sea salt and Blackthorn sea salt.  So the last 10 years has seen much change in the craft salt production world as well!

This has been a mainstay of our production for many years – and although my focus on wild flavours has increased and blossomed, this chocolate has always been there and it was sad to make our last batch earlier this autumn.  The combination of creamy, caramelly chocolate, balanced with both salt and those lovely umami smoky tones, was singularly delicious.  And I am told went very well with a good single malt as well.




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