Blond vs pink: French-Swiss battle for 'fourth' chocolate

Paris: A fourth chocolate blond has been slowly making inroads into French confectionary, but has failed to win official recognition and faces...

Paris: A fourth chocolate -- "blond" -- has been slowly making inroads into French confectionary, but has failed to win official recognition and faces competition from a pink Swiss variety.

Blond choccy was born from an accident.

French pastry chef Frederic Bau was demonstrating his skills at an exhibition in Japan, and left his white chocolate warming a little too long in a bain-marie... four days, to be precise.

"By chance, by magic... it became blond! This chocolate appeared with an incredible colour and smell", recalls Bau, who is creative director for chocolatier Valrhona.

Bau immediately smelled the commercial potential of this happy blunder, but it took seven years of testing to perfect its unique aromatic qualities and consistency.