Choccreate is another of the make-your-own chocolate bar companies, all of whom seem to be named with the oh-so-original prefix “choc.” But after all, it is your own creativity that is supposed to reign in these cases. When Choccreate invited me to choose from their selection, I designed one bar each in white, milk, and dark. They arrived in a pretty brown and pink striped and ribboned box, complete with a clear hinged lid that easily allows you to see your creations. Not only is it exciting to see your handiwork so bedecked; this also lends well for gifting them.
The first I made into a breakfast-style bar: white chocolate with granola, nutmeg, dried papaya, and raw pistachios. All the various colors are well spread out on the surface, despite my texture-heavy arrangement.
Perhaps more commendable is how the milk bar (which I call the Fiesta Bar) was carried out. Carefully placed cheddar Goldfish swim in a sea with waves of pepitas amid sprinklings of curry powder, with tortilla chips embedded inside the depths of chocolate. It all fits, and my flavors/textures do work, in that semi-adventurous way.
With the dark bar, I aimed for luxury, impressed that Choccreate most definitely has ingredients for this. The granulated honey wasn’t too detectable in the end, but the candied rose petals look lovely as they add their rose-and-sugar-crystal taste. The third element I added was edible 23-k gold flakes because I decided it was simply time I had some golden chocolate. The gold will add a bit more cost to your bar, but what’s better than not having to choose between chocolate and a precious metal? Even as small flakes, the gold is quite visible. And no, it won’t add a metal taste to the bar.
Choccreate is no different than other such companies in that the chocolate is not special: it is only the glue for the personality you project onto its surface. I will say this: I had fun “making” these bas and they arrived with enough style for gift-giving.
We review some amazing fine chocolates on Chocablog, but many regard this as one of the finest there is. It’s also one of the most expensive; I paid £9 for this 50g bar in Fortnum & Mason, which I think makes it the priciest chocolate (by weight) that I’ve ever purchased, although you can find it cheaper online.
But before I get to talk about the chocolate, it’s worth taking a moment to look at the packaging. These bars used to be sold in simple, small, card boxes which more or less reflected the size of the bar inside. Amedei recently updated their packing, and now sell their bars in these folding ‘pouches’, which are very stylish, but hardly reflect the size or shape of the bar inside.
At first glance, the bar looks to be the same size as the bars that surround it on the shop shelf, most of which are 85g or more. In actual fact, you might be getting half the quantity for twice the price of the bars this is sold with.
So what makes this chocolate so special? Well it starts with the rare Venezuelan Porcelana cocoa beans used to make it. The beans get their name from their translucent, white appearance, and there’s only enough of them to produce 3,000 kilos of chocolate per year.
Every year, Amedei produces 20,000 of these 50g bars, each of which are individually numbered on the back of the pack.
My own bar has been safely stored away at the bottom of my stash for the last few months, and as you can see from the photo below, it’s a little the worse for wear. That’s likely down to my own poor treatment of the bar, rather than anything that happened to it before I purchased it. I really should take more care of my precious possessions.
The design of the bar is simple, yet pleasing. The individual pieces are perhaps slightly too big for my liking though. I’d have to really love someone to give them a whole chunk of this.
The aroma is rich and chocolatey, but there’s nothing that stands out about it. It’s slightly fruity, but just smells like a really nice chocolate. The kind of chocolate that makes you want to break off a big piece and eat it too quickly. This deserves to be taken slowly though.
Those qualities are reflected in the flavour too. It’s smooth, rich and sweet, without a hint of bitterness. Like your favourite hot chocolate in solid form, it’s comforting and warming. There’s a hint of fruitiness and spice, but it’s not a complex flavour, just an deliciously creamy, chocolatey experience that develops slowly and stays with you, long after the chocolate has gone.
The texture of this bar are something special too. It’s incredibly smooth and melts slowly and evenly across the tongue. When it’s gone, the temptation is to go back and break off a bigger chunk, but it only takes the smallest of pieces to get the full experience of this chocolate.
So is it worth the price? Well it’s certainly one of my favourite chocolates of all time, and I don’t regret spending £9 of my hard earned money on it at all. I guess the real question is, would I buy it again at that price? The answer to that question is emphatically “yes”, and I’d recommend anyone who loves chocolate do the same.
It seems like a long time since Dom posted Chocablog’s first Bacon/Chocolate hybrid review, and I was terribly excited when those lovely people from HF Chocolates gave this to me last year. Vosges is the brainchild of Katrina Markoff and has excellent green and ethical credentials, including powering the Chicago based factory entirely with renewable energy. Katrina herself trained at Cordon Bleu in Paris and founded Vosges after working in numerous countries.
One thing that makes Vosges stand out is their choice and combination of ingredients used in their bars and individual chocolates, and this bar is kind of par for the course. It’s made up of a 45% cacao ‘deep’ milk chocolate which has been blended with a little white pepper and juniper, then mixed with uncured bacon. It doesn’t smell particularly strongly of bacon, but on my tongue it was a completely different story. The salt and bacon flavours leap out over the chocolate with the meaty tang of the bacon at the fore, but as the bacon mellows the chocolate melts, releasing a little extra hit of salt to combine with its rich milky flavours. It’s certainly an unusual sensation to eat meat and chocolate, but if you know Vosges you’ll know that exotic and unusual are two of Katrina’s favourite words.
Did I like it? Yes, actually I did. Those little pieces of dried bacon at the end were quite good fun to chew on, and the novelty element was outweighed by the quality of the product. Would I pay over £5 for the pleasure? I’m not sure about that, but I’m sure we all know at least one person who thinks bacon is the best thing ever, and this would certainly make a great present for such a friend.
Maybe it’s the fact the two are so incongruous, but I’m more interested in some of the more delicate exotica being made by Ms Markoff, and hope to taste more of her work soon.
This little 80g block of chocolate from Thorntons is something a bit special. Not only is it the first time we’ve featured chocolate made with cocoa beans from Haiti on Chocablog, but a sizeable chunk (91p to be precise) of the £1.79 it costs goes straight to Save The Children.
I’m sure you’ve seen on the news just how bad the situation is in Haiti, a year after the devastating Earthquake. A simple chocolate bar like this can help make a real difference, because not only are you making a direct contribution to a charity’s work there, but you’re also investing in local Haitian cocoa farmers by showing there’s a market for their produce.
The Ben Tre bars from Demarquette that we loved so much did something similar for Vietnamese cocoa farmers, so I’ve been really excited to try this bar.
Of course, all this counts for very little if the chocolate isn’t up to scratch, so let’s get down to the good stuff…
This is a 37% milk chocolate that follows the standard format for Thorntons blocks. We talk about this range quite a lot, but that’s because we love the concept so much. Consumers get to try a wide variety of quality chocolates and flavours at a fixed price, and Thorntons get to experiment with new ideas at minimal risk. If something doesn’t work, it’s not a big deal to move on and try something else.
The milk chocolate in this particular block is sweet and creamy. It’s perhaps a little on the sweet side for my personal tastes, which I think means the average consumer will love it. Despite that sweetness, it still has a fairly rich, chocolatey flavour ands a beautifully smooth texture that melts away in the mouth to leave small pieces of freeze dried mango.
The mango doesn’t have a lot of flavour, but it does add an interesting texture to the bar. The flavour does develop over time, meaning it’s best to eat this bar slowly and let each chunk melt. It turns out that’s quite hard to do though, and I found myself devouring this little block in no time at all.
For me, this is more ‘fun’ than ‘fine’ chocolate, and in this case that may be a good thing. It’s perfect for nibbling on at work, and given that so much of the purchase price goes to such a worthy cause, I suggest buying ten and handing them round the office. It’s guilt-free and a great little introduction to Thorntons blocks. But don’t hang around, as this particular block is a limited edition and won’t be available forever.
