There's an exciting new voice on the food styling and blogging scene... We're completely enamoured by Bianca Davies of The Secret Life of Bee.

A trained chef, she honed her exceptional skills at the Le Cordon Bleu in Paris - and now she's making her way in the world of food photography, food styling and recipe development.

Bee our Valentine?

We love her work so much, we thought what better way to pay homage to it than with a Valentine's recipe? 

Make this this luscious, dreamy Chocolate Chantilly for someone you love; or enjoy it as a happy single. There's only one requirement - that you serve it with a bottle of our Pink Cap Classique.

Chocolate Chantilly
Serves 4  

Ingredients:  
200g top quality dark chocolate (I used 70%)
200ml water
1 earl grey tea bag
1 tsp vanilla paste whipping cream and berries to serve

Method:  
Boil the kettle and pour 200ml of water over 1 earl grey tea bag. Let it steep. In the meantime chop your chocolate into little chunks which will help it melt faster.  Remove the tea bag and pour the earl grey into a sauce pan on medium-high heat. Whisk in the chocolate and continue to whisk until it is completely homogenous. Add the vanilla and whisk.  Pour the mixture into a bowl and place into a larger bowl filled with  ice and water.

Now whisk!  

Keep whisking….  

Whisk some more…  

Wipe sweat from brow and keep whisking.  

After sometime your mixture will begin to thicken like cream and then shortly after it will look like thick custard. Do not over-whip it. It sets pretty quickly from this point.  When you have a glorious thick, smooth and glossy mousse spoon quickly into desired pots or ramekins and place in the fridge.  Serve with whipped cream and berries.  

*** The beauty of this recipe is that if you take your mousse too far the first time and it becomes grainy- you can spoon it all back into the sauce pan, melt it and start again.

NB: make sure you start over with a new ice bath too.