Notes on chocolate: new flavours that will soon be new favourites

London, and I am on the hunt for a chocolate Yumnut, from £1.80. These are Marks & Spencer ’s answer to the Cronut, which is basically a laminated dough, fashioned into the shape of a doughnut, then fried. M&S describe it as the love child of a yum yum and a doughnut. Anyway, the point is the youth of today are going crazy for them, so there was not one chocolate Yumnut in the whole of London (that I could find). Still, I walked off a lot of calories on and off the Elizabeth line which is, I mused, a bit of a con as so much of it is you walking through miles of tunnels.

No matter. I found something else very exciting. M&S has not long launched three new bars (each £2.25/100g). The first is my favourite. A beautiful, delicious bar and a strong contender for a – dare I mention it, I think I do – Christmas chocolate. It’s a dark (54%) milk from the Dominican Republic and flavoured with Italian blood orange oil. Perfect for people, like me, who fancy a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, but just can’t take the sweetness. If only M&S would make this into a segmented citrus shape. I might consider melting this into a Christmas chocolate mousse nearer the time.

The second, blond chocolate, is very sweet, but saved by the slivers of roasted Italian (sense a theme?) almonds. You don’t get many white chocolates with nuts and this is a welcome newcomer.

Lastly, not my thing, but I know a lot of people love dark chocolate with freeze-dried raspberries, so for you, a 60% Peruvian chocolate with the aforementioned berries.

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