Devnaa Signature Chocolates come to Knightsbridge!

Preceding the launch of the Devnaa Signature Caramels and Limited Edition Valentines Rose Creams in Harvey Nichols this week, I took a trip down to Knightsbridge to check out the area.

Possibly the most luxurious shopping district in London, Knightsbridge is home to the flagship stores of many high end fashion brands like Prada, Jimmy Choo and Gucci. Everywhere you look you are surrounded by famous names and the most beautiful window displays of clothes, shoes, jewellery and food!

The most well-known parts of Knightsbridge are Brompton Road, where Harrods resides, and Sloane Street, boasting residents like Chanel and Armani. Harvey Nichols is in a prime location on the corner of Sloane Street and Brompton Road, and it is easily accessible from the Sloane Street exit at Knightsbridge Station.

On my visit to Knightsbridge I started by visiting the famous Harvey Nichols to explore and look around all the amazing departments. The main entrance on the ground floor opens out into an amazing beauty department filled with beautiful scents and colours. Downstairs on two lower ground floors you have an outstanding collection of menswear, ranging from the most formal suits to casual trainers.  Floors 1-4 contain an extremely comprehensive selection of ladies wear and on the 5^th floor, the icing on the cake for me, you have the food market. With some of the most exclusive and elusive food products available, from strawberry pasta to marshmallow fluff, this has to be one of the most amazing food markets I have ever had the pleasure to visit! The selection is incredible, top quality produce, high end, gourmet brands and delicious displays – I could have spent hours just looking around and I am so excited and proud for Devnaa chocolates to be included alongside such brilliant products. There is also a restaurant, terrace café, and bar offering up lots of delicious goodies.

My next stop was Harrods – breath taking luxury and expense embodied! If you have never been to Harrods before make sure you spare an entire day for when you do plan a visit. 7 floors dedicated to the most beautiful, extravagant luxuries available to buy. I’ll keep my description short, to my favourite parts; otherwise this post may go on for days! Call me predictable but by far and away my favourite room in Harrods is The Chocolate Room. Located almost in the centre of the ground floor, it is a chocoholics dream.  Counters of the prettiest chocolate treats and shelves stacked with the most extravagant chocolate boxes, with a chocolate brown interior décor and a tea and coffee bar to boot it’s simply astonishing. My second favourite part – the Ice Cream Parlour. Located on the second floor, just opposite the pizzeria (where I enjoyed a delectable dinner) the ice cream parlour makes you feel like a child again. Towering sundaes made from luscious flavours of the creamiest ice cream served up in a traditional 60’s style parlour, it really is worth a visit to Harrods just for this!

These are just a tiny fraction of things to see in Knightsbridge and there are plenty more glamorous shops and plush hotels, fine dining restaurants and opulent bars to take in. I’m looking forward to spending a bit more time there as Devnaa launches in Harvey Nichols!

Devnaa Valentine's Rose and Ginger Creams.

Devnaa Sugar and Spice: Volume 1

Happy New Year all! I know it's a bit late but the Devnaa team started 2012 busily planning lots of new and exciting products that we'll be developing and introducing to you throughout the course of the year - we're so excited!

First up we have our new year's gift to to you all - Sugar and Spice Volume 1 - a collection of 6 Indian inspired dessert recipes that we have created and put together in this free booklet for everyone to enjoy. From recipes like Chocolate and Rose Cake with Cardamom Cream to Chocolate and Cardamom Mousse Pots these 6 unique desserts are easy to prepare and provide great new ideas for sweet recipes.

We had so much fun putting this booklet together that not only will we be releasing volume 2 very soon, we'll also be releasing the official Devnaa Recipe Book later this year so watch this space!

Here's a link to our first recipe booklet, if you try the recipes let us know how it goes! We'd love to hear from you.

http://issuu.com/devnaa/docs/devnaa_sugarandspice_volume1?mode=window&backgroundColor#222222

Christmas 2011 - Limited Edition Honey Cardamom Fudge

Hello Everyone - we've been a bit quiet on the blog the last few weeks as we've been busy carefully creating a brand new product especially for Christmas - presenting Devnaa's Honey & Cardamom Fudge!

A beautifully creamy white chocolate fudge enriched with distinct notes of honey and the heady aroma of freshly ground cardamom, enrobed in silky smooth dark chocolate.

Cardamom, sometimes referred to as the Queen of Spices, is one of the most favoured spices used throughout Indian cuisine - in savoury dishes as well as sweet ones. Honey is also considered to be a luxury ingredient and in Hindu culture is said to be one of the five 'elixirs of immortality' (panchamrita') alongside ghee, milk, sugar and yoghurt.

This year we have exclusively produced 100 boxes of this regal fudge especially for the Christmas season. Each 16 piece box comes with a unique tag stating it's ID number so you know just how authentic it really is! Presented in a special purple edition of our award nominated 'tiffin' style packaging this fudge makes a unique Christmas gift that has it all.

We hope those of you that get a chance to taste our honey and cardamom fudge enjoy it as much as we have loved every second of creating it - from carefully developing the exciting flavour to lovingly wrapping it up in our tiffin boxes to present to you! :) xx

Recipe: Fragrant & Chocolatey Mousse Desserts!

Hello Everyone! I'd like to start today by wishing everybody a very happy Diwali & Eid  - you guys kept us rushed off our feet during the festive period and we were really honoured by how many of you chose to include Devnaa as part of your gifts and celebrations - we hope that our sweets and chocolates added the perfect sweet touch to your festivities!

On with today's blog - having consumed endless amounts of delicious sweets and desserts over the last few weeks I have been inspired! The latest invention in our kitchen is this gorgeous chocolate, pistachio, cardamom and rose flavoured mousse cake which makes a stunning dessert, perfect for impressive dinner parties and is relatively really easy to make! For this recipe we're using a chocolate sponge which can be easily made or purchased with or without eggs but for a variation packed with more pistachio flavour, try making a pistachio sponge or joconde and using that instead.

Ingredients:
100g Shelled Pistachio Nuts
1 x 9" Square Chocolate Sponge Cake
600ml Double Cream
150g Caster Sugar
1/2 tsp Ground Cardamom
60ml Rose Water

You will need 6 x 2.5" Mousse Rings or Dariole Moulds

Method:

• Place the pistachio nuts in a frying pan and dry roast over a medium heat, tossing occasionally until green and fragrant (about 5 minutes)
• Leave aside until cool and then grind into a fine powder
• Carefully slice the chocolate sponge cake into 4 thin layers
• Cut 2 of the layers into 18 circles the same size as your moulds
• Cut the remaining 2 layers into 3" x 8" strips
• Press 6 of the sponge discs into the bottoms of the moulds and line the sides of each mould with the strips of sponge, trim to fit perfectly
• Sprinkle about half of the rose water over the sponge in the moulds
• Whisk the sugar and cream together until just past the soft peak consistency
• fold in the pistachio powder and cardamom
• Set aside 6 heaped tablespoons of the cream mixture
• Divide half of the remaining mixture between the sponge lined moulds and tap to level
• Place another disc of sponge on top of the cream in the mould and drizzle with half of the remaining rose water
• Divide the rest of the cream between the moulds, level and top with the last discs of sponge and drizzle with the rose water
• Refrigerate for at least 2 hours
• To demould - run a palette knife around each cake and carefully remove from the mould
• Use dessert spoons to make 6 'quenelles' of the reserved cream and place on top of each dessert (or just decoratively arrange the cream on top!)
• Garnish with rose petals and pistachio nuts and serve chilled.
• Pictures to follow soon - the layers look amazing when cut into! :)

Now Available at Heathrow T4!!!!!!

Hello everyone! It's been a couple of weeks since our last entry and we're back with some fantastic news!!!! Devnaa Signature Chocolate Tiffins, Chocolate Bars and Drinking Chocolate are now available at the Simply Chocolate shop in Heathrow Terminal 4 Duty Free, just in time for those of you who are travelling abroad for the festive season - Diwali in 3 weeks, eeek!!!
Not only will the chocolates be available to purchase but during the month of October there will be a tasting booth at the front of the shop allowing you to sample some of the goodies and if you're travelling via first or business class you'll also be treated to some samples in the lounges!

If you are passing through that way please stop by and take a look and don't forget to tell a friend to tell a friend to do the same! Lol! In all seriousness - thank you all for your support, hopefully we can continue to grow Devnaa together and make it much more widely available! :) xx

Rainbow Cupcakes!!! A Bright End To Cupcake Week :)

Ok, so we cheated a little but what's cheating if it means you get extra cake? LOL! I'm going to excuse myself with the fact that it's Friday, it's fun and it's the last day of cupcake week! After all the hard baking work the Devnaa team have been doing I thought they deserved a treat (plus my inner child has been dying to make these for aaaaaages!), so Rainbow Cupcakes it is!

They are in fact just a batch of basic vanilla cupcakes, divided by 7 (I have been singing the 'Rainbow Song' to myself all day!), each bowl of batter was coloured and then a spoonful of each colour per cupcake case - simples! The flavour is not so much Indian but again - excuse at the ready(!) - the vibrant colours are so representative of Indian culture it just naturally fit!

Use whatever vanilla cake recipe you like with whichever colours please you, these are by far the happiest cupcakes I have ever baked, putting a smile on everyone's faces! :)

Cupcake Week Day 5 - Chocolate, Coconut & Cardamom Cupcakes

Hello All! For the last blog of cupcake week the Devnaa team thought that we'd quite like to base a cupcake on one of our signature chocolates - chai masala has been done before (by us and many others!), pisatchio and saffron.... Well, we did the pistachio thing on day 1 and so - Coconut & Cardamom it was! Yes we've used coconut icing on our gingerbread cupcakes (day 2) but this is a full on, chocolate cupcake with coconut filling (baked inside, not poured in after!) and coconut and cardamom icing, topped of course with a Devnaa Coconut & Cardamom Signature Caramel. We hope you like it as much as we do :)

Chocolate, Coconut & Cardamom Cupcakes (makes 12)

Ingredients for Filling:
100g Cream Cheese
25g Fine Desiccated Coconut
25g Caster Sugar

Method

• Simply beat the cream cheese until smooth, beat in the desiccated coconut and sugar until well mixed and leave aside until needed

Ingredients for Chocolate Sponge:
200g Butter
200g Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 Eggs
150g Self Raising Flour
50g Cocoa Poder
100ml Soured Cream

Method:

• Pre heat oven to gas mark 4/180C/350F and linbe a cupcake tin with cases
• Cream the butter and sugar until white and fluffy
• Beat in the vanilla extract
• Scrape down the sides of your bowl and beat in the eggs one by one until you have a smooth mixture
• Sift together the flour and cocoa powder and then slowly beat into the creamed mixture a little at atime, adding the soured cream as and when you need it until you have used all the dry ingredients and the batter is of a smooth and creamy dropping consistency
• Divide half of the batter between all 12 cupcake cases
• Now, using a teaspoon, divide the coconut filling between all 12 cupcakes, carefully placing it in the center of each cake
• Top the filling in each cake with the remaining chocolate batter and then bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean
• Cool completely on a wire rack.

Ingredients for Coconut & Cardamom Buttercream:
200g Butter
350g Icing Sugar
4 tblsp Coconut Powder
1/2 tsp Coconut Extract (if you have it otherwise add more coconut powder until the taste is right for you)
1/4 tsp Powdered Cardamom (grind it up as fine as you can - nobody wants to bite on a stony chunk, it can be really bitter!)

Method:

• Beat the butter until soft and creamy and then beat in the cardamom and extract (if using)
• Sift together the icing sugar and coconut powder and gradually beat into the butter, ensuring your icing remains smooth and creamy
• Add a little more coconut powder if required and then swirl onto each cupcake
• Top with a Devnaa Coconut and Cardamom truffle if you wish!
• Enjoy :)