January needs treats, I always feel, and what better than chocolate to counter cool, damp, grey days which happen even in the sunniest Mediterranean islands. It certainly helps in a gloomy northern climate.

Good chocolate can be recognised by its uniform, dark, glossy surface, silky smooth to the touch, making a clean break in your fingers- Frances Bissell

That London is home to some of the best chocolatiers in the world may surprise some. But visit William Curley in Richmond, Ebury Street and Harrods, Paul A. Young in Soho, Islington and the Royal Exchange, Gerard Coleman, aka L’Artisan du Chocolat in Selfridges, Notting Hill and Lower Sloane Street and Claire Clark wherever she ‘pops up’ (in February for example at the Help for Heroes charity dinner at the Guildhall organised by the Academy of Culinary Arts), award winners all, and you will need no more convincing that this is where the talent is.

Of course, Brussels has its famous chocolate houses, and one or two chocolatiers such as Pierre Marcolini who have moved away from the rich, sweet, creamy style of chocolates.

And Paris is spoilt for choice when it comes to chocolate, from Robert Linxe’s pioneering La Maison du Chocolat and Jean Paul Hévin to the lesser-known but equally accomplished Michel Chaudun.

In Spain, chocolateros have worked on an artisan scale since the middle of the 19th century, and their descendants still work in the family businesses today. Antoni Escriba, described by Ferran Adria as “the first avant-garde figure of Spanish cooking”, and by the French as “the Mozart of chocolate”, pioneered new approaches to working with chocolate as early as the 1950s, in the pastry shop set up by his grandfather in Barcelona in 1905.

And, as with much in the gastronomic world today, Spain continues to lead the field in chocolate, centred on Madrid, Alicante and Barcelona. Enric Rovira, Oriol Balaguer and Jordi Butron are names to look for.

Even the more commercial Spanish ventures, such as Cacao Sampaka, produce chocolate of very high quality.

The Monasterio del Piedra, an oasis of green in the arid landscape of Aragon, is where I discovered what is reputedly the first kitchen in Spain to use chocolate. A friar with Hernan Cortes’ party of conquistadores sent some back to one of his brothers at this remote Cistercian monastery.

Chocolate in a similar style is still sold at the monastery and in nearby towns, chocolate a la piedra, named after the stone mortar in which it was ground, sweet, dark and granular and used for mixing with hot milk or water as a soothing drink.

The chocolate sounds not unlike that produced in Modica in Sicily which retains a similarly crunchy texture. Also from Modica I have one of my favourite chocolate ingredients, the chocolate liqueur, Xocolic. I use it for my ‘ultimate chocolate cake’, and also when I make frappuccino in summer.

Before we could buy ‘real’ chocolate in England I used to bring kilo slabs of Valrhona Guanaja Grand Cru chocolate from France. Made, as it name might suggest, in the Rhone Valley it was a revelation; fine crisp snap, a good gloss, even texture slow-melting in the mouth and extraordinary complex flavours.

This part of France is noted for its chocolate makers, both in Lyon and further down the valley in Roanne where François Pralus carries on the family tradition of fine chocolate making, often with beans from their own plantation in Madagascar.

Good chocolate can be recognised by its uniform, dark, glossy surface, silky smooth to the touch, making a clean break in your fingers. In your mouth, it will break with a crisp snap.

As you eat the chocolate, it will melt in your mouth and you will be aware of its silky, un-cloying texture, smooth, but not fatty, and its intense, deep, rich flavour, with a pleasant bitterness and a lingering, fruity finish, which I can only describe as winey.

It contains small amounts of caffeine, and theobromine which induce a feeling of well being, comforting at the same time as being stimulating.

Too high a concentration of cocoa solids in chocolate is like putting too much chilli in a curry, so many nuances of flavour are lost. A small amount of fat and sugar is needed to ‘season’ chocolate, to enhance its aroma, flavour and texture. A 70-75 per cent cocoa solids content is about right for dark chocolate, though I still like a ‘fix’ of 85 per cent occasionally.

Valrhona’s original chocolate mousse recipe is still one of the best. Today’s recipe is based on it and is a perfect pud to serve for a January treat. Incidentally, products labelled ‘cooking chocolate’ deserve to be examined with as much caution as bottles labelled ‘red wine forcooking’ or ‘cooking sherry’. If you would not eat or drink it, do not use it in your cooking.

Lindt chocolate bars are excellent for cooking. Use it also in the soft-centred chocolate cake recipe, the classic flourless chocolate cake, served warm, with a molten chocolate centre.

I have also included my rich chocolate cake recipe. The ingredients list and method look long and complicated, but do not be put off. Cakes do require precision and attention to detail. With all baking, I always check quantities and proportions.

But even if you have never baked a cake before, you can make this one. Serve it as a ‘gateau’ for dessert, or a centrepiece for Sunday tea.

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