Hotlix Chocolate Covered Insects

Posted by in Chocolate Reviews on April 1 2010 | Leave A Comment
Chocolate Covered Insects

“Cricket anyone?” would normally result in my explaining that standing in front of three sticks of wood while someone hurls a lump of leather-wrapped cork at me isn’t really my thing but, as you may have guessed, the cricket in question here was once hopping around in a vivarium somewhere the United States minding it’s own business before it was taken, cooked and covered in milk or white chocolate. Likewise the worm/grub you see in the photo below.

Yes, I have friends who like to buy me presents, especially if the present in question may result in my being out of the food comfort zone. It might have been easier to taste these if the chocolate coating hadn’t fallen off one of the crickets. Look closely and you can clearly see abdomen, wings and a leg or two.

Chocolate Covered Insects

The broken bits of white chocolate did allow me a small taste sans creepy crawly, and having read the packaging I wasn’t expecting a treat for the taste buds. Palm oil, sugar, whey, nonfat milk, and no mention of cocoa content. So, not even a tasty coating to soften the blow. Humbug.

Less brave souls may have opted to throw one in and swallow it ASAP, but I decided that if there was any flavour to be had from a cricket or a worm I wanted to know what it was, so I bit down hard on my first selection (the partially covered cricket) to see what it had to offer.

Crispy, dried cricket has a certain tang to it but it was more of a musty, dusty sort of taste as opposed to anything meaty or distinctly ‘insecty’ Maybe a lack of coating had allowed air to degrade the overall taste? Only one way to find out – eat cricket number two (this time a milk chocolate one). Legs, wings and abdomen casings aren’t particularly palatable on account of they’re being pretty dry and flavourless, and the chocolate is just sugary, slightly oily rubbish. The white chocolate more so.

Chocolate Covered Insects

What surprised me was the amount of flavour I got from the worm. It was a kind of toasty, biscuity flavour which made me think that a good handful of these paired with some decent quality milk chocolate could actually make quite a tasty snack. I understand they’re quite nutritious in their own right anyway so why not improve the recipe?

Obviously these are sold primarily for people who are either of a slightly evil bent and want to see their friends’ faces when they open them, or as the sort of thing you buy for someone who is keen to try anything once (like me). I’d have liked more crickets (at least then I might have been able to find out what cricket tastes of) and obviously I would much prefer some decent chocolate around them, but the worm was a pleasant surprise. Strange as it sounds, I’m interested to try more of this sort of thing in future.

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Comments On This Post

  1. Shimrit (Chocablog Staff)

    Way to take one for the team!

  2. You are WAY more game than I … well done. I still say a big EEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW hehe

  3. Dom (Chocablog Staff)

    To be fair, I insisted Simon review these, so it’s me you should thank really… 🙂

  4. GrumpyTart

    Oh god, I feel sick just looking at the photos 🙁

    Well done Simon, you’re a braver person than me!

  5. Obviously an April Fool 🙂

  6. Simon

    Insisted? Suggested might be more accurate, and no, they’re not faked.

    http://www.hotlix.com for all your wriggly snacking supplies.

  7. Wayne

    I didn’t think the items themselves were fake, but I believed that your tasting was after Jeremy’s comment. Lovely descriptions, regardless.

  8. GAG-A-RONI! ICK, ICK, ICK!!! Ack, my skin is crawling now! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! There’s no way I’d try these Chocolate Bug Delicacies. NO WAY! Especially the White Chocolate one. I can’t stand White Chocolate to begin with. Thanks for the gross-out, although it did make for an interesting read. 🙂

  9. Amy

    You’re sick sick people! There is no way on God’s green Earth that I would put one of those suckers in my mouth! Do these next 😀 http://www.edible.com/shop/insectivore/chocolate%20covered%20giant%20ants/

  10. Anonamus

    MMMMM… Crikets…. YAY for sarcasm…!!!!

  11. I have a bearded dragon and, before freeze-dried crickets came on the market, I bought a tin of crickets for him for times when I couldn’t get to the pet store. You can still buy them:
    http://www.petco.com/product/7768/Zoo-Med-Can-O-Crickets.aspx
    I recommend you get a tin of crickets and–stop, don’t eat one. Just open the tin and take a good breath. I suspect what you smell will both tell you what fresh crickets would taste like and convince you that you don’t really want to eat one.
    It’s one of the most disgusting smells around, and it permeates. To keep from smelling the crickets outside of the cupboard the tin was in, I had to store the closed tin in a sealed container full of activated charcoal.

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