Sluttishly Sweet: Chocolate Butter

I was making up a batch of herb butter the other day when it occurred to me that I only ever make savoury versions, what about a sweet one? I decided to give a chocolate one a go as I just so happened to have a bar to hand (shocker!).

The result? Well I think I may have just struck kitchen Gold my friends, this is AMAZING! Why oh why has it taken me so long to come up with this? It seems so obvious now: chocolate + butter = awesome! But what to put it on? Well, my first thought was crumpets but I didn't have any to I decided to whip up a quick batch of drop scones and substituted the butter in the recipe for my new chocolate butter, oh happy days for doubly chocolatey goodness!

I added vanilla and 2 crushed cardamon pods to the basic chocolate mix which really added something a bit special but you could try adding cinnamon, rose water, mint, booze, basically whatever you fancy!

You'll need:

• 200g soft unsalted butter  (I like to use unsalted so I can control exactly how much salt is in it)
• 100g dark eating chocolate finely grated
• 1 pinch sea salt flakes
• 1 capful good vanilla extract
• 2 crushed green cardamon pods (black seed only)
• 1 tablespoon grated cocoa bar or 1 teaspoon regular powdered cocoa.

Make it!

1. Have your butter at room temperature so it's nice and soft. Finely grate your chocolate and stir into the butter. Crush your cardamon seeds and add to the mix along with your vanilla extract and sea salt, mix well. You could pop everything into a food processor I'm sure but mine is broken so I used a mortar and pestle.
2. Place your butter mix on a big piece of cling film, roll it up into a sausage shape and twist the ends tightly so that the butter gets compressed into a roll then pop it in the freezer to harden up for about 5 minutes. Take it out from the freezer, slice a bit off and slather it over some hot toast, crumpets, croissants, banana pancakes, muffins...basically put it on EVERYTHING! Plus once you have sliced off your bit of chocolatey joy you can just put the butter stick back into the freezer and it will keep for ages.