Having already enjoyed the Côte d’Or milk chocolate varieties before, I was really looking forward to sinking my teeth into their 70%. Having raspberries inside was an added bonus.
The inviting scent of raspberry mingling lovingly with 70% dark was immediately evident the moment the foil was ripped open. The elephants were glossy, almost black and very welcoming. There were tiny slivers of raspberry pieces scattered inside the middle of each square.
This is one incredible bar. The chocolate is distinctly five star quality and I’ll definitely be keen to find and try it as a plain bar when I can find it. The tiny pieces of dried raspberry are left behind to nibble on after the rich dark chocolate has dissolved and its tanginess is the perfect partner to the bittersweet kick of the 70%. Perhaps the bitter and tangy qualities mean that the end result is rich, but not sickly. Instead, this chocolate block is dangerously moreish, and I only gave Love Chunks and Sapphire a square of it each. They were too engrossed in watching a DVD together and I shamelessly took the advantage of enjoying the remaining eight squares myself.
A glance through the ingredients list reveals that the ones included in the 70% chocolate are as expected, but the raspberry filling is, like Nestle’s Club Mixed Berry, a sobering sight for sore eyes. Exactly 1.1% of the total ingredients are raspberries, and further down the list is apple puree and pineapple. Apple is a common filler or extender for berry flavours but pineapple is a new one to me. Oh it doesn’t really matter – Côte d’Or have come up trumps and this little beauty will be a regular drop into my shopping trolley.
I love Hotel Chocolat slabs. Not only are they delicious chunks of yumminess, but you also get enough to feed a small planet for approximately five years.
Luckily, the mini slabs are equally delicious, but much more manageable. I doubt they would even feed a medium-sized city for a week. That’s how small they are. Comparatively speaking.
As you can see, the box contains four individually wrapped slabs, each with a Christmassy design and different combinations of white, milk and dark chocolate. In no particular order, we have:
Christmas Chimes
“74% dark chocolate with an iconic milk chocolate bell”
These slabs are 100g each, so there’s quite a bit of dark chocolate (which demands to be eaten slowly) to get through here before you reach the milk chocolate bell – and unfortunately, I’ve not quite made it as far as the milk chocolate yet! I am sure it’s very good though… the dark chocolate is!
Heavenly Holly
“White chocolate holly leaves on a bed of milk chocolate”
Not much white chocolate in this one – the sprig of holly makes it look pretty but doesn’t add a lot to what is otherwise a solid milk chocolate slab.
Christmas Bauble
“A glossy milk chocolate bauble set in to a swirling white and milk chocolate fusion”
Exactly as described – not sure how they make the bauble glossy (I’m guessing it’s some kind of magic), but it does appear to be shinier than the rest of the slab. There was a lot of white chocolate in this one, making it very creamy but also very sweet.
Christmas Fusion
“Creamy, cinnamon spiced white chocolate swirdled with mellow 40% cocoa milk chocolate”
This is certainly the most interesting of the bunch, and you can smell the cinnamon the moment you open the wrapper. The cinnamon-spiced part is much softer than the milk chocolate and the whole thing is deliciously creamy and moreish.
Overall, a nice mix of Christmassy themed chocs with something for everyone, but for me it’s the cinnamon slab that stands out. The quality of all the slabs is great, but it’s nothing new. I’d really like to see one of these Peepster boxes where every slab was as interesting as the cinnamon slab.
Earlier this year when I emailed Emma at Conscious to tell her she’d won a Chocster, her reply mentioned a range of new flavours she was working on. Since I enjoyed her previous ten bars so much I naturally (and bravely) volunteered to test drive the new batch when they were ready. Sure enough Emma came through and I found myself looking at this – a coffee chocolate bar.
I believe I have made past mention of a) my love of coffee and b) my disappointment in the quality of coffee/chocolate bars and sweets in general, so this little bar was going to have to be very good to impress me.
As you can see, Conscious don’t ‘do’ fancy themed packaging or funky containers. Everything is hand made and hand wrapped using recycled and food-friendly materials. The important stuff is on the inside, folks.
Of course the chocolate in question is the standard Conscious blend of raw (mostly organic) ingredients. No refined sugars, so artificial anything. Just great ingredients to produce an unusual but very moreish bar. How would it taste with coffee though?
Short answer? Amazing.
This is the nearest I have ever come to a proper espresso coffee in a chocolate bar. All of the rich, deep aromas and flavours of top quality coffee beans came rocketing out the moment the first square hit my tongue. As the raw chocolate rapidly melted away my mouth was flooded with proper coffee. This one had me grinning like an idiot – at last, a bar that fulfilled my expectations! My only regret is that it took a matter of minutes to make the rest disappear.
I for one will certainly be keeping an eye out for this particular bar. It isn’t cheap, but I tell you now reader, if you like coffee and chocolate you simply have to give this a go – it’s a stunner. Thank you Emma, you’ve made me very happy indeed!
Christmas is just around the corner and for me, that can only mean one thing. More weird and wonderful stuff from Hotel Chocolat. And what better way to start than these cleverly named “Chilli Penguins”.
We have a bunch of stuff from Hotel Chocolat to review and most of it is quite simple, so I’m going to keep this review fairly short.
As you can see, they look pretty much like they do on the box. Solid dark chocolate (74%) stylised penguins, and as you’d expect, they have a bit of a chilli hit to them.
The chilli itself isn’t that strong and the heat only really starts to appear when the chocolate has melted away, so you get the full range of sensations. The dark chocolate is, as you’d expect from Hotel Chocolat, smooth and rich with no bitter aftertaste, and the chilli is… well… chilli. It’s not too potent, but it’s enough to leave you with a warm Christmassy glow.
You get 10 penguins in a box, and I guess these are the kind of chocs you could hang on your Christmas tree (although you’d have to drill holes through then penguins’ eyes…) or share with visiting family and friends. My verdict: simple but effective – I suspect they’d help get any Christmas party warmed up.
