Do business
bigger premises, but I didn’t realise it would be so soon,” she said.
It might be thought odd for a nutritionist to make and sell chocolate, but Ellen’s truffles are made according to her real food principles, using natural ingredients and excluding refined sugar.
“Dark chocolate features as something of a treat in the Harcombe Diet, so I wanted to create something that people could have as a treat. That was how it started,” she said.
“The recipe is dark chocolate with cream, there’s no sugar in cream apart from lactose, but the strength is halved so it’s not like eating 80% chocolate.
“The standard range uses 74% chocolate mixed with Pembrokeshire cream. For the flavourings, we try to stay as local as possible, so we use Pembrokeshire sea salt, Pembrokeshire blueberries and Pembrokeshire chilli farms.
“We’ve got a darker range which is 80% chocolate. We’re working on bars next, with super-strong chocolate, maybe 90%, sprinkled with nuts.”
The flavours are enticing – there’s sea salt and vanilla (Ellen’s personal favourite), hazelnut (a dark chocolate praline with a hazelnut on top), raspberry, mint, rose (like a Turkish delight) and lemon.
There’s a range of liqueur truffles, with whisky (because there’s no sugar in whisky), brandy, gin and lemon.
“The sweetest one is Merlin, which is a cream liqueur made by Penderyn, the Welsh whisky maker,” she said.
There’s also a dairy-free range, which is vegan and is based on coconut milk and coconut oil instead of cream. Flavours in this range include orange and olive oil, raspberry and coconut, and peanut butter. There are even dairyfree frogs and mice for children.
“These are all naturally dairyfree, unlike a lot of the dairy-free products in many supermarkets that are full of soya and sugar. I’ve had so many allergies and it’s just awful that you can’t have anything nice.” she said.
In January Ellen plans to launch a medicinal range with flavours like turmeric and cardamon, coconut oil-based like the dairyfree range.
Before that there will be a special Bonfire Night truffle with chilli, then for Christmas there will be a sloe gin one, marzipan flavour (made with almond essence rather than marzipan because marzipan is full of sugar), Christmas pudding (made with brandy and natural spices) and coconut and mint, which resembles a snowball as it has coconut on the outside.
“When we launch our bars next year we’ll have stronger chocolate again, up to 90%. Things like cinnamon lift very dark chocolate without putting in sugar,” she added.
Ellen now has seven people working at Trwffl. Separating the companies allows her to spend time on her teaching and public health work at Healthaspire, which remains very important to her. Last year she published a book of recipes, The Real Food Cook Book, and also teaches cookery at Pembrokeshire College.
And she explains how her chocolate truffle business fits in with her other work.
“Dark chocolate has got so many health benefits. If people are trying to lose weight and be healthy, you’ve got to allow them some treats,” she said.