Chocolate Week starts on Monday, so we wanted to give you a quick preview of some of the events taking place over the week. There’s lots of exciting events happening all over the country and you can get all the details on the Chocolate Week website, but here’s a few of the highlights for me.
The Great Brownie Bake-Off
Saturday 9th October (Tomorrow)
Organised by the lovely Chocolate Consultant Louise Thomas, this promises to be a browniereffic event, with brownie tastings, baking demonstrations, and the chance to meet people like Edd Kimber (winner of BBC2’s Great British Bake-Off), Stacie Stewart (Masterchef finalist), and… me. The baking (and tasting) begins at 12pm at Mum No Hands in Old Street.
Full details here
Chocolate Quiz Hosted By Sudi Pigott
Tuesday 12th October
The web site says “Test your chocolate knowledge with our chocolate week quiz. Renowned food writer and author of’ How to be a Better Foodie’, Sudi Pigott, has come up with this delectable, fun and tongue-in-cheek quiz – give your innate chocolate knowledge a gentle work-out and exercise your tasting skills to identify some mystery chocolate centres at this one off event.”
Unfortunately, we can’t make this one ourselves. But at least that will give the other contestants a sporting chance…
Divine Chocolate
All Week
The good folks at Divine Chocolate have a whole range of events happening all over the country throughout Chocolate Week. Check out their web site for full details.
Chocolate Ecstasy in Chocolate & Cocktails
Thursday 14th October
We’ve already written a preview of this cocktail & chocolate pairing evening, and we’re really looking forward to it. Events kick off at 7pm in the Longitude bar of Le Meridien Hotel in Piccadilly. Find out more and book your place on the Chocolate Ecstasy web site and use the coupon code CHOCA1410 to save £5 on your entry fee!
Demarquette in Fortnum & Mason
Thursday 14th October
Top chocolatier Marc Demarquette will hosting a sampling of some of his amazing creations in Fortnum & Mason’s chocolate department on Thursday between 1:30pm and 5pm. Full details here.
Chocolate Unwrapped
Saturday 16th & Sunday 17th October
The biggest event of the chocolate year, and one you can’t afford to miss if you love your chocolate. Some of the biggest and best names in chocolate (including Hotel Chocolat, Thorntons, Paul A. Young, William Curley and Rococo to name but a few!), gathered under one roof at Vinopolis in Borough. See our coverage of last years event to get an idea of what to expect, and find out more and book your tickets on the Chocolate Unwrapped web site.
These are just a few of our picks of the week, but there are events going on every day all over the country. The Chocolate Week web site has all the information you need to plan your chocolate-filled week!
We don’t review an exorbitant amount of desserts on Chocablog, especially ones coming from restaurants versus cafes. This particular cake is from The Cheesecake Factory, yet it struck me enough that I decided it merited a review.
For those unfamiliar with it, The Cheesecake Factory is a chain restaurant which, in addition to a wide variety of cheesecakes and a diverse breakfast, lunch, and dinner menu, also has quite the cake selection. There is Linda’s Fudge Cake, the Black-Out Cake, Chris’ Outrageous Chocolate-Cake, and this Chocolate Tower Truffle Cake. It all sounds appealing, but I have a firm opinion on restaurant desserts: if I’m going to have the guilt of eating dessert after already having dinner, it must be worth it. If I just want something sweet, I always have chocolate at home, so I raise the standard on desserts.
Also necessary to note is that I’m not the hugest cake fan. The Black-Out Cake, for instance, I’ve had before, and while I enjoyed it, it still wasn’t quite good enough. But the Truffle Cake’s description sounds so tempting: “layers and layers of fudge cake with chocolate truffle cream and chocolate mousse.” Complex as that may be, I argue that part of its success is in simplicity. Compare it to the chocolate volcanoes you get everywhere: they’re surrounded by hype. Chocolate cake, ice cream, whipped cream, hot fudge, all made to seem so exciting without being worth anything once you return to a basic approach.
I believe there are seven layers of cake, with the truffle cream and mousse alternating for the in-between layers, making this quite a large piece. It does have whipped cream, but it makes for a pretty garnish and is a better quality. (And, yes, you read the fudge letters on the edge of the plate correctly – I was celebrating my birthday).
Texture-wise, I’m guessing the yellower layer is the truffle cream. It’s smooth and lightly rich. The mousse layer could be served up as its own dish; I did love having it in the mix. The small chocolate pieces on the side are the right size to add to the experience. My praise of the cake itself is for the thin size of the layers; it almost serves as a base for the other elements, making it quite a good choice for me. The richness being achieved by all the layers (as compared with the rich density of, say, a flourless chocolate cake) also means that you can potentially eat more at a time. I still didn’t finish mine in one sitting, though.
Maybe you’ll pay a couple of dollars more for this dessert than you might elsewhere, but like I said, the dessert has to be worthy, and I find this one worthy.
While Montreal’s Chocolats Geneviève Grandbois make spectacular chocolates, I really wasn’t sure if their fine touch would apply to their bars of chocolates too. But I really needed to know, so I picked out one from a range that also includes bars with maple syrup, sea salt and olive oil and jumped right in.
Their Le Carré Pain d’épices is a square bar with little bits of gingerbread in it. While I’ve had more than my fair share of bars with ginger, I’d never seen one with gingerbread before and was intrigued to see how it measured up. Like most of their products, it came in a tin which makes it look like a quality product no matter how it tastes.
Fortunately it tastes really good. The use of little pieces of gingerbread cookies scattered throughout the bar is quite inspired because it provides both a crunchy texture and a big punch of ginger, cinnamon and cloves that punctuates the darkness of the 70% chocolate. It works incredibly well, even although the pieces are quite small and there isn’t as much of them as I’d put in if I was in charge.
The chocolate itself is a lot less straight-forward than it needs to be thanks to a clever blend of spices that means every bite has a hint of gingerbread whether or not any cookie is present. It is quite subtle, but helps to make for a very well-rounded and restrained bar.
The downside is that at very ungenerous 70g, this is a bar which is going to disappear far too quickly because it is an easy one to consume in a single sitting. Or, to put it another way, I need some more. Time for another trip to Montreal I guess…
It’s not every day you get sent a Manchester Tart. In fact, until this week I had no idea what a Manchester Tart was – and that’s despite most of my family being Mancunian.
Helpfully, The Chocolate Cafe, who make this bar helpfully tweeted a photo of Bett Lynch, which explained everything.
A Manchester Tart, it turns out, is a shortcrust pastry tart filled with raspberry jam, custart and topped with desiccated coconut and a cherry. This bar version uses white chocolate instead of custard and – perhaps unsurprisingly, given the name – has lost its cherry.
As you can see, the bar looks very similar to Chocolate Cafe’s Strawberry & Black Pepper bar, with the same bright pink, speckled appearance.
It uses the same 28% white chocolate with the dried coconut flakes embedded in the chocolate itself, giving it a slightly crunchy, biscuity texture.
Taste wise, it’s what you’d expect. Sweet, creamy and a little fruity. The freeze dried fruit builds in flavour as the chocolate melts, so if you can resist the temptation to crunch the coconut, you get a much fuller and more satisfying raspberry flavour.
This is a fun bar, and something I’d quite happily nibble on at my desk through the day, but I’m not entirely convinced it entirely merits the ‘premium chocolate’ description. It’s very nice, but it’s confectionery. Having never met had a real Manchester Tart, I’ve nothing to compare the taste to. I do think it makes a fun gift for that special Mancunian in your life though.
It is, apparently, the official chocolate bar of the 2010 Manchester Food & Drink Festival which runs until 11th October. Personally, I think they have gone for Valrhona Manjari enrobed Eccles Cakes… but that’s just me.
