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Following the crowning of my NHS experience with a stint at a PCT and the resulting redundancy (traumatic, though much wanted and worked for), my husband and I are going back to my roots near a small village in Smaland, Sweden. These are our experiences.

Friday, April 11, 2014

Big non-salty chocolate balls.

Well, I've been running the café for a month now and feel that I'm settling into things.  Consequently I've been able to think about things like blogs, signs, philosophy and breathing.

One of the main differences between here and London is taste.  This is especially true in the country, where big city sophistication certainly does not rule: big, cheap, simple, but of the highest quality is the desire. Yes, quite. Tastes also vary country to country. Obvious, but it means that things you take for granted don't happen as expected.  Take for example, Chocolate Balls (no, they are not salty!).  Every single child here lives for CBs.  I had my first one when we were on holiday here as a small child and thought they were hideous, sweet, gritty and severely not enough chocolate.  Despite tiffin being much better and basically the same sort of thing, children are essentially conservative and tiffin is a little sophisticated.

Much recipe research ensued and some chocolate balls were constructed.  I thought they tasted lovely, cocoa, butter, espresso coffee, vanilla essence and a high class brand of oat as befitting a high end cafe like this, but I realised that I had no idea what they should taste like.   A randomly sampled mother said that she made her's with no coffee and water.... hum....  I hastily repaired to several well known cafes to shameless nick their knowledge and bought 4 different chocolate balls.  They were twice the size of mine, made with the Swedish equivalent of drinking chocolate (not so chocolate and twice as sweet).  After sampling all 4 with my morning coffee, I was so sugar-high that I was forced by the worried expression of those who share the space here to run up and down the stairs about 10 times.  Some of the sugar was burned off and I was able to stop talking and keep the same space for at least 15sec.

Recipe has since been amended, though still with coffee and cocoa, just less and with some Oboy and milk instead. I've also been forced to buy sprinkles for the first time in my life to coat them. Oh, the degradation...

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