Paul A. Young Sea Salted Caramel Egg

Posted by in Chocolate Reviews on March 25 2010 | Leave A Comment
Paul A. Young Sea Salted Caramel Egg

Ask me to list my favourite chocolates of all time (which people do all too frequently), and right up at the top of that list are Paul A. Young’s sea salted caramels.

We saw quite a craze for sea salted caramels last year, with all the big name chocolatiers producing them. I tried many myself, but nothing quite matched the sweet, salty, liquid centres of Paul’s creations. So when I heard he was making a sea salted caramel egg this year, I had to have one.

Actually, I had to have several, but he would only send one. Meany.

Paul A. Young Sea Salted Caramel Egg

The egg comes in a tasteful white eggcup with a china spoon. Unfortunately, Royal Mail chose to break the spoon in transit, so I was forced to use a non-china, non-Easter spoon of my own. I’m fairly certain this didn’t affect the flavour, but it was still a little disappointing.

There’s no weight listed on the packaging, but as you can see from the pictures it’s slightly too large for the standard size eggcup. It’s a sturdy beast, too. When you break into the chocolate – or cut into it with a knife, as you’ll find you have to – you can see why. The chocolate is really quite thick.

Thankfully, the egg is only half full of caramel, so it’s just about possible to get into it without it going everywhere.

Paul A. Young Sea Salted Caramel Egg

The chocolate is a 64% dark chocolate, and although there’s no country of origin on the packing, it’s quite light and fruity with a natural sweetness like a Madagascan bean. On its own, it’s really quite delicious, but combined with the caramel, it’s heaven.

It’s clearly the same caramel Paul uses for his individual chocolates. It’s almost liquid, flowing relentlessly downhill on its inevitable journey toward the tabletop and carpet. The taste is a perfect combination of sweetness, buttery smoothness and saltiness. On its own, it’s delicious, but too rich to scoop out a whole spoonful. You need to combine it with the chocolate to really get the most from the flavours and textures.

But therein lies the problem. The chocolate is so thick and the egg is so big, that it’s almost impossible to get a nice mixture of chocolate and caramel into your mouth without coating every piece of furniture in the room with a thin layer of caramel.

By the time you figure out how to get both into your mouth at the same time, it has all become a little too much.

Paul A. Young Sea Salted Caramel Egg

At £17 per egg, these aren’t cheap at all, and while I love the flavours in the context of smaller chocolates, the downfall of this egg is the size. It’s impossible to eat in one go, yet it’s impossible to store for more than a day. You could share it, but you’ll still need to get through the whole thing in one go.

This is clearly designed to be an indulgent, over the top gift. But for me, it’s just a little bit too over the top. It’s a quality product made with fantastic ingredients, but it’s simply too difficult to eat! Give me a bag of mini-eggs like this though, and I’d love you forever.

Paul doesn’t sell online, so if you do want to pick up something from his Easter range, you’ll have to visit one of his London shops.

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Comments On This Post

  1. I think when I reviewed mine it was a bit too cold in here. I normally have the window open so I think it cooled down the egg so the caramel wasn’t as runny.

    I’ll have to fix that next time. Loved your runny egg pic!!

  2. Laura

    I do wish that Paul would set up a mail order service. I’m absolutely gagging to try the Sea Salted Caramels, as well as one of his amazingly decadent brownies. I’m terrible at directions and, when I visited London last year, I wasn’t able to find his shop.

  3. I hope Dom doesn’t mind me saying … but for those that live in London you can get them delivered from http://www.hubbubdeliveries.co.uk/in-your-area/1/visit-a-shop/paul-a-young-fine-chocolates

    The problem often is that as he uses the most natural ingredients that its difficult to get them shipped around the country, stay on the shelves for a few days and then still taste great.

    Simple answer, however: Clone Paul 🙂

  4. Laura

    I live in Manchester, unfortunately. Cloning Paul is start to look like the best option…

  5. Dom (Chocablog Staff)

    Hadn’t heard of hubbub, but seems they only deliver to a small area of North London, that doesn’t include my part of North London anyway. 🙂

  6. Michael (Chocablog Staff)

    Wow. That is an impressive looking egg, even if does look almost impossible to eat without using some kind of toolkit…

  7. Amy

    OOOHHHH i WANT IT! It looks delicious and I absolutely love sea salt and chocolate…come to think of it I am also rather fond of caramel too.

  8. I have heard so much about Paul A Young’s sea salted caramels – I really really want to try one – or better still this egg. Think I could happily wrestle with the problem of how to get it into my mouth. Great review and pictures.

  9. Kirsten

    Impossible to eat in one go? I finished mine in 5 minutes!
    BEST. EASTER. EGG. EVER.

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