Why chocolate is good for you
Wednesday 27 August 2008
We at Closer love nothing more than diving headfirst into a box of chocolate, so you can imagine how excited we were to be invited to watch celebrity chocolatier Willie Harcourt-Cooze give a spectacular cookery performance at the Covent Garden night markets.
Running every Thursday and Friday until August 29th, the night markets are a great opportunity for food lovers to browse a selection of unique food stalls featuring fresh produce and to pick up cookery tips from Britain’s finest.
Set to bring back the glory of the famous Covent Garden market with a number of celebrity chefs cooking up a storm in the kitchen theatre this is one culinary event you do not want to miss!
Closer jumped at the opportunity to catch up with Willie, star of C4’s documentary ‘Willie’s Wonky Chocolate Factory’ and chocolate revolutioniser, and talk about our favourite subject…
We all love chocolate - is there a way of incorporating it into a healthy diet?
I think it’s a misconception that chocolate is bad for you, people think it’s naughty and makes them put on weight when actually it’s not. Chocolate is healthy, but over the years chocolate has become this sweet confectionery that you do feel guilty about eating because it’s just pure sugar.
Without additives, chocolate is the healthiest thing for you. In it’s pure form it’s got all the anti-oxidants, all the flavonoids.My chocolate is pure because it contains no additives of any description and you can add your own quantities of sugar and it’s produced in a really old-fashioned, authentic way so it maintains all it’s goodness and its healthy aspects.
Why would you say chocolate is good for us?
Three percent of it is vitamins and minerals, it’s very high in anti oxidants and flavonoids – that’s certainly the case with my chocolate which has been produced very gently so we don’t strip it off all the goodness.
Do you have a favourite chocolate recipe?
Making truffles is the simplest thing; you take crème granache, put in 150g of sugar, add half a pint of cream and then leave it until it almost boils. Then you add 180g of my grated cacao – stir, refrigerate and then roll the mass into truffles.
If you want to make it a bit more interesting you can soak some raisins in rum over night, then drain the rum, mix the swollen raisins into the truffle mix and then roll them into rum truffles.