A HAMPSHIRE chocolatier has scooped two prestigious accolades at an international chocolatiers awards ceremony.

Kerry Witt began cooking and experimenting with chocolate when she was a child, helping her mother on her stall in New Milton.

“When I was a child I would make my own birthday cake out of chocolate every year, it was a train and I absolutely loved it.”

Following her passion, Kerry went on to study patisserie at Brockenhurst College.

This month Kerry, 37, was awarded a silver for her prune and Armagnac chocolate in the alcohol category at the Academy of Chocolate in London.

She also scooped a bronze for her coffee chocolate.

She was the only female UK chocolatier to receive an accolade.

Kerry also entered a mulberry and lemon flavoured chocolate in the contest – which received entrants from 35 countries.

“I couldn’t believe I had won; I worked really hard on the flavours and the chocolate. It was a real achievement,” said Kerry.

Judges were impressed by the the skill needed to make Armagnac-infused prunes enrobed with a shell of wild Bolivian 68 per cent dark chocolate.

Her coffee chocolate was made with ingredients from a small artisan coffee roaster just around the corner from her Lymington kitchen, Coffee Monger’s Roasting Company.

Kerry says she spends anywhere between three months and a year working on her chocolate recipes.

She runs the business single-handedly, doing everything from researching and creating chocolates to the washing up.

The full range of chocolate by Miss Witt is available from her pop-up shop every Saturday at Lymington Market, and her website chocolatebymisswitt.com