We have actually reviewed one of these bars before. I gave the dark chocolate with rose and chilli a very favourable review back at the start of 2008.
The Chocolate Cellar are participants in Chocolate Week this year and sent us this selection of chilli chocolates to celebrate the occasion.
Just as last time, the packaging is very simple. But I don’t think these bars are really designed to be sent through the post. If you want to buy them, you’re probably going to have to pay a visit to The Chocolate Cellar’s Liverpool shop or keep an eye on their blog to find out about all the events they’re participating in for Chocolate Week.
So aside from the Rose and Chili bar, we have a milk chocolate with lemon and chilli, a white chocolate with orange and chilli, and this rather spectacular looking dark chocolate with cranberries and lots and lots and lots of chilli…
Now if you ask me, that amount of chilli flakes and seeds is just showing off. This isn’t one of those slowly mouth-warming chocolates that leaves you with a nice tingle. It starts off hot the instant you put it in your mouth, then just gets hotter and hotter. The cranberries are tasty and flavourful, but they can’t really compete with the heat of the chilli.
It isn’t the kind of bar that you want to be alone with. It’s like that slightly crazy ex-girlfriend that seems exciting and fun on the surface but you know has a secret plan to do you physical harm. An interesting topic of conversation amongst friends, but definitely not long term relationship material.
The other bars are a little more sane, but they still fall into the hotter end of the chilli chocolate spectrum.
The milk chocolate with lemon and chilli works surprisingly well. The lemon adds a subtle tang that cuts through the sweetness of the milk chocolate, without obliterating the cocoa flavours. Personally, I’d have liked to try this one with less chilli. The heat still builds quickly and hangs around in your mouth long after the other flavours have gone.
The white chocolate with orange was probably my least favourite of this selection. The creamy sweetness of the white chocolate just didn’t sit right with the orange flavour for me, and again, the chilli was a little too strong for my liking.
But serious chilli-heads will undoubtedly love the range of chilli chocolate on offer here, and for that reason alone I’d recommend picking up all four bars and sharing the experience. They’re certainly not every day chocolates, but The Chocolate Cellar does a whole range of more down-to-earth chocolates for us mere mortals. Go check them out!
It may be Chocolate Week, but let’s not forget that other important festival of chocolate – Halloween – is also approaching fast. With that in mind, Hotel Chocolat sent me this rather gruesome skull. (At least I think it’s just a Halloween gift and not some veiled threat – but if I do happen to wake up one morning to find a chocolate horse’s head in my bed, I may start to worry.)
As you’d expect, the chocolate for this 450g monstrosity charming centrepiece is Hotel Chocolat’s delicious 40% house milk chocolate. The eyes and ‘blood patch’ are made with natural colourings and blueberry crystals, so as decaying corpses go, this one is probably quite healthy.
It only took a small bite out of our man’s jawbone to remind me what I love so much about this chocolate. It’s smooth and creamy with rich chocolate flavours, but never too sweet. It’s the kind of chocolate you can either let melt slowly in your mouth… or just scoff it down all day. Luckily the packaging doesn’t list the calorie content… but I’m sure it must be Ok. I mean, why else would they send me nearly half a kilo of chocolate, unless they meant me to eat it all myself?
If you’re more of the sharing type than me, then this would make a great addition to a Halloween party. It’s probably not the kind of thing you should stuff into the hands of passing trick-or-treaters, but it’s perfect for sharing out amongst a small group of friends.
There’s very little else that can be said about this. It’s large, chocolatey, yummy and boney. Just like it says on the box.
Here we have two varieties of truffles from Gorvett & Stone – purveyors of magnificent exploding frogs.
In the square corner, we have their milk truffles with sea salt, and in the round corner, the dark chocolate house truffles.
I want to start with the house truffles, because these are quite unusual – purely because they are incredibly dark. Unless you give them time to melt slowly in your mouth, there’s hardly any sweetness to them at all. Just lots of rich, dark cocoa notes.
For me, they were a little too dark, and I had to work a bit too hard to pick up on the sweetness I really wanted. True converts to the Dark Side will no doubt go nuts for them, but I’m not entirely convinced the average person stumbling across a chocolate shop in Henley-on-Thames would feel the same.
The milk truffles, however, are something entirely different.
They’re dusted in the same dark cocoa powder as the house truffles, but that quickly gives way to something much sweeter and more exciting. Delicious chocolate and a smooth, soft, toffee-caramel like filling that’s simply divine.
The closest I can get to describe the flavour is “Gourmet Rolos”. So if you were the kind of child who scoffed a whole packet of Rolos without sharing the last one, I guarantee adult-you will do exactly the same thing with these.
Highly recommended – even worth a trip to Henley for.
When I realised that Rococo have been in the business of producing fine quality chocolate for over twenty five years I felt slightly ashamed that I hadn’t come across their products before. Fate plays strange tricks on us after all.
This bar was created especially for Chocolate Week and is an homage to Mexican chocolate making. Alongside the 65% cocoa dark chocolate we have orange oil and pink and black pepper. All of the ingredients are organic, which means that they deliver peak flavour.
The chocolate is superb – soft, quick to melt with a great mouthfeel and rich, dark cocoa notes which sit over a gentle underlying citrus note. Encounter a fragment of pepper and the whole taste experiences switches gear as the spice imparts warmth and spicy high notes. The very nature of the bar means that the peppery element is intermittent and tends to come as the chocolate breaks down in the mouth. As your teeth find the pepper fragments they release their fire into the mix, imparting peaks of intense spice to the dark cocoa and orange base.
This is quite complex chocolate. A well balanced cocoa/citrus alliance which floods the mouth with Rococo’s own version of that tried and tested partnership, and with added fire. I loved the cocoa flavours, was nodding in appreciation of the blending of the orange oil, and smiling as little pepper bombs went off in my mouth. Excellent stuff, and highly recommended for the more adventurous among you.
