05 February 2010
Top chefs love to cook with Divine Chocolate, the only Fairtrade chocolate company that’s owned by cocoa farmers. With the current trend for all things afternoon tea themed, Divine has some brand new tea-time recipes to share. Five leading chefs have sent us their favourite afternoon tea recipe (all starring chocolate of course) so that you can create the Ultimate Afternoon Tea Party at home.
Divine really does make the dream cooking ingredient. As well as these exciting new recipes we have to offer, Divine was the chocolate of choice for chefs including Michel Roux Jnr, James Martin and Valentine Warner, who were demonstrating at the BBC Good Food shows last December. If any proof were required of Divine’s merits as a cooking ingredient then this is surely it!
This month Divine is working with these chefs to offer tantalising tea-time treats, all using Fairtrade ingredients.
MasterChef presenter Gregg Wallace has sent in his recipe for White Chocolate Gateaux. This incredibly delicate cake uses Divine smooth white chocolate, is flavoured with rose water and scattered with sugared rose petals. It is one of Gregg’s all-time favourites and comes from Gregg’s Favourite Puddings, out in August.
Divine is delighted that French baker extraordinaire Richard Bertinet, owner of the world renowned cookery school The Bertinet Kitchen, has supplied Divine with his version of Millionaire’s Shortbread. This truly irresistible recipe incorporates hints of lavender and sea salt and uses Divine’s critically acclaimed* dark chocolate made with 70% cocoa solids.
Alan Coxon, the chef that BBC viewers voted in their top ten best TV chefs, is also a fan of cooking with Divine. He has created these sumptuous Afternoon Tea Fancies especially for Divine. They use Divine’s dark, milk and white chocolate for a truly decadent treat.
Former supermodel Lorraine Pascale has swapped the catwalk for the kitchen. She quit modelling to study cookery in 2000 and started supplying Selfridges shortly afterwards. Last year she launched Ella’s Bakehouse in London’s Covent Garden. Her Chocolate Choux Buns, created exclusively for Divine, use Divine Dark and Divine White and pack a real punch with a glugg of Armagnac or Baileys.
Young and trendy chef Sam Stern is due to publish his fifth cookbook later this year. He has designed his upmarket take on Chocolate Fridge Cake.
Please contact Rosanna for stockist information, recipes and images.
Visit the Divine Chocolate Shop to buy online. Here you will also find the Divine Baking Hamper which makes the perfect gift for foodie friends.
Every stage in the creation of Divine chocolate is carried out with passion and devotion, with the sole aim of creating an irresistible taste experience for chocolate lovers. Divine Chocolate is made from only the very best cocoa nurtured and handpicked by farmers in Ghana. The cocoa trees grow in the shade of the tropical rainforest, and the beans are slowly fermented and dried in the sun to produce the finest flavour. Divine combines the cocoa beans and butter with entirely natural ingredients to allow the full chocolate flavour to come through and has an exciting and alluring product range including a diverse range of 100g and countline bars, gifts and seasonal specialities. Brand new to the Divine flavour range are the 100g Dark Chocolate with Raspberries and the countline Butterscotch Milk Chocolate bars. All Divine’s bars are suitable for vegetarians and Kosher certified.
Choosing Divine is a delicious way of playing your part in a more equitable trading partnership. Divine is the only Fairtrade chocolate company which is 45% owned by the farmers. While fair trade ensures farmers receive a better deal for their cocoa and additional income to invest in their community, company ownership gives farmers a share of Divine’s profits and a stronger voice in the cocoa industry.
* Critical acclaim for Divine’s 70% dark chocolate includes:
• Charles Campion, Food Critic, The Independent: “…for a really good balance between price and performance look out for Divine’s Fairtrade 70% dark chocolate – very fruity, with a good texture and a long finish”.
• Chocolate expert and founder member of the Academy of Chocolate Sara Jayne-Stanes on Divine 70% Dark: “a mouthful of intense, very smooth, delectable chocolate … Divine is in a league of its own”.
Ends
Editors’ notes
• Divine Chocolate Ltd is the only Fairtrade chocolate company that is also co-owned by cocoa farmers. Kuapa Kokoo, a co-operative of 45,000 cocoa farmers in Ghana, benefit not only from the Fairtrade premium on the sale of their beans, but also receive a 45% share of Divine’s distributable profits giving the farmers more economic stability, as well as the increased influence in the cocoa industry company-ownership brings
Keep up to date with Divine online:
Everything you need to know about Divine
For Divine gifts
Follow the Divine blog
Follow Divine on Twitter
• For sales and stockist enquiries contact Alistair
• All Divine products carry the Fairtrade Mark. This is an independent guarantee certified by the Fairtrade Foundation that the ingredients are sourced under internationally agreed fair trade terms and conditions. These include a guaranteed, secure minimum price, an extra social premium payment for the farmers to invest in their own community programmes, long term trading contracts, decent health and safety conditions – all aimed at empowering farmers to make their own improvements to living standards and prospects for the future
• Divine Chocolate has won a number of prestigious awards. These include Good Housekeeping’s Favourite Fairtrade Product 2008; Best Food Brand in the SHE magazine Ethical Awards 2007; and Best Buy in Ethical Consumer magazine 2009. Divine Chocolate Ltd was awarded Best Social Enterprise 2007 at the Enterprising Solutions awards run by the Office of the Third Sector and The Observer Best Ethical Business 2008. Divine has been voted a Cool Brand 2009-10.
• The UK chocolate market alone is worth approximately £3.6 billion a year: if Fairtrade products can capture even a small proportion of that market, producers in developing countries gain real benefits.