As a self-confessed born and bred chocoholic, I love bitter dark chocolate. However, chocolate is grown thousands of miles away so when I discovered a recipe using Tilia trees, a genus of deciduous trees commonly grown in the Northern hemisphere, I had to give it a try!
The main species of Tilia trees (also known as Lime trees or Linden trees) in the UK are Large leafed lime (Tilia platyphyllos), Small leafed lime (Tilia cordata) and clones of common lime (Tilliax cordata). The trees have a range of uses from furniture to rope while the flowers can be dried for tea and the young Spring leaves used in Salads (1). The green fruits for chocolate making become available during the Summer around July.
It was French chemist, Missa who first discovered that Tilia could be used for making a chocolate alternative. However when it was discovered that the resulting product didn't have a long shelf life, the recipe was lost to history until recently (2-3). The shelf life issue can be overcome by freezing the chocolate.
Recipe
So this recipe was an experiment for me and there are a number of things I would do differently next time (see closing statement).
Pick the Tilia fruits! Don't decimate one tree but as always, adhere to good foraging practices and spread your picking over a number of trees and branches. The large green immature ones are the best and don't worry too much about picking the stalks. I picked about 50 grams.
Wash and roast for about 45 - 60 minutes. They should be a golden brown and start smelling chocolaty, almost like cacao nibs!
Try and get as many of the stalks off by crushing them in your hand. If there are still stalks don`t worry too much as they will be ground and sieved out.
Grind the linden in a mortal and pestle or even better a coffee grinder.
Put through a sieve and you should get a fine brown powder. Re-grind and re-sieve that remaining in the sieve.
Melt a large knob of butter in a pan. You can use other fats or oils such as nut butter or coconut oil.
Add the powder and a sweetener to taste such as honey (my choice), syrup or ground up fine sugar.
Place in a mould and leave in the fridge.
Freeze for long term storage.
Summary notes and what I would change next time
I only picked 50 grams as this was an experiment but picking more would mean more chocolate that could be frozen for later use!
I used mortal and pestle but a coffee grinder would mean that the powder is finer and the chocolate would have less crunchy pieces in it.
I would definitely use honey again. A sweetener is needed, even if you can take 99% dark chocolate, a sweetener such as honey helps bring out the flavour.
I used butter with some cream of coconut to make the chocolate slightly coconutty but I think this recipe would work really well with almond butter.
My husband and I ate the chocolate we made... couldn't resist! But the chocolate could be added frozen to other recipes like cheesecake or ganache as a chocolate substitute.
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