Hotel Chocolat Fruit & Nut Christmas Wreath

Posted by in Chocolate Reviews on December 2 2008 | Leave A Comment

I love Hotel Chocolat. Everything they do is of exceptional quality and beautifully presented. But I like them most when they come out with something completely outlandish, indulgent and just plain weird.

So as you might have guessed, I particularly like this.

What we have here is a large (400g) solid milk chocolate Christmas wreath that’s been packed full of cranberries, raisins, pistachios and almonds.

My photos don’t really do it justice, but to give you an idea of the size, this is what it looks like when served on a large plate…

Apart from the size, the most striking thing about this is the colours. The bright red cranberries and green pistachios are literally bursting out of the chocolate. The chocolate pine cones and holly leaves cracked to reveal whole pieces of fruit and nut underneath. Wonderful.

The milk chocolate itself is rich and dark. In fact, at 50% cocoa solids, it’s darker than some dark chocolates. The 20% milk solids do soften the flavour slightly, but not much. It both looks and tastes closer to a dark chocolate than a milk chocolate, but that’s probably a good thing.

The fruit and nuts add lots of interesting textures to the wreath, but they’re also packed with flavour. The cranberries in particular are deliciously tangy and work wonderfully with the chocolate – which makes me wonder how Cadbury managed to make something so flavourless with their own cranberry bar.

Clearly this is designed to be ther centrepiece of your Christmas dinner table (under no circumstances should you attempt to eat it alone!) At £13.70, it’s not cheap, but I still think it’s good value. It’s a decoration as well as a delicious hunk of chocolate for sharing over Christmas.

Oh, and it’s completely and utterly mad – a definite plus in my book.

Information

You might also like...

Comments On This Post

  1. Y-u-m! That looks both beautiful AND delicious!

  2. …and would make anyone a top Christmas present. (hint hint)

  3. Dom (Chocablog Staff)

    There are two problems with that:

    1. It’s mine.
    2. IT’S MINE!

    Besides, it just wouldn’t be right to send you half eaten chocolates, and I can’t afford to buy a new one. Sorry ’bout that. 🙂

  4. Mari & Dan

    Hi chocolate fans all over there!
    We are more or less like you, being passionate about and adoring the very idea of chocolate in all shapes and tastes! We want people to share more and more our passion for chocolate and therefore we have decided to create a blog about this tasty product in Romania. In our country there are many chocolate addicts who really enjoy and love chocolate, and building a blog would not only be a remarkable thing, but also a chance for Romanian chocolate fans to share their ideas and feelings about chocolate in general. At the same time, our blog will benefit from the points of view of some experts in the chocolate industry. We are open to any kind of suggestion and we would be more than welcomed to benefit from the advice of you, chocolate lovers! For many talking about chocolate could last a lifetime!

  5. Just bought one in the Holborn branch (and I found out they have daily tastings at lunchtime, too – a valuable information, considering that I work literally 5 minutes away :)), but haven’t tried it yet – I want it to last until Christmas and I’ll try to stop myself from opening it before that. Instead, I’m just devouring the raspberry and mint chocolates from their Selector stand. Delicious and surprisingly fruity. Give’em a try!

  6. lara

    im eating my chocolate wreath now its gorgeous!

Leave a comment




Chocablog: Chocolate Blog