London chocolatier William Curley has just broken a Guinness World Record by making the world’s most expensive (non-jewel encrusted) chocolate Easter egg ever auctioned.

The 110-pound chocolate Easter egg sold for £7,000 and was bought by technology investor Cyrus Vandrevala (we know that chocolate has a long shelf life, or will he be breaking £200 bits off to share with friends?)

How does it taste? We’ll never know but it took seven  chocolatiers in Curley’s  kitchen three days to hand make it using Venezuelan chocolate, and it’s filled with a mix of Curley chocs – muscovado caramel, rosemary and olive oil, Japanese black vinegar, toasted sesame and juniper berry and cassis, and embellished in edible gold leaf.

The egg-straordinary concoction, called the Golden Speckled Egg, was auctioned as part of the Faberge Easter Egg Hunt, currently raising money for the charities Action for Children and Elephant Family. Over 200 enormous eggs, over two feet tall have been hidden around London and the hunt ends on Easter Monday.

Meanwhile…a health warning. If you eat too many chocolate eggs over Easter you might not be able to fit into one!

HAPPY EASTER!

Our regular attempts to give up chocolate have all been a fail but we’ve found a chocolatey loophole! Chocolate that really tastes like chocolate but is completely sugar-free.  Cavalier’s luxury bars are sweetened with Stevia which was discovered by a Swiss-Italian scientist in Paraguay in 1887…anyway, fast forward to “now” and it’s already taken off as the healthy new sweetener and if you’re a botanist you’ll know it’s extracted from a South American plant.

But forget botany, back to the chocolate! The crispy white bar (right) is divine, the two milk versions (one with nuts) are delicious and the dark bar is very dark, with cocoa nibs – the white and the milk chocolate with hazlenuts were our favourites.

The bars are all Fairtrade, suitable for diabetics and available at various retailers including ChocBox

]]> http://thefoodshortlist.com/2012/03/29/sugar-free-chocolate-by-cavalier/feed/ 0 thebeautyshortlist Solid bar Selection http://thefoodshortlist.com/2012/03/16/happy-st-patricks-day-emerald-isle-anyone/ http://thefoodshortlist.com/2012/03/16/happy-st-patricks-day-emerald-isle-anyone/#comments Fri, 16 Mar 2012 09:33:33 +0000 thebeautyshortlist http://thefoodshortlist.com/?p=827 ]]>

Do they celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in Russia? We don’t know (if you do, Tweet us @FoodShortlist!)

Ireland’s one of our all time favourite places, the food’s fantastic, the people are warm and there’s something magical about The Emerald Isle and the spirit of the Irish, so here’s a toast to St. Paddy’s Day! Best enjoyed with a large Guinness, or an Emerald Isle Cocktail or two.

The Emerald Isle

www.russianstandardvodka.com (available at Tesco’s)

Quick vodka history lesson…At the imperial court in St Petersburg, the Tsars of Russia were legendary for demanding only the finest in luxury and quality and their national drink – vodka – was no exception. In 1894, Dmitri Mendeleev, a brilliant Russian scientist received the decree to set the Imperial quality standard for Russia vodka and the ‘Russian Standard’ was born. (And so were a lot of cocktails, we imagine?)

Russian Standard Vodka is distilled in St Petersburg using winter wheat from the Russian Steppes, pure glacial water from Lake Ladoga. And equally enjoyable in a Russian snow-covered landscape, or on a sunny spring day in the UK…

So we’ll be posting occasional food news as mini hors d’oeuvres on The Food Shortlist over the next few weeks, and be back, just in time for a very British summer, soon!

PS: This seriously summery montage of fruit, cream and French deliciousness is an Eric Lanlard  masterpiece (photo courtesy of Channel 4 Food). Feeling inspired? The recipe for his Genoise sponge cake with summer berries is HERE

We love new food-related ideas…and we love offers!  So read on, coffee connoisseurs because today’s post is about clever coffee. Does an artisan blend that you blended online sound good? And what if it  then winged its way to you?  No sitting in warehouses or supermarket shelves…super fresh, personalised, Fairtrade – and very good!

1)  Head over to www.eightpointnine.com

2) Tell them how you like your coffee – you “click and slide” along the coffee-ometer to get the coffee mix/fix you like (indicating light/mellow/rich and fresh/sweet/spicy – the sort of flavours and body and mouth feel you prefer)

3) Give your coffee a name (ours is Shortlist Sweetie – rich and sweet!)

4) Select espresso/filter/cafetiere/just beans

5) Place order

6) Check your letterbox – the 150g pack is flat, so it fits most letterboxes.

Artfully-blended coffee, rushed to your door.  £5.89 a box (makes approx. 16 cups).

USE  the code “SHORTLIST” when you place your order and not only will you get the 1st box free, the 2nd will be half price.

What are we drinking? “Shortlist Sweetie” –  cafetiere, and it’s rich, sweet, 96% Colombian, 2% Brazilian, 2% Costa Rican.

(Or use their GrandCru service and they’ll send you their choice of top quality world coffee blend each week!)