Slab time again!
This 500g beauty from Hotel Chocolat is made with 40% cocoa solids milk chocolate, hazelnuts (8%), sultanas (5%) and cranberries (2%). That may not seem like a lot of fruit and nuts, but hazelnuts and cranberries don’t actually weigh that much, so you get a good helping in terms of numbers.
As per usual with Hotel Chocolat slabs, I knew 500g was going to be way too much for me, so after taking these photos, this particular slab came with me to be shared out at a bank holiday barbecue.
When you open the packaging (note to self: open from the bottom next time… where it tells you to!), the first thing you notice is the rich chocolatey aroma. As with all Hotel Chocolat products, this looks and feels like real chocolate.
It is not a toy and should not be treated as such.
For a simple fruit and nut slab, the design is quite spectacular close-up. Small pieces of brightly coloured fruit and nuts peak enticingly through the milk chocolate. I imagine this is done simply by sprinkling the fruit and nuts into a mould before pouring the chocolate on top. Such a simple thing, but to be able to see the actual fruit makes a huge difference. So much nicer than burying it deep inside the chocolate.
And of course, it tastes as good as it looks. I’m not a huge fan of fruit & nut (I’m more fruity than nutty), but my friends at the barbecue clearly were. Sat round the table, chatting in the sunshine, the pack got passed around, small chunks got broken off and the bulk of it soon disappeared.
I think most people were more impressed by the size and presentation of the slab than the product itself. After the initial ‘wow’ factor, it was devoured with little comment. But there was certainly no negative feedback from anyone. The chocolate was smooth and delicious, the nuts were suitably crunchy and the fruit suitably fruity.
Interestingly, Hotel Chocolat also do a 74% dark chocolate version of this particular slab. The purists might prefer that, but I’m quite sure the riff-raff I hang out with at barbecues will be quite happy sticking with the milk chocolate version.
I was unchained today and allowed into the supermarket. So I came home with chocolatey goodies, as one does.
Amongst my haul was the Tim Tam Crush, something I saw in passing. I bought it on a whim; after all the venerable Tim Tam has only ever been improved once – by the release of the Dark Version. Any other fiddling would be heresy, and I was therefore pretty sure that I’d hate this, along with the roughly 27 cousins it has in strange new varieties. I bought it so I could write something terrible and scathing about it, I could not face the thought of the “cookies and cream” version. Who fiddles with a winning formula, after all? (Don’t mention New Coke). Yes, yes, I know the Tim Tam has been fiddled with before, and it’s still happening.
I also noticed that the standard Tim Tam comes in a 200g pack – these novelty versions are the same price – but you only get 150g in a pack – a cunning plan indeed when you can supply 25% less product and charge the same price.
Come 5pm, it was time – time for the test.
The classic Tim Tam has been around forever, and Aussies are renowned for scoffing them in vast quantities and drinking tea through them. Oldest son is capable of drinking a glass of milk through one. [Something which I believe requires considerable effort.] How would this compare?
The smell, on opening the pack – is rich and sweet. Mainly sweet. The chocolate is not especially dark, and its pretty soft. Lots of milk in this one. I busted one open – a REAL Tim Tam has two biscuity layers and some sweet chocolatey-moussey-stuff in between with a slathering of chocolate all over the outside. This Crush thing has only a single biscuity layer, and quite a lot of the soft chocolatey-moussey-stuff, with a few chunks of something yellow shoved in here and there.
Eldest Son, bit the ends off, took one look, and said “Its not a real Tim Tam”. That about sums it up. Needs TWO layers.
And it tastes…. sweet. It is very sweet, and there is no way you could drink your tea through one of these. As a sort of a version of the real thing, its actually not bad. Better than I expected. The first was not really enough to do a decent taste test, a second was required to confirm the impression. A third was not possible – too sweet.
As it turns out, Burnt Sugar have a stall at Borough Market selling their fudges and caramels – a few feet away from previously-featured Dark Sugars.
Rather than hand made (and slightly exotic in some cases) chocolates, Burnt Sugar sell funky little boxes of their sweets, something which has enabled them to get good distribution deals. These should be available in department stores and possibly supermarkets quite soon.
The packaging markets these fairly and squarely at women. “Best enjoyed with – a red velvet chaise longue and a foot rub” isn’t terribly macho after all is it?
That in itself presents something of a conundrum. Some of these caramel chunks are big. No, bigger than that. A proper chunky mouthful. Keep these in the fridge and pop a big chunk and you’re likely to be rendered speechless for quite a while (insert your own tacky ‘speechless women’ gag here, should you feel the need). Aiming them at female consumers and then making then the size of small house bricks (I exaggerate a tad, I confess) seems a little strange to me. After all, it’s not terribly ladylike to be seen with your cheeks bulging in an alarming geometric fashion, or is it? There again, what do I know?
The chocolate coating is a good dark 55% cocoa blend with a good texture and a very pleasing cocoa sharpness which precedes the caramel sweetness in good style. The caramels themselves are indeed gooey (warm summer afternoons are not good reviewing times) rich, creamy and very satisfying, should you require that particular comfort.
As chocolate coated caramels go, these tick all the boxes. Not too posh to make them unaffordable, not in any way weird, wacky, unusual or challenging. A good quality version of a perennial favourite and as such worthy of attention from those who enjoy such things. In other words, if you like chocolate coated caramels, you’ll love these.
Greek Chocablog reader George Loumakis was kind enough to send us a batch of ION chocolate bars all the way from Athens recently, so this will be the first of a short series of reviews. I believe this is only the second Greek chocolate we’ve reviewed on Chocablog and it’s definitely the first for me, so I was quite looking forward to it.
I don’t read Greek (it’s all Greek to me), but luckily George was kind enough to send a short description of each bar to help me along. Mastiha or Mastic is an aromatic resin cultivated on the Greek island of Chios.
So basically, what we have here is tree flavoured chocolate – something that immediately brought to mind the Rustika dark chocolate with Cedar that Simon reviewed last year. Unlike that particular bar, this one has no visible bits of tree in it. It’s just an attractive, smooth and shiny looking bar of dark chocolate.
So how does it taste? Well if you’ve ever eaten a Christmas Tree, you’ll know exactly what it’s like. You haven’t? Well I’d better describe it then…
The mastic aroma is noticeable from the moment you open the wrapper, and that’s just intensified as soon as you put a small chunk on your tongue.
It tastes like pine needles (or how I imagine they would taste), mixed with aniseed and eucalyptus. It’s spicy, fragrant, and – once you get used it – really quite delicious. It’s one of those flavours that hangs around in your mouth for an hour after the chocolate has melted, but all it does is remind you that you want another chunk.
All those strong flavours don’t overpower the chocolate though. At only 45% cocoa solids, it’s not particularly intense (not that I think this bar needs more intense flavours), but it’s very smooth and has a pleasant mouthfeel. It might be a little sweet for the likes of Simon, but I really enjoyed it.
This is definitely worth picking up if you happen to spot a bar in the wild.
