As an equal opportunities employer, my mouth is home to an equal number of sweet and savoury teeth, and my bouche is most greatly amused by swavoury flavours – like (but not limited to) white chocolate horseradish, candied bacon, salted caramel, cacao nib-sprinkled kale, and dark chocolate and blue cheese.
On my myriad culinary adventures I encounter all sorts of incredible edibles from skilled and innovative artisans – on occasion, the result of clever collaborations between two tiny-but-mighty talents whose products sing more sweetly together than Elton John and Kiki Dee.
Case in point? Fifth Dimension Chocolates’ Nadiad – a white chocolate ganache infused with Dips’ Lemon Chutney. It’s an intriguing blend of sweet, spicy, salty and piquant; it scratches every itch tastewise; and it’s got me dreaming up a whole host of fantasy items in the same vein… so many I had to split them up into a series.
Pip & Nut + Little Black Cat Gourmet
I first encountered Pippa Murray’s nut butters when Pip & Nut was a brand new brand debuting at the #Makegood showcase, and it was love at first taste. Subsequent sampling confirmed this was no fling, but the real thing.
And I’m every bit as enamoured with start-up brand, Little Black Cat Gourmet. Amongst terrifically-talented Anber Raz’s chocolate collection are fab slabs which sandwich layers of peanut butter, strawberry jam, marshmallow and caramel – which I suspect could be made all the more marvellous were the former from a Pip & Nut jar.
Butter Culture + Paul a. Young
Considering Grant Harrington is the King of Butter and Paul a. Young is the King of Salted Caramel, it stands to reason that this collaboration would be nothing short of royally good. The product that would own the throne? A classic Paul chocolate filled with a generous ooze of that luscious liquid caramel – its interior made all the more indulgent with a generous dollop of the butteriest butter in Britain.
Bloody Hell Hot Sauce + Gottal Chocolate
No-one would call affable Belgian chocolate-maker Matthieu de Gottal a hot head, but in food terms he’s fond of both flavour and fire. And that’s precisely what Bobby Powers’ hot sauce delivers; not too acidic and beautifully fruity, it gets you feeling the burn without wanting to die (that skull-shaped bottle is not a portent of doom).
Mr. de G. works solely with brilliant bean-to-bar chocolate, often infusing his peerless ganaches with splendid spirits from around the world. He’s a tricky character to second-guess, but I’d imagine a top-notch tequila might be just the tipple in this case. As for his choice of chocolate? You, like me, shall have to wait and see…
- Stay tuned for more mouthwatering posts concerning further fantasy collabos…
- To read more about Matthieu de Gottal, click here
- To read more about Little Black Cat Gourmet, click here
- To read more about Pip & Nut, click here
Culinary Adventures of The Cocoa Nut 