When Chocol@’s marketing department got in touch and asked if they could send us a sample of their “chocolate telegrams”, I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting a lot. I’ve seen similar concepts before – chocolate squares with letters on that make up a message – and they’ve not been particularly good.
But what actually arrived took me by surprise. Inside the large outer box, protected and snuggled tightly in polystyrene, was this rather attractive looking presentation box.
Finished in faux leather with stitching, tastefully embossed and sealed with a simple magnetic clasp, it’s the kind of box you’ll want to keep. And so, frankly, are the chocolates inside…
Rather than being mass produced solid chocolates, each letter that Chocol@ make is filled with a fresh praline, ganache or caramel. There’s no nasty preservatives, just fresh ingredients, giving the chocolates a shelf life of about three weeks.
Each letter has its own flavour, although with 56 characters and only 15 flavours to choose from, many are repeated. You create your message via a very well designed (and fun to use) tool on Chocol@’s website. Just type in your message, our use the on-screen chocolate keyboard to pick your letters/flavours. It’s very simple to use and, of course, quite tempting to see what flavours you get by typing rudes words.
The chocolates themselves are made in Belgium by chocolatier Jean-Philippe Darcis. The flavours are typically European – more traditional than cutting edge – but they’re very well made, with soft ganaches and fresh tasting caramels. Even without the letters, I’d be more than happy to receive a box of these chocolates.
If there is a downside, it’s the price. Combining beautiful presentation with great flavour doesn’t come cheap, and prices start at £38 for a single line of text, and go up to £54 for this three line box.
But if you really want to make an impact with a chocolate gift, this is a great way to do it. It would make a great birthday or Valentine’s gift for someone very special – and they’re certain to keep the box and always be reminded of you. You can’t say that about a box of Cadbury Roses.
Today we paid a visit to William Curley to sample the Dessert Bar menu. Five courses of dessert, petits fours and hot chocolate for £20. We’ve been before, but the menu changes regularly, so we thought we’d share the experience again!
Heston Blumenthal seems to be putting his name to just about everything lately. Half the utensils in my kitchen have his name on, and I’m fairly sure it’s only a matter of time before we see Heston toothbrushes, shower gel and toilet cleaner. Mark my words.
So it’s no real surprise to see his name on this box of 15 chocolates from his favourite supermarket, Waitrose. There are 7 different chocolates in the box; a selection of caramels, pralines and other filled chocolates.
But the first thing that I noticed about this box was that it felt a little cheap. It just doesn’t have the feel of a high end product to it. Inside lies a flimsy plastic insert and some quite average looking chocolates. A little disappointing, all things considered.
But let’s move on to the chocolate. The flavours are:
Earl Grey & Lemon
A pleasant 70% dark chocolate square with a soft, smooth lemon & bergamot filling. The flavours are well balanced, if a little strong, and I found the chocolate shell a little too thick, but generally a very pleasant chocolate.
Mandarin Caramel
A small globe of dark chocolate with a liquid caramel centre. I say caramel, but this is actually closer to a fruity syrup. It’s very sweet and runny, and the flavour is a bit artificial. I enjoyed one, but it was a little too sweet to want a second.
Muscovado Caramel
A 35% milk chocolate globe with a liquid muscovado caramel filling. Of course, the gold-standard for muscovado caramels is Paul A Young, and Heston’s version just doesn’t cut it for me. The muscovado flavour is clear, but as with the mandarin caramel, it’s more of a sugar syrup than an actual caramel, and is far too sweet when paired with a milk chocolate shell.
Black Forest Gateau
Not really a BFG at all, but an intense cherry chocolate with a soft, almost liquid filling. This has some unusual smoky, tobacco flavour notes, but it’s mainly an intense cherry hit. And that’s fine with me.
Thyme and Rosemary
A soft, smooth and very pleasant ganache with a classic flavour combination. It’s uncomplicated, but my favourite chocolate in the box.
Macadamia Praline
A sweet white chocolate square with a praline filling that tasted more like cat food than macadamia to me. Odd, but true. And not very nice.
Spiced Caramel
Another very sweet, very liquid caramel. The box describes it as “subtle yet firey” (I’m not sure how that works), but to me it just tastes like thyme.
Overall, there are some great flavour ideas here, they’re ultimately let down by the execution. They’re modern, without being challenging, which is probably the perfect positioning for a Waitrose audience, but the caramels are universally far too sweet (and aren’t really caramels at all), and I really don’t know what’s going on with the cat-food-macadamia.
In terms of quality, they fall squarely into the “supermarket chocolate” category rather than the “Heston chocolate” category, and that’s a bit of a shame, especially when you take the £13.50 price tag into account.
Hu Kitchen are a New York based café/restaurant that – according to their website – try to take a “human” approach to healthy eating. Positioning themselves somewhere between “food fascists” (their words, not mine) and commercial “profiteers of the food industry”, they claim to produce healthy “human” food that tastes great too.
Now, call me old fashioned, but their ‘philosophy’ page does have more than a hint of the food ‘fad’ about it and that makes me quite uncomfortable.
The packaging of this bar has me questioning the message somewhat too. It comes in a simple looking, thick brown paper pouch that fits well with the “back to Human” message, but when it comes down to the detail, the important information is missing. There’s no indication of where the cocoa comes from, or to what extent Hu have been involved in the production. Do they make the chocolate from the bean? Do they even produce the bars themselves?
With traceability such a vital human issue in the chocolate world, it’s disappointing to me that this information is missing from the packaging and Hu’s website.
By now of course, most of us know that dark chocolate is naturally healthy. It doesn’t need to be made with special ingredients, it just is. Thankfully, Hu stop short of making specific health claims, which means I can base the rest of this review on flavour alone.
This is a 30g bar with a soft filling that reminds me of Zotter’s “Hand Scooped” bars. The flavour is good – rich and chocolatey, without being too sweet. The puffed quinoa have a great, light crunch, and the whole thing is really very pleasant.
The unknown 72% dark chocolate is rich and chocolatey, but has no particularly complex flavour notes. But that’s OK, and it works very well with the bar as a whole.
So what we really have here is a simple, tasty, high-end confectionery. It’s something that I would recommend if it weren’t for the over-emphasis on health messaging and the omission of some important detail. I am probably not the target market that Hu are going for with this bar (or any of their food), but I still enjoyed it.
