Linden Chocolate

The limeflower season is so brief, no sooner have you sniffed the honey-sweet air and found your foraging bags, and the flowers have gone over.

Lime flowers need to be gathered when newly open and dried quickly, then you can enjoy them in teas and skincare all year. There’s more about this very special time of the wild gathering year in this blog.

Year round gifts

However, lime trees have plenty to offer at other times of the year too.

The young fresh leaves of lime trees are a particular favourite of sheep and other animals. We can munch on them too, or add them to salads.

As the lime flower buds arrive, these can be gathered and preserved in as a glycerite to be used in skincare or medicinally in future months.

Post flowering

Once the flowers are over, you’ll see them replaced by spherical fruits, looking like little fluffy balls. For the adventurous, these are a consumable too.

Gather these fruits from lime trees when they are unripe, before they go too hard. Although they are small you can quite quickly amass a few handfuls. Aim to have about half a pound to a pound in weight (so between 250g and 500g).

If you’re tempted to nibble one – as many curious foragers carefully might – you will likely find them very bitter and unpalatable. They need some processing before they become chocolate.

Chocolate?

I hear your scepticism. Chocolate from a lime tree? Bear with …

Granted it’s not your rich cocoa-style of chocolate, but you can produce something quite comforting and, some may say, moreish to eat using these little balls from the lime tree.

The practice became popular in Germany where lime trees are very prevalent. They are better known there as Linden, hence the name Linden Chocolate. Last century there were even attempts to commercialise the production of linden chocolate, but this didn’t prosper due to the difficulties of preserving the final result.

So if you want to try something that money simply can’t buy, have a go at making your own linden chocolate.

How to make linden chocolate

I admit, this is a bit experimental. It seems recipes have fallen out of use to such an extent that while references are made to the chocolate, very few tell you actually what to do! Which gives much leeway to do it your own way and to your own taste.

My attempt definitely needs some refinement, but the principles worked fine.

Bit of a grind

The trickiest part in making your chocolate is getting the texture right. Ideally chocolate has a smooth, velvety texture. To achieve this you need to do a lot of grinding of those little fruits.

There are many ways to achieve this, so choose your favoured option. If you’ve gathered a good quantity, blitz them in a food processor. For smaller amounts an electric coffee or spice grinder is a good option. Or the traditional approach is to use a pestle and mortar, which can be an gentle task on a pleasant evening sat in the garden, if you’re so inclined.

You may choose to add a little of the other ingredients as you grind the fruits, especially a little oil or sugar.

Ingredients

The main ingredient in your linden chocolate is the ground linden fruits.

It is also recommended to add a small proportion of ground linden flowers too. (Apparently this is the method used by a french chemist named Missa, who experimented with linden chocolate in the 18th Century). Aim for roughly 1:5 flowers:fruit. So if you have 100g of fruit, then about 15g of flowers. Now, of course it may be that you have missed the flowers, as you’re now gathering the fruits that follow them. However, the flower harvest includes the leafy bracts that protect the flower, so you could substitute these for the flower which will lighten the texture, but won’t bring quite the punch of honey flavour that the flowers give.

Your third ingredient is sugar. The traditional recipes for linden chocolate don’t use sugar – they are just the ground fruit with a little oil – so your experiments can omit this if you prefer. If using, it can be any sugar of your choice, as fine grained as possible, or grind it more yourself. Add this at a proportion of up to 1:2 sugar:fruit, but this is very much to taste so adjust as your palate prefers. If you have incorporated flowers, these will give a little sweetness of their own.

The final ingredient is oil. Again, you can make your own choice of oil from your kitchen cupboard. I used rapeseed oil but there are many options (sunflower, walnut, olive, sesame …). This is simply to help bind your ingredients so don’t overdo it, add a tablespoon or so at a time. Expect about a tablespoon of oil (15ml) for each 100g of fruit.

Method

Making is simple, just combine the ingredients as above – ground linden fruit, ground linden flowers or bracts (optional), sugar and oil. Stir together, or combine in a food processor and make whatever fine adjustments you choose to each ingredient for a consistency you like.

Trouble shooting

I have to admit the grinding didn’t happen easily. But it is well worth persevering to avoid too much grainy-ness in your chocolate.

A ‘get-round’ I deployed was to pass the mixture through a sieve. The smooth result was great in texture and taste, but lacked the ‘body’ required for chocolate. However, freezing this has worked well.

I used an ice cube tray and now have little linden chocolates which are lovely as a post-dinner treat.

The unsieved portion could then be ground further to get the texture smoother.

But what does it taste like?

Reports of linden chocolate refer to the lovely chocolatey aroma. I’d say that’s building expectations up quite a bit. There is a depth and roundness of flavour that is pleasing, like chocolate, but the overall impact is more plant-y.

The sweetness makes it feel like a treat, and probably contributes to the moreishness. I think, if commercially possible, this would sell as a ‘curiosity’ or ‘novelty’ chocolate and could well generate a connoisseur following. Especially among those who like to try something different. There’s a green tint to the chocolate that tells you you’ve got something special!

Serving suggestion

My tasters agreed that linden chocolate made a very pleasant topping for a flapjack. A crumbly and gooey sweet combination.

Capture the season

As a handmade product for home consumption, it’s another one to add to the repetoire of chutneys, jams, preserves, syrups and liquers that help us extend the presence of plants in our lives. These products enable the spirit of generous plants to be enjoyed throughout the year, even though their seasons are so short.

Storage

Once made, linden chocolate will keep in the fridge for a week or so. Enjoy it fresh through this time. You can freeze the chocolate, though it may lose some of the richness of its taste, and particularly its aroma through this process.

Alternatively, freeze the raw ingredients – the linden fruit (either whole or ground). Then mix your chocolate as and when you want it.

Chocolate without cocoa

Chocolate aficionados may well balk at the idea of this as ‘chocolate’, however the little linden fruits do have much promise for experimentation. What about creating a chocolatey/mocha style drink with them? could they be dehydrated or freeze dried and still retain their qualities?

As lime is a relatively common tree, and the fruits so plentiful, this is a resource with much potential that is worth getting to know better.