The Skellligs Chocolate Company were the original “most Westerly chocolate company in Europe” before they joined forces with Cocoa Bean Chocolate, and I seem to recall a baby fig chocolate with Jameson’s Irish Whiskey being one of their prizewinning products.
As you can see, these handmade chocs come in a rather attractive little box, wrapped in a ribbon and finished with a tag that tells potential buyers exactly what to expect.
I’m very happy to say that these do not disappoint on any front. The milk chocolate is a healthy 33.9%, and the moment you pop one into your mouth you know that the fig inside has indeed been steeped in a healthy amount of dark rum. The alcoholic taste runs deep in these, but it never takes away from the creaminess of the milk chocolate, and when you start to sink your teeth into the baby fig (and they are indeed very small, succulent little things) the three flavours unite in mouthwatering harmony. I had an actual Homer Simpson moment as I tasted my first one!
Skelligs Chocolate seem to look after the ‘posh’ side of the operation, as evidenced by their packaging and products (they sent along some other rather lovely looking samples, of which more soon), and the choice of fig and rum is an inspired one. Definitely for adult palates, and definitely a lovely looking gift – for someone else or just as a treat – these are truly delicious little chocs. My first taste only left me wanting more, and I’m trying to resist the temptation to finish off the box too quickly, preferring to eke these out by restricting myself to a couple at a time.
Skelligs chocs are available either online or if you’re in the UK you’ll find them at Harvey Nichols (poshness indeed!) and I’d seriously recommend tracking down a box of these delightfully boozy balls of loveliness.
Uncle Dom, Chocablog Creator and Master Of All Things Containing Cocoa, sent me on a mission. That’s right: when The Dom makes you an offer, you can’t refuse. Kathy from Australia (yes, there’s more of us) alerted Dom to Cadbury Old Gold Liqueur Flavoured Selection, eloquently advising us that “it’s not too bad.”
With that glowing recommendation, I eagerly set out to find some.
This flavour – or four flavours – forms part of Cadbury’s re-launched Old Gold brand line and is their first venture into the grown up world of liqueur since their Old Jamaica Rum’n’Raisin classic. The four large, roundish squares per row have one flavour each – coffee, Irish crème, hazelnut and orange. The dark chocolate contains 45% cocoa solids and yes, ‘ethanol’ is listed one third of the way down the list of ingredients, thus qualifying it ever so slightly as ‘liqueur’. Even better, the fat content is a relatively measly 20.7g per 100g (normally you’re looking at around 35-40g fat per 100g) and therefore I refuse to feel deflated by looking at the percentage of sugar.
The coffee square is fairly bland, albeit a nice intro into the world of coffee and dark chocolate, but not too exciting for purists. The same goes for the orange liqueur square which was almost impossible to detect if I hadn’t noticed the symbol on the square before eating it. Essentially if you want chocolate with coffee or orange with real ‘oomph’ see Lindt’s range.
I have never understood the love of blending hazelnut with chocolate – let alone as a creamy centre, but in this block it tasted delicious. Not as pungent as the genuine Frangelico but a flavour that instantly states itself as hazelnut. For my money however, it was the Irish Crème. This was truly superb. The sweet sensations of cream, whiskey and chocolate made number one out of four. Again, it is not an overpowering flavour, so if you’re out for a kick, slurp the Baileys and keep this as your cup of tea chaser.
Even though I would happily like to buy a block of Irish Crème on its own or see Cadbury do a stronger coffee version, this is a pretty decent taste quartet that might even tempt your old Dad away from his Old Jamaica.
I found this in M&S Simply Food in Marylebone station while grabbing a sandwich to eat on the train. Luckily I managed to refrain from eating it until I got home. That’s how restrained I am.
Marks & Spencer do quite a wide range of chocolate now and so far my experience of their offerings has been mixed. M&S may be known for good quality food, but the chocs I’ve had so far have been adequate, but not fantastic.
As you can see, this is a single bar of milk chocolate. It looks quite boring on the outside with no distinguishing features. (For some reason I’m now wondering how the police will identify the body after I’ve finished with it. My mind is obviously broken.)
The one feature it does have is a rather pleasant smell that hits you the moment you open the wrapper. A traditional old fashioned fudge smell that makes you want to stuff the whole thing into your mouth in one go.
But once again, restraint got the better of me…
Inside the thin coating of fairly average milk chocolate is a generous helping of light, fluffy fudge. The consistency is similar to that of a (British) Milky Way, so it’s very light for fudge.
A quick glance at the ingredients reveals that this really is proper fudge. Amongst other things, this bar contains sweetened condensed milk, clotted cream, dried whole milk, cocoa butter, cocoa mass and dried free range egg white.
And it tastes like proper fudge too. It’s very sweet, but very, very nice. Fudge is always quite sweet and while I love it, I can’t eat a lot in one go. Even this small 45g bar was a little too much for me, and I’d prefer to have seen it divided into two. Not that I had anyone to share with and would have ended up eating it all in one go anyway, but it’s the thought that counts, right?
If you’re a fudge fan, I’d recommend picking one of these up. It’s like a slightly more sophisticated, grown up version of Cadbury Fudge. And while it’s just as sweet as the Cadbury offering, you can taste that this is made with quality ingredients.
Having been blogging about chocolate for over 2 years, we’ve seen some pretty unusual things, but here’s a list of 12 odd & unusual chocolate items for your amusement.
Why there’s 12, I don’t know. Maybe 10 just wasn’t enough.
Of course some of the things on the list are familiar to us already (mmmm… chocolate pasta!), but that chocolate dress? Surely it can’t be real, can it? That’s the kind of thing that’s likely to stop traffic on a sunny day…
[Thanks Sylvia]
