Day 24: Corn mint in milk chocolate

 Corn mint, Mentha arvensis


This is a very delicate member of the Labiaceae family; delicate in both its habit and its flavour.  It has small thin stems, light leaves and tiny pale mauve flowers in rings around its stem - it grows in little clusters, almost apologising for being there.  I think I have walked past a patch of this for years and never paid it any notice before.  I was diverted from the path by some beaver work (see photo below) and stumbled upon this little patch of corn mint.  

 In terms of flavour, there is a mint freshness, which borders on pineapple sweetness, and then an undertone of the good parts of Wood woundwort (Stachys sylvatica) aroma.  Wood woundwort is a foul smelling plant on the whole, but there is a ghost of an aroma floating around it that eludes you, and is overwhelmed by the main baser undertones of woundwort odour.  Well, corn mint has that ghost and turns it into something really beautiful.

Its delicateness is a little lost with chocolate - we made a milk chocolate ganache in August - which was delicious - but identifying any particular flavour profile was difficult.  It lended a pleasing freshness to the chocolate, that lifted the ganache from being too sweet.  I have dried the leaves for this Advent chocolate, and ground them into an Original Beans 55% milk chocolate, Femmes de Virunga.




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