Southbank Chocolate Festival

One of my favourite chocolate events of the year comes to the South Bank in London this weekend. The Chocolate Festival is effectively an outdoor market that brings together some of the biggest names in the chocolate industry.

We popped along to the VIP reception today and spent a couple of hours exploring the stalls. This year, some big international names including Valrhona and Original Beans joined the likes of Demarquette, Hotel Chocolat, William Curley and Paul Wayne Gregory. Needless to say, we came away with a big bag of swag to review.

If you can make it into London this weekend, The Chocolate Festival is the perfect place to pick up a chocolatey Christmas present or just spend an hour exploring some of the best chocolate in the world. It may be cold out, but rest assured, there’s plenty of places to get hot chocolate and mulled wine to warm you up.

The Chocolate Festival runs until Sunday (11am – 6pm) at the Southbank Centre (behind the Royal Festival Hall).

Photo Gallery

Berry Scrumptious Mulled Berry Chocolate

Time for something a little Christmassy from Scotland’s Berry Scrumptious, makers of stunningly fresh chocolate-dipped strawberries, and interesting, but less-stunning berry chocolate bars.

This “mulled berry” version follows the same format Berry Scrumptious’ other bars – broken shards of chocolate in a simple cellophane wrapper. In fact, they’re quite similar to Matcha’s chocolate shards, but perhaps a little less refined.

This is a milk chocolate is 35% cocoa solids of unspecified origin, flavoured with blueberry, raspberry, orange extract, cinnamon, clove and nutmeg. Blueberry might be a slightly odd choice, but the other flavours would seem to fit with the Christmas theme.

And the taste? Christmassy! They’ve certainly managed to capture some of the essence of mulled wine with the choice of fruit and spices, but it’s not overpowering and the flavour of the milk chocolate still comes through. The cloves are perhaps a tiny bit overdone though, as that’s the flavour that stays with you after the chocolate has gone.

The chocolate is also full of freeze dried fruit pieces, which give it an interesting texture and means that the flavour develops as it melts and the fruit takes on moisture.

The flavours are not as exotic as the Matcha shards (which also have the advantage of coming in beautiful tins), but at £2.95 for an 85g bag, they’re quite affordable and would make a nice little stocking filler this Christmas.

Seaton Fire Slightly Wild & Mild Chai

I recently received some samples from Seaton Fire Chocolates – who proclaim themselves Australia’s Favourite Chilli Chocolate (as voted by their customers).

I have to admit that the marketing tag line does put me off a bit; but it also intrigues a little: I’d never heard of Seaton Fire. But then again, I’m not much into chilli chocolate as well – it’s one of those things that seems a neat idea and frequently disappoints. So I was not really expecting much – perhaps because I’m especially fussy. I’ve also found that colleagues and friends tend to have a love/hate relationship with chilli in chocolate. In case it’s not obvious – I’m kinda lukewarm about chilli chocolate. OK, enough of the puns.

Anyway, the samples had arrived: Slightly Wild dark chocolate (cocoa 57% and heat rating 4/10), and Mild Chai (cocoa 35% and heat rating also 4/10). I’d expected to be the usual piggy and rip open the packs, to see what was inside. I was foiled at the first step though – the packaging here is simple, yet very striking. I paused to consider that this might be something out of the ordinary. A cardboard outer package – the same on all products – with a simple sleeve gives way, inside, to a huge chilli cut-out showing the bright foil wrapping beneath. I’ve never seen anything like this before – simple, and stunning. Removing a layer reveals a printed card (bookmark?), that is different in each pack. One was instructions on how to taste the chocolate!

However, moving on, each needed to be tasted in turn.

Being a dark side dweller, it seemed appropriate to do things completely the wrong way and check the “Slightly Wild” first. Opening the foil is interesting – the chocolate bursts with a rich, slightly sweet, slightly spicy aroma. This is clearly made from a quality couverture – I was curious enough to email the makers and ask. They won’t tell me what they use, only that it is Belgian and the highest quality they can get.

On tasting and letting it slowly melt, the chocolate flavours leap to the fore, and there is a little sweetness. Personally, I’d like it a little darker and a little less sweet but it’s still VERY nice. The chilli slowly develops into a pleasant heat which does not overpower or dominate. I’m pleasantly surprised. I asked The Lady Of The House to give it a try – she’s not a chilli chocolate person at all. But she agrees, this is very good indeed.

Next: the Mild Chai. This is a milk chocolate containing mysterious Chai spices. The web site does not enlighten me at all. I’ve always assumed Chai is just a fancy word for Tea. Perhaps not, at least in this case. The colour is noticeably lighter, and the aroma on this is less pronounced – there is a slightly spicy tone, but it remains a bit of a mystery. Tasting this is unlike other milk chocolates and about as far as you can get from a Cadbury Dairy Milk. There is a faint and very subtle spiciness, a building flavour and complexity profile, and then the chilli develops. I have no idea where the flavours come from, but it’s really yum. The chilli heat builds slowly, again, not dominating or overpowering. I don’t normally like milk chocolate much but I could scoff the block of this down without any effort at all.

These would have to be two of the best examples of chilli chocolate I’ve ever come across: both are exceptional. That marketing spiel was right. The only downside is the cost – at A$15 each these are not cheap. However, for something very special I can certainly recommend them.

Christmas Afternoon Tea At The Hilton

Last week, I went along to the London Hilton on Park Lane to try the Christmas Afternoon Tea with Judith Lewis from Mostly About Chocolate.

Regular Chocablog readers will remember that I sampled the special Chocolate Week and Halloween versions of this afternoon tea a couple of months ago, but when I heard they were creating another one for Christmas, I felt it my duty to go along and try it.

As we went along in the evening, the lighting wasn’t great for my own photos, so I’ve included the official press shot above. And I can tell you it tastes every bit as good as it looks.

After being presented with a beautiful box of tea to examine and make our selection, we took a look at the menu.

Here’s the complete run down:

We were also given delicious cocktail and a glass of Champagne to help things along. As you can see, this is actually very similar to the previous version we tried, and that’s a good thing. Why change a winning formula?

It’s difficult to find fault with the food, but if there is a weak point, it’s the sandwiches. They’re a beautifully presented line of open sandwiches, but they don’t quite have the wow factor of the rest of the tea. But then knowing what’s coming, that would be quite difficult to achieve.

So I’d advise against stuffing yourself on sandwiches and wait for the best part.

The scones and cupcakes are first rate and look every bit as good as they taste. The scones are beautifully light and those new style cupcakes also seem a little lighter and moister than I remember. The thick christmas-cake style icing on top does make them very sweet, but all that tea and Champagne helps cleanse the palate.

But the chocolate miniatures are the highlight. Made from Valrhona chocolate and served on a plate of solid dark chocolate sprayed in gold, they look amazing. Our selection of miniatures was slightly different from that listed on the menu above, but I put that down to the fact that they prepared this just for us – the real thing goes on sale next week.

I should also take a moment to say that on both my visits, the staff have been first class. Our waitress Monika was friendly, helpful and knowledgable about the teas. And despite taking afternoon tea on a dark and icy evening, the atmosphere in the restaurant was great too.

Whether you’re looking for something to do after your Christmas shopping in town, or just want a fun, relaxed – and chocolatey – way to spend the afternoon, then I highly recommend booking this now!

Christmas Afternoon Tea is available at The Podium Restaurant at The London Hilton on Park Lane from 13th – 26th December and costs £25 / person. (020) 7208 4022.