World's most exclusive chocolate?

It seems the British Royal Family receive a regular supply of chocolate made to their own private recipe. The Daily Mail reports:

Made to a secret recipe by royal warrant holders Cadbury, several small boxes of the dark chocolate are being delivered to Buckingham Palace for the monarch and her family to enjoy at Christmas.

Pictured here for the first time, the Daily Mail can reveal the bars are made by a team of three on specially reserved equipment at the firm's factory in Bournville, Birmingham.

Cadbury - which was given a royal warrant by Queen Victoria in 1854 - refuses to divulge how the chocolate is created but sources say it has been tailored to the Queen's taste.

The recipe is said to contain more cocoa solids than many other dark chocolates, making it ideal for both eating and cooking.

Only three or four small batches of the bar are made each year and, when not being used for the royal chocolate, the production equipment lies dormant.

One batch is made and delivered just before Christmas to Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and Sandringham.

Each bar is wrapped in gold foil and encased in a red wrapper stamped with the royal crest and the 'By Appointment to HM The Queen' wording that the Cadbury warrant allows it to mark on all its products.

Below the crest, in gold and black lettering, the bar is labelled Cadbury's Superior Culinary Dark Chocolate, although it is known by staff at the company simply as 'Royal Household chocolate'.

While many of the bars are used in the royal kitchens to make fine deserts for private consumption and state banquets, some are also eaten as a sweet treat, according to the chocolate maker.

Cadbury spokesman Tony Bilsborough confirmed: 'We do make the Queen a bar of dark chocolate. It's not for sale to the public. We make this for her, under the terms of the royal mark.

'We've been providing chocolates to the Royal Family since Victorian times but I cannot discuss the recipe.'

There's more at the link.

Y'know, if I were an enterprising footman at the Palace, I'd be very tempted to smuggle out a few bars of the stuff. It'd be worth a fortune on eBay!

Peter