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Ooooh, something from Cadbury that I haven’t tried before!
I’ve only ever seen Chomp in those Christmas variety packs that Cadbury like to push on children all over the country. And that’s exactly where this came from – part of an even bigger box of chocs that The Chocstress sent me.
Chomp is a very small bar. The wrapper doesn’t actually give the weight (presumably, being part of a bigger selection pack it doesn’t need to), but it’s actually 23g.
Of course, the question you’re all asking now is “What is Chomp!?”. Luckily, the answer is simple:
It’s a Curly Wurly without the Curly or the Wurly.
Take the thick, chewy caramel and milk chocolate from a Curly Wurly and squeeze it into a more conventional shape, and that’s Chomp. It’s very simple and very yummy. And despite coming in a tiny package, it’s actually just about the same weight as a modern Curly Wurly.
So, it’s nice. It’s chocolatey and chewy… but it just doesn’t appeal to me in the same way that Curly Wurly does. There’s something pointlessly, stupidly, childishly brilliant about the shape of a Curly Wurly. Chomp may have compactness on it’s side, but it’s just not the same.
Like most British towns, we now have a Polish Shop (Polski Sklep for those who want to learn a little Polish) and of course it occurred to me that where there’s a specialist shop, there’s usually specialist chocolate. I wasn’t wrong – my local ‘Sklep’ has a good half dozen or more types of this – Wedel Milk Chocolate.
Spoiled for choice as I was, I plumped for the Cherry filled bar. Cherry bars are still fairly rare beasts, and I’m quite partial to cherries anyway, so it seemed like a good choice.
Now Poland isn’t a place you’d normally associate with great chocolate. On the contrary, my experiences of Polish confectionery (as supplied by Grandmother and Aunt over a number of years) have been uniformly disappointing, but I was prepared to put this all behind me and to approach this bar with a fresh attitude.
The bar itself looked fine, and smelled suitably cherry-like, if a little on the sugary side. A glance at the ingredients explained why – 11g of a 20g serving IS sugar. The chocolate itself is only 31% cocoa solids as well, so basically what we have here is a mixture of sugar and fats, with some creamy filling and a little cherry jam.
This might well appeal to those of you who love sweet sweets, but to my mind this was nothing more than over-sugared cheap, nasty chocolate. It’s a little like Cadbury’s Dairy Milk with extra sugar and a bit of jam and cream filling. There’s nothing particularly good about it, it doesn’t taste all that nice and from the look of the ingredients it isn’t that good for you either. Needless to say, I won’t be rushing back to the Sklep to sample any more Wedel Bars.
Having started at the top, so to speak, with a review of Hotel Chocolat’s Liquid Chocolate, followed by a disappointingly sugary Hot Dark Choc, I continued my quest to find the best Drinking Chocolates with this, Twinings Luxury Chocolate Drink.
As you can see from the tin, it contains no less than 65% real chocolate (real BELGIAN chocolate, no less), but as I learned to my disappointment with Drink Dark Choc, that is no guarantee that it won’t also be loaded to the gunnels with sugar. The good news is that Twinings have taken a similar approach to Hotel Chocolat with their product. This drinking chocolate contains only 5% raw cane sugar, making it remarkably similar to Liquid Chocolate in consistency and flavour.
The ‘powder’ in the tin is in fact made up of shaved Belgian dark chocolate mixed with cocoa powder, so mixing it to a paste takes a little longer than it might do, but the end product is a satisfyingly rich, slightly bitter drink with tons of lovely chocolately flavour.
Most importantly, Twinings have left it up to the consumer to decide how sweet they want their drinking chocolate, so if you fancy popping a spoonful ofsugar in you can (or indeed if you prefer to add the liqueur of your choice, you can do that too!)
This is a fine quality, premium drinking chocolate, very similar in taste and consistency to Hotel Chocolat’s Liquid Chocolate. It’s drinking chocolate for grownups, dark, rich and bursting with the bittersweet flavours of good quality chocolate and cocoa. I’d recommend serving it with a tot or two of your favourite booze and a dollop of whipped cream.
