Holly Caulfied – aka Chocoholly – is one of my favourite British chocolatiers. Not only is she an all-round lovely person to know, but her artistic talents make her chocolates some of the most creative and attractive chocolates around.
The range of chocolates Holly produces never ceases to amaze me, but I was still a little surprised to find these unassuming little salted caramel hearts on her stand at the Real Food Festival.
The caramel has a similar consistency and flavour to Paul A. Young’s sea salted caramels, but Holly uses Himalayan salt rather than sea salt. I’m sure purists would insist on sea salt or fleur de sel, but I’m not sure I would could tell the difference in a caramel. I would say that the salt here isn’t quite as noticeable as in Paul Young’s caramel, so maybe it could have done with a touch more.
Holly uses a 73% dark chocolate for these, which is a higher cocoa solids percentage than either Paul or William Curley use in their caramels. I’m sure both have good reasons for choosing the particular chocolates they went with, but the chocolate here somehow seems just write. It’s neither too rich or too sweet, and the cocoa flavours and the caramel all come through nicely.
If I was forced to choose between these or Paul Young’s salted caramels, I’d probably go with Pauls. But I’d certainly never turn down a box of these.
Holly tells me she’s in the process of getting her chocolates into more stores, as well as having other exciting plans that I can’t talk about yet. In the mean time, you can pick up a box of these on her web site. I don’t think you’ll regret it.
I picked this little beauty up from the Popina stand at the Real Food Festival at Earls Court on Friday.
According to their web site, it’s made with 72% dark chocolate, white chocolate and coffee, but I wanted to see how it stacked up against the likes of Paul A. Young’s legendary brownies.
The brownie mesaures about 5cm square, and as you can see from the photo, has big chunks of white chocolate running through it. At first I was a little concerned that this was going to make it overly sweet, but luckily, the rest of the brownie is made with such rich, dark chocolate that it’s never too sweet.
The main flavour though is the coffee. In fact, the whole brownie tastes like a fresh cup of coffee. Not overpowering, but enough to wake you up. This is the perfect breakfast brownie.
The texture is dense and smooth, but perhaps very slightly dry. It doesn’t quite reach the highs of Paul Young’s offering, but I’m not sure I’d want it to. Paul’s brownies demand to either be shared or eaten in several sittings. This is just about manageable in one go, but still leaves you satisfied you’ve eaten something substantial.
I’ll certainly be looking out for more from Popina. They don’t have an online store, but they do sell through Waitrose and at farmers markets throughout London. Well worth trying if you can find them.
Being of a certain age, I remember when Mars Bars were gigantic. I mean seriously big. So big that getting to the end of one could have potentially bring upon a diabetic coma. And they only 10p too…
To be honest, I hadn’t really given much thought to Mars Bars recently until they started showing a tv ad for the Mars Slim all the time. The Mars Slim, as its slogan helpfully explains, is the same legendary Mars Bar, only slimmer as if the only thing that was stopping some people from having a Mars was its girth. But it did make me wonder what other kinds of Mars are on Canadian shelves, so I present for you the Canadian Mars Family.
First up is the classic Mars Bar, weighing in at 58g. It really isn’t too different from the Mars Bar I remember from all those years ago – lots of not very special chocolate, a decent amount of chewy caramel and the nondescript nougat to take up the remaining space. It’s far too sweet for my palate these days, but not an unpleasant experience. It does makes me smile to see that it is labelled as an “Energy Bar” though, because I’m pretty sure that nobody is really eating it for that reason.
Next, the afore-mentioned Mars Slim, which is a mere 40g. Not only has the bar been reworked to less intimidating dimensions, it has also been split into two pieces which are more or less bite-sized if you have an average-sized mouth. Obviously it is being marketed as one of those calorie-counted portions because nothing else could explain its pointless existence. And don’t worry if you can’t find them in shops because you could just cut a normal Mars in half to get a similar effect, especially if you do it long ways.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrLvGu8QLK4
Continuing the Canadian habit of making dark chocolate versions of bars, there’s also the Mars Dark. And just like every other dark bar, it is just a little bit smaller than the normal bar – 50g in this case. This is the real surprise because the dark chocolate of an undisclosed percentage makes for a nice contrast to the usual contents, with an almost almondy undercurrent. It really doesn’t seem so sweet anymore and if I felt the urge to eat a Mars, I could quite happily pick up one of these again.
Finally, there’s the unexpected Mars Caramel. At 45g, it just gets rid of the nougat to make a chewier, more aerodynamic bar that was my second favourite behind the dark. I’ve never really cared for that nougat because it always made me think of Milky Ways which I thought were the dullest childhood chocolate bar. Mars decided to make these as competition for Cadbury’s Caramilk bars, but it is far too Mars-like to be a valid alternative. I suspect these will disappear from the shelves relatively quickly.
So there you have it – Mars Slim is a stupid idea, but covering anything in dark chocolate makes it better. Now you’ll have to excuse me because I have the inexplicable urge to work, rest and play…
I’m always interested to discover new chocolatiers, especially when they’re local to me. So it was with some excitement that I picked up this little bag of chocolates from the shelf of my local Budgens, which proudly proclaimed itself as being “made with love in Crouch End”.
And it was with some shock and disappointment that I put them back on the shelf having seen the price; a rather hopeful £6.99. For a bag of chocolates that are clearly homemade rather than just handmade.
But curiosity got the better of me and I decided to part with my money, just to see what Betsy & Bill had to offer.
The bag is packed with chocolates of all shapes and sizes, but they all use the same 60% dark chocolate, which makes them a rather monochromatic experience – at least until you start cutting them open.
Unfortunately, beyond listing the ingredients for the chocolate itself, the bag doesn’t give any clue as to what they contain. Suffice to say, there’s a bit of an artificial quality about some of them.
But from the moment you open the bag, one ingredient is clear; ginger. Somewhere in there is a ginger chocolate, which makes its presence known immediately. I’m usually quite a fan of ginger, but this isn’t a particularly pleasant aroma. Biting into a solid piece of dark chocolate confirms that the flavour has affected the whole bag. Everything tastes not just of ginger, but of nettles and random plant life.
When I did eventually find the ginger chocolate, it seemed to be a solid, raw piece of ginger that had been hand cut into shape before being covered in chocolate. It was moist, fibrous and peppery. Frankly it was overpowering and not pleasant.
Other chocolates included brightly coloured fondants which were rather too firm, a truffle that nearly broke my teeth, and random pieces of unidentifiable nuts in the bottom of the bag. But after biting into about half of the chocolate, I’m sad to say I ended up throwing most of this out.
I hate giving such negative reviews to people who have clearly invested a lot of time in their products, and I’m sure Betsy & Bill are lovely people. But frankly, this isn’t a suitable product to be selling for £7 in a supermarket. The chocolates are poor at best, the lack of packaging ensures that half of them are damaged, and the labeling is incomplete. At £7 for this bag of undisclosed weight, it’s one I recommend you steer clear of.
