Divine Chocolate, the farmer-owned chocolate company, has created four new recipes especially for Fairtrade Fortnight 2014 (24th February – 9th March).  Divine is supporting the Fairtrade Foundation’s Make Bananas Fair campaign buy showing just how delicious our favourite fruit can be when combined with Divine Chocolate.

 

Ethical food blogger Pauline Milligan has created three new recipes including a Chocolate Chip & Brazil Nut Banana Bread which uses over ripened bananas to bring out the fruit’s natural sweetness in the cake. Flavoured with vanilla and almond, the banana bread is studded with chopped Brazil nuts and chunks of Divine’s 70% Dark Chocolate.

For a grown-up take on a banana sundae, this recipe for a Divine Banana Chocolate Sundae combines the gorgeous flavours of banana and vanilla with a decadent chocolate-orange rum sauce and nutty caramel praline.

 

The final recipe from Pauline is for a stack of American style banana pancakes topped with a Divine chocolate maple syrup. An easy recipe to make, the mashed banana in the batter mix creates a lovely flavour and texture that works perfectly with the sweet dark chocolate maple syrup.

 

A chocolate and banana recipe collection wouldn’t be complete without a Banoffee Pie; taken from Divine’s Heavenly Chocolate Cookbook by Linda Collister, this recipe takes a Divine twist on the classic recipe. Homemade toffee sauce, bananas and a milk chocolate whipped cream are layered onto a crisp shortcrust chocolate pastry.

 

Following its success last year, this Fairtrade Fortnight sees the return of the Divine pop-up shop to Seven Dials in Covent Garden. A range of Divine events will be taking place over the two weeks, including two exciting new flavour launches and a UK tour by two cocoa farmers from the Kuapa Kokoo co-op that owns Divine. Keep up to date with all Divine’s Fairtrade fortnight activity at www.divinechocolate.com/uk/good-stuff

 

For full recipe details and HR images please contact Lisa Storey on 0207 378 6550 or lisa@divinechocolate.com

 

ENDS
 

Editor’s notes
 

Divine chocolate is made with the finest quality Fairtrade cocoa beans from Kuapa Kokoo, a co-operative of smallholder farmers in Ghana. The cocoa is grown in the shade of the tropical rainforest, and slowly fermented and dried in the sun by the farmers, who take great pride in the chocolate company they co-own.
 

Pauline Milligan is the Director of Streatham Food Festival and ethical food blogger. 

·         For more information about  Streatham Food Festival visit http://www.streathamfoodfestival.com/

·         Read Pauline’s blog here http://eatdrinklovefood.co.uk/

·         Follow Pauline on twitter https://twitter.com/MilliganTweets

 

The Fairtrade Brazil nuts used in the Chocolate Chip &Brazil Nut Banana Bread & Banana Chocolate Sundae were supplied by Liberation Foods. Fairtrade brazil nuts are available at:

 

• Tesco's Fairtrade Organic brazil nuts 150g, £2.50 - found in the fresh produce section of stores
• Sainsbury's  'By Sainsburys' Fairtrade brazil nuts 100g, £1.50 and 300g, £4.15- sold in home baking section of stores.

For more information about Liberation Foods visit http://www.chooseliberation.com/



 

· Divine Chocolate Ltd is the only Fairtrade chocolate company that is also co-owned by cocoa farmers. Kuapa Kokoo, a co-operative of 65,000 cocoa farmers in Ghana, benefit not only from the Fairtrade premium on the sale of their beans, but also receive a 45% share of Divine’s distributable profits giving the farmers more economic stability, as well as the increased influence in the cocoa industry company-ownership brings

 

· All Divine products carry the Fairtrade Mark. This is an independent guarantee certified by the Fairtrade Foundation that the ingredients are sourced under internationally agreed fair trade terms and conditions. These include a guaranteed, secure minimum price, an extra social premium payment for the farmers to invest in their own community programmes, long term trading contracts, decent health and safety conditions – all aimed at empowering farmers to make their own improvements to living standards and prospects for the future

 

· The UK chocolate market alone is worth approximately £3.98 billion a year (Mintel, 2012): if Fairtrade products can capture even a small proportion of that market, producers in developing countries gain real benefits.

 

·     Keep up to date with Divine online:

o    Everything you need to know about Divine: www.divinechocolate.com

o    For the online shop: www.divinechocolate.com/shop

o    Follow Divine on Twitter: www.twitter.com/divinechocolate

o    Follow Divine on Facebook: www.facebook.com/divinechocolate

o    Follow the Divine blog: www.divinechocolate.com/goodstuff

 

 

Divine Chocolate has won a number of prestigious awards.  These include Good Housekeeping’s Favourite Fairtrade Product 2008; Best Food Brand in the SHE magazine Ethical Awards 2007; and Best Buy in Ethical Consumer magazine 2009.  Divine Chocolate Ltd was awarded Best Social Enterprise 2007 at the Enterprising Solutions awards run by the Office of the Third Sector and The Observer Best Ethical Business 2008.  Divines Dark Chocolate After Dinner Ginger Thins and 70% Dark Chocolate with Chilli and Orange were both awarded one star by the Guild of Fine Food at the Great Taste Awards 2013. Divine has been voted a Cool Brand 2013-14.