Guest Chocablogger Terry Scannell takes a look at a little brown frog…
Freddo is a small, solid milk chocolate frog. Inexpensive and obviously aimed at children, these things also seem to be very popular with University students, or at least the ones I know.I’m pretty sure these things are popular in Australia as well, here we only have the Chocolate and Caramel varieties, but over there I’ve heard there are many more.
I don’t see why, because there’s nothing too special about this.It says on the pack it’s Dairy Milk chocolate, and that’s exactly how it tastes, a frog shaped Dairy Milk.
As mentioned earlier, it’s inexpensive and low in calories, so if you need a short and cheap chocolate fix, this could do it for you.
It has 105 calories, 1.5g Protein, 11.3g Carbohydrates and 5.9g Fat.
This is a bit of an odd one. You see, Cadbury also make Fry’s Turkish Delight, and this bar contains all the same ingredients. Just not necessarily in the same order.
If you’ve not had Turkish Delight before then… well… you probably won’t like it much. It’s an acquired taste. It probably helps to have been force-fed it as a child too. It’s just a bit… weird.
Turkish Delight is made from starch and sugar and has a soft, jelly like texture. It usually has subtle flavourings – rosewater in this case. “Real” Turkish Delight is generally cut into cubes and dusted with icing sugar.
The main difference – and the only difference, as far as I can tell – between Dairy Milk with Turkish and Fry’s Turkish Delight is the format of the bar. The Fry’s bar is a single slab of gloop Turkish Delight covered with a thin layer of chocolate. This bar follows the standard Dairy Milk format. Lots of small chunks with thicker chocolate.
The result is a significantly higher chocolate to Turkish ratio in this bar. And that (in my opinion) makes this a whole lot more palatable. For me, Fry’s Turkish Delight is just sickly, but this is actually quite nice.
I can’t say I’m a Turkish Delight convert, but at least this is more interesting than certain other Dairy Milk varieties I could mention.
As any good little porker, sorry connoisseur, knows, Belgium is the home of some of the finest cocoa and hop – related products known to mankind.
Only natural then that it should be my selection for a little two day excursion – a chance to peruse the chocolatiers by day and sip on some fine beers by night.
During the planning stage, it came to my attention that Belgium is home to one of Europe’s chocolate museums (although I doubt Cadbury World qualifies as a museum). There is a small (but perfectly formed) website at www.mucc.be which has a very concise summary of what’s on offer to the visiting chocolate hound, and whose menu system looks remarkably like Apple’s site.
Founded no more than two or three years ago, the museum occupies a three storey building on the Rue de la Tete d’Or, and as well as numerous exhibits (chocolate moulds, fine porcelain ‘tea’ sets, posters, photos and preserved cocoa pods) as well as demonstrations of the art of the chocolatier. There are even chocolate sculptures and chocolate clothing. Oh, and free samples!
The ground floor houses various glass cases containing old style moulds (some of which are original Cote d’Or moulds), an explanation of the processing of the cocoa beans, and at the rear, a kitchen where we came across a gentleman demonstrating how pralines are formed in moulds. The upper floors delve more into the history of cocoa, regions where it is produced, and the effects of the cocoa trade both here in Europe and in Africa.
For €5 (adult admission) it’s an interesting way to pass an hour or so, and smaller visitors will enjoy helping themselves to the empty chocolates and free samples of Plain, milk and white chocolate pellets (which can also be bought in the small shop). This is a rather quaint museum, with a distinct ‘homegrown’ feel to it – an obvious labour of love which remains unspoiled by big business and commercial sponsorship.
For the same reasons that make it so quaint, it also lacks the ‘whizz bang’ factor that today’s tourist attractions seem to think is so necessary to attract custom. Here is a quiet place where it is possible to peruse the exhibits in an uncrowded, unhurried atmosphere. Younger visitors might find it a little boring, but a handful of cocoa buttons will buy you enough time to have a good look around and learn some fascinating facts about the mighty cocoa bean. After all, it’s the reason this site exists!
Museum opens 10am to 4:30pm, closed Mondays and holidays.
Museum of Cocoa and Chocolate
Rue de la Tête d’Or, 9/11
1000 Brussels (Belgium)
Tel.: +32 (0)2 514 20 48
Web: www.mucc.be
Email : info@mucc.be
I want to start by saying how much I love the packaging of Lindt Excellence. Every bar is sealed in foil and packaged in thin card box, embossed with gold lettering. It may not seem much, but opening a proper box is so much nicer than ripping open a cheap plastic wrapper.
Once unwrapped, you’re greeted by a pleasant, chocolatey, minty aroma. But first impressions are that it’s not particularly “intense”.
The taste isn’t particularly intense either. It’s certainly minty, but it’s no mintier than other chocolate mints out there. The chocolate itself is dark, but at 47% cocoa solids it can’t really be described as intense either.
But despite this – or perhaps because of it – this bar is one of the nicest chocolate/mint combinations I’ve tasted. The dark chocolate and mint flavours work well together without completely obliterating each other.
I think that’s partly due to the fact that Mint Intense is made with natural peppermint oil blended into the chocolate itself, rather than a thin layer of ‘cream’, like most other chocolate mints. The result is a proper bar of chocolate that’s both refreshing and moreish.
