A blonde joke? No it’s chocolate

Blonde jokes are so yesterday but blonde chocolate, no that’s right on message. But what is blonde chocolate?

When it comes to chocolate, blonde is the poshest new variety on the block. Also called gold chocolate or ‘the fourth variety’, maybe even fifth after ruby chocolate, it is made by heating white chocolate to higher temperatures that usual and cooking it for longer, until it undergoes what’s known as the Maillard reaction, giving it a warm beige shade and rich, toasted caramel flavour.

What’s more interesting is that blonde chocolate only exists to tempt those of us with a sweet tooth because of an accident. A decade ago a pastry chef working for chocolatier Valrhona accidently left a bowl of white chocolate on the heat for hours. On his return rather than throw away the chocolate he tasted it and discovered he had created a new variety of chocolate.

In recent years the popularity of blonde chocolate has soared by an astonishing 597 per cent and it is surprisingly good for you with a good brand containing between 20 and 30 per cent cocoa solids.