I’ve always thought there’s something a little odd about Chocolat Eclairs. For one thing, they’re inside-out and have the chocolate in the middle. For another thing, they’re a little dull. Or at least that’s what you’d think from looking at them.
According to the packet, they’re “chewy caramel with a milk chocolate centre”, but the caramel is actually more like toffee. It’s very hard, and only becomes chewy when it warms up in your mouth.
Interestingly (to me) Eclairs started out as toffees. They were manufactured by a company called Pascalls which were purchased by Cadbury in 1971 and launched nationally in the UK in 1974. I’d always assumed they were much older as I have many childhood memories of getting Eclairs stuck in my teeth.
So what are they like? Well, for such a dull looking sweet, they’re one of the most moreish things I’ve ever had. The chocolate is bog standard Dairy Milk. The caramel is average and very hard. But it’s the way they’re made that makes them special.
You see, it takes a while to get into the chocolate centre. You have to let it warm up in your mouth and slowly chew it first.
Then, by the time you get to the chocolate centre, it’s melted and flows out giving you a wonderful chocolate hit… that’s not quite enough to satisfy you. And so you have to eat more… and more..
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s that you can’t keep a big bag of Eclairs on your desk and NOT eat them. You’ll find yourself unwrapping the next one without realising and pretty soon the whole lot will be gone.
If you don’t want to get fat, the only solution is to hide the bag at the top of a cupboard and then smack yourself on the head with a frying pan to induce short term memory loss so you can’t find them.
Unfortunately, I know exactly where the contents of this big bag of Eclairs is.
In my tummy. Yum.
In Australia, oldies like to reminisce about the old days when they watched ‘moving pictures’ at the local hall and rolled jaffas down the aisles.
Jaffas are not your jaffa cake biscuits, or the actual oranges, but rather ordinary lollies that like to be described as hard candy balls filled with orange-flavoured chocolate but really they were only worth throwing down onto the floor because chomping them wasn’t about to make the movie any more enjoyable.
South Australians, however, had a much better movie-going product to enjoy and puerile activities such as ‘jaffa rolling’ were shunned by all and sundry; especially when the snack food of choice was Fruchocs.
These gorgeous little orbs of delight are made by Robern Menz, who, serendipitously, happen to reside in the same postcode as me. Whenever I go running past their factory, I can easily tell from either the mint or warm, fruity chocolate flavours wafting outside whether they are making Crown Mints or Fruchocs. These brown balls of bliss were first introduced to South Aussies in 1948, and officially declared an ‘icon’ by the National Trust in 2005. Most of us wondered why the hell it took them so long – we’d all been imbibing them since moving on from mothers’ milk.
Whilst they do eerily resemble randy rabbit droppings, their deliciously moist, compact centres of real dried apricot and peach fruits covered in gourmet quality milk chocolate would no doubt leave their rabbit friends’ lettuce-leaf flavoured refuse severely wanting. They’re also finished off to a very attractively glossy perfection- again something ‘ol bugs bunny would be struggling to achieve during his ablutions.
Robern Menz’s advertising slogan has always been ‘Try eating one, bet you can’t stop’, and my hips and thighs remain constant visual reminders of this successful campaign.
Not that I am the only one. In fact, the day I bought a 150g packet (standard sized for one, believe it or not) from the student cafeteria downstairs and took this photo on our boardroom table, I was immediately swamped with the curious, the hungry, the politely hopeful and the downright greedy. Their sounds of salivation made it difficult to keep the camera correctly focused and I nearly contemplated swatting the crowds away with a king-sized bag of jaffas.
Luckily, my overflowing sense of goodwill and kindness took over and the bag was passed around (admittedly with me keeping an eagle eye to ensure that each Fruchoc fanatic only took one). This meant that there were at least a dozen left for me to melt, munch and mellow out to.
These babies were often the only things that kept me sitting through the entire screening of ‘My Own Private Idaho’, anything starring Nic Cage, John Travolta, Jean Claude Van Damme or ending with the numbers ‘2’, ‘3’ or ‘Return.’
My advice to you readers out there is that if you know of anyone heading Down Under – specifically to South Australia or our capital, dear Adelaide, get them to bring you back a bag or seven. You will become another drooling convert!
When is posh chocolate not posh? Does good quality chocolate have to be expensive? Do you really only get what you pay for?
As part of my unstinting quest for the best chocolate, I decided to visit… LIDL.
For those who are unaware, LIDL is a ‘pile it high, flog it cheap’, no frills supermarket chain which sells what can only be described as a bizarre assortment of goods. For example, last week we had a LIDL flyer advertising equestrian goods and accessories!
So what prompted me to consider this as a potential source of quality cocoa-based goodies? Well, LIDL import a lot of their goods from Germany, and Germany – being part of the European continent, and neighbour to France and Belgium, has a good choccy pedigree. This despite the fact that as a boy my Polish grandmother would give me bars of the worst tasting ‘ersatz’ chocolate ever created – stuff that doesn’t even deserve to be called chcocolate (and which probably had never seen a cocoa bean in it’s short and tragic life)
So in I went, on a mission to see:
- if there was anything worth getting
- if it was worth eating
- would it be expensive?
Would I come home with something gloriously tasty, or would I find the Victoria Beckham of chocolate – posh in name only?
Well I can report that there’s an awful lot of confectionery to be had there, and most of it consisted of bags of garishly coloured sugar based stuff, the likes of which fuel the ASBO accumulating hyperactive offspring of council estates across the UK. There are also the usual Twix-alikes, Kinder bars, and Euro-copies of well known UK bars. Not very appealing at all.
However – nestling in among the nastiness, I espied a selection of tall packages embossed with gold writing. What appeared to be Ecuadorian single estate chocolate, 70% cocoa. Bingo!
A quick look at the blurb on the back told me that it was indeed Ecuadorian plantation chocolate, made from the Arriba bean, and that “The varying tropical climate together with a wealth of experience in the cultivating of this high class cocoa bean, gathered over generations, and not least the the excellent combining and perfecting of the best wholesome ingredients, are all factors which make up the secret hidden in the blissful depths of the fine J. D. Gross Plain Chocolate.”
Phew – a big enough mouthful in itself!
So let’s get down to a hands-on analysis. The packaging is very high quality. Rather than a standard ‘box’ you get a ‘book’ type package with a front flap that opens to reveal a gold foil covered bar, which slips out to the left. The bar itself is a very good looking product. Large, thick squares embossed with the J. D. Gross name and crest.
The Sniff Test confirms the blurb – dark, rich coca smells with a slightly bitter edge. Yum!
The chocolate itself is, quite simply. delicious. As good as any I have tasted recently – and that includes the stuff wrapped round the Hotel Chocolat selection I was given at Xmas. (Admittedly, the HC fillings were what sets them aside from all other chocolates). There is no denying that this is the Good Stuff. Proper, cocoa rich dark, bittersweet loveliness – and all for under 90p.
Result!
My advice – hit your local LIDL as soon as possible. There are some real treasures in there, folks.
Photo By merfam
Consumer surveys. You’ve gotta love ’em.
Companies often commission surveys in order to get a better idea of what their customers want and to help figure out the best direction to take their business.
A case in point is the recent survey by eToys.com. Their in-depth questioning of consumers produced this vital statistic:
86% of adults bite the ears of chocolate bunnies first
Unfortunately, the poll did not indicate what percentage of adults bite the ears of non-chocolate bunnies, so I’m not entirely sure how useful the research is.
Suffice to say, I prefer bite the whole head off.
