Cherries and chocolate from Berlin

I didn’t have much time for shopping on my recent Berlin trip but I did manage to make a selection of purchases around the themes (although I didn’t notice this at the time!) of cherries and chocolate, mostly from the fantastic Kollwitzplatz Saturday Market.

In the cherry category we have:

1 x bottle of Griotka cherry liqueur from Prague Airport. Very useful when you arrive at a cold cottage late on Friday nights, especially when sips of the liqueur are alternated with sips of caramelised cinnamon hot chocolate.
1 x bottle of kirschwasser or cherry brandy from Berlin. Still unopened. I’m limiting myself to one bottle of alcoholic cherry drink at a time!
1 x small tin box of Pulmoll cherry sweets, also from Prague Airport.
1 x bar of Nestle Noir Cerise chocolate. Decided to pass this to the family – it then disappeared too quickly for me to test it.
1 x jar of amazing cherry-laden jam from Scandinavia, I think, that I ended up buying after starting a conversation with a Very Persuasive saleswoman in Kollwitzplatz Market.

And then there’s chocolate side of things:1 x log of cacao paste. This little log (on the lower right of the photograph) is pure, bitter, raw chocolate. The woman on the Kollwitzplatz Market stall suggested adding gratings of it into recipes involving chocolate to give an extra chocolate hit. It’s currently biding its time in my kitchen press until I figure out how I want to use it.1 x packet of cacao nibs from in’t Veld Schokoladen, a magical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-type chocolate shop, just around the corner from Kollwitzplatz Market. I had run out of ready cash at this stage but my credit card did not escape unscathed as I stocked up on gifts of unusual bars of chocolate from zotter (how could a cherry-orientated girl resist their marzipan and Kirshbrand bar, or their pumpkin seed and egg flip one and several others, not all of whom made it to their intended recipients) and, inspired by Clotilde‘s experiments on Chocolate & Zucchini, some cacao nibs to play with.1 x unshelled nutmeg, complete with attached mace. Because who could resist such a beautiful spice? Never mind the fact that I’ve a jar-full of organic nutmegs already in the kitchen!and, finally,1 x small (expensive) bottle of pure vanilla extract. I recently used up the bottle of vanilla extract that I got from a visit to Country Choice in Nenagh so it was the perfect time to stock up again.And, if you’re interested in life in Berlin, Berlin Reified is a great food blog by an ex-pat American – you’ll find her take on in’t Veld Schokoladen here.