Seeds of Change chocolate

I’ve signed up to something called BzzAgent, which is a website where they send me samples of things to try and when I talk about it then I am creating Bzz!

The latest product they sent me to try is chocolate by Seeds of Change. I was only mildly aware of the company from seeing their sponsorship adverts to Jamie at Home on TV.

They are an organic company and they donate 1% of sales to the research and promotion of biodiversity and sustainable organic practices. I think this is great as I do think it’s important to take care of our planet and also the people that work to produce the goods.

I was given 2 flavours to try:

• Milk Chocolate Apricot & Cashew
• Dark Chocolate Orange & Fig

Although I prefer dark chocolate, I tried the Apricot & Cashew milk chocolate one first. My initial thoughts were that it tastes just like Cadbury’s fruit and nut! I couldn’t really tell that it had apricots in it (and not raisins) or really differentiate that it contained cashew nuts rather than a bog standard peanut. However, it is a very nice chocolate and I would definitely buy this again. The minimum amount of cocoa solids in this bar is 35% which I think it good for milk chocolate, as I find Cadbury’s to be too sweet.

The Orange & Fig dark chocolate one was a bit disappointing to be honest. As I unwrapped the bar I did get the unmistakable aroma of delicious dark chocolate, as it contains 59% cocoa solids, which is a nice amount for dark chocolate as I find the 70% bars too bitter. However, I couldn’t really taste the orange and this isn’t that surprising considering the bar only contains 0.1% orange oil! Also, I’m not a fan of figs anyway, so I didn’t like all the fig pieces and the crunchy texture that you get from the seeds. All those bits got stuck in my teeth and they made what would have been a nice bar of dark chocolate a bit annoying to eat. I would definitely buy a plain bar of dark chocolate like this from Seeds of Change if they made it! But the other flavours on offer are:

• Dark Chocolate Hazelnut & Walnut
• Dark Chocolate 70% Cocoa

Apparently larger branches of Waitrose and Sainsbury's will stock this chocolate, but I’m not sure when it will be on sale, as I went into Waitrose yesterday and they didn’t have any. Plus I’m not sure how much it costs, but I would be willing to pay more for this brand as they are working to help the environment.

What’s on TV?

Last night the new series of The Supersizers started on BBC 2 and it was a hilarious episode as they revisited the food of the eighties! I’ll admit I got overly excited when they mentioned Potato Waffles (well I never said I was a foodie snob!) and Steve and I both cringed when they ate Ice Magic!

I’ve always liked Sue Perkins from when she did Light Lunch with Mel Giedroyc (yes I did have to look up the spelling of her name!) and I think she’s brilliant in this programme with Giles Coren. They bounce off each other so well and their funny bickering is like brother and sister.

Another programme I enjoyed watching recently was the Blood, Sweat and Takeaways, which was a series of 4 episodes. It followed a group of young British people who went to work in the Far East in the food industry. They had to work in food factories processing tuna and chicken, and also out in the paddy fields to grow rice and build mud walls for a prawn farm.

Of course they bitched and moaned about having to do actual hard work, which was incredibly irritating, but it was interesting to watch them change their views on things. They realised how much they (and the rest of us) take for granted, whilst the people who have to work their fingers to the bone doing disgusting, backbreaking jobs because they don’t have any other choice.

It definitely raised my awareness about where our food comes from and I highly recommend watching it whilst it’s still available on BBCi Player.

Apricot & almond Upside-Down pudding

MUNCH RATING: 2/5

Steve’s Mum bought a load of apricots from the market in Dorking and I knew that they wouldn’t get eaten unless they were put into a cake! So I found this recipe to use up all of the apricots and even though we weren’t too keen on the fruit as they were a bit sour, we loved the cake part! So next time I’ll use a different fruit as the sponge was lovely and light and was lovely with custard!

• Oven temperature: Gas mark 4/350°F/180°C
• Oven shelf: upper-middle
• You will need: 8 or 9 inch shallow loose bottomed tin, lightly greased

Ingredients:

• 2 Tablespoon clear honey
• 450g (1lb) apricots, peeled, halved and pitted*
• 110g (4oz) butter, softened (I used Stork)
• 125g (4½ oz) caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 110g (4oz) self raising flour
• 100g (3½ oz) ground almonds

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to Gas mark 4/350°F/180°C.
2. Spread the honey over the base of the tin.
3. Arrange the apricot halves over the base of the tin cut side down.
4. Put the butter and sugar into a food processor and whizz together until light and fluffy.
5. Add the eggs with a tablespoon of flour and whizz to combine, then add the rest of the flour and the ground almonds.
6. Spoon the mixture into the cake tin and spread it out to cover the fruit.
7. Bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes until golden brown and a skewer inserted comes out clean.
8. Leave to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes, then run a knife around the edge to loosen the edges. Place a large plate on top of the tin, invert quickly and lift the tin away.

* The recipe didn’t specify the apricots should be peeled, but I just thought it would be nicer without the skins! I just treated them like tomatoes, by cutting a cross on the bottom of the fruit and pouring boiling water over them, then plunging them into cold water. The skins came off really easily.