Did you know its national chocolate week?

In case it's escaped anyone's notice it is actually national chocolate week!

Often people will say, well I bet it's not chocolate that's wasted BUT actually approximately 30,000 tonnes of chocolate and sweets are thrown away in the UK every single year. Add to that over 1 million chocolate puddings and desserts going to waste each year and that's a lot of chocolate we're not enjoying to the full!

To celebrate National Chocolate week, here are 5 great recipes and tips for making the most of your chocolate:

1. Peanut butter and white chocolate cheesecake: a nice gooey peanutty base, silky white chocolate centre, and a crunchy hazelnut topping
2. Chocolate Mint Ice Cream with Chocolate Mint Sauce: turn leftover after dinner mints into a delicious, chocolate, minty dessert
3. Microwave stale chocolate cake to bring it back to life. Microwave for about 20 seconds for a slice, and it'll become gorgeous gooey hot chocolate fudge cake. 
4. Mocha Pot's: This is a really quick indulgent recipe which can help use up those last dregs of coffee, cream and drinking chocolate
5. If you ever need to store chocolate divide the chocolate into serving-sized portions, wrap each portion in a separate small freezer bag and loosely cover the chocolate with a paper towel. Remove as much air as possible from the bag without squashing the chocolate and seal. Put into the fridge. After an hour in the fridge, remove the paper towel (to remove himidity) and re-seal. At this point you can keep the chocolate safely in the fridge for at least six months and in the freezer for a year. Defrost in the fridge overnight and then allow to come to room temperature very slowly. Then enjoy!

Have a great rest of chocolate week!

Em xx