Christmas is traditionally a time of year for giving chocolate. And more importantly, eating it. So when a large shoe box packed full of chocolate arrived from The Chocstress, my first thought was “Best present ever!”… followed swiftly by “Oh God, I’m going to have to review all this!”
Naturally, I started with the biggest box… a big gift box containing over 3 million Maltesers. Or at least that’s the way it seems when you open it. It’s huge, and stuffed full of chocs.
If you’ve never had Maltesers, they’re little balls of malt flavoured honeycomb covered in milk chocolate. For those of you in the US, they’re apparently similar to Hershey’s Whoppers.
To be honest, I don’t often buy Maltesers. They’re always there in the shop, but they always seem just a little bit dull compared to the vast array of new and exciting chocolates on offer.
But when presented with a box this big, you can’t fail to be impressed. There’s just so MUCH. If you ask me, all chocolate should come in this size box as standard.
And having managed to scoff my way through the majority of the box single handedly, I found I quite like them. They’re chocolately, malty and crunchy. Just the way they should be.
And now I’m exceedingly fat.
Finding this bar was something of a déja vu experience for me, as I had bought a dark chocolate and raspberry bar in Sweden this Spring and had been unable to find it in the UK. That was made by Marabou (manufacturers of Dime – or Daim) and I suspect that Marabou and Côte d’Or may actually be owned by the same company.
Anyway, enough about my international piggery – what about the choccy?
Suffice to say that having tasted this bar in Sweden all that time ago, I was rather pleased to find Cote d’Or Framboise on sale in Tesco of all places. I immediately snapped up two bars and went home like a kid with a new toy to present them to my wife, who is also partial to the occasional nibble of a chocolate bar.
So what does the packet blurb promise?
“NOIR FRAMBOISE, smooth 70% cocoa dark chocolate complimented with a thin layer of raspberries enveloped in chocolate.”
It then goes on to state that “By expertly sourcing cocoa beans from West Africa and Noble beans from South America Cote d’Or delivers an intense, full bodied chocolate with rich, indulgent flavours, seductive aromas and smooth, refined textures to provide a uniquely mysterious and exotic taste.”
Now, I’m the sort of person who wouldn’t normally think “Fruit and chocolate – yum!” Show me a Chocolate Orange or anything strawberry flavoured and I’ll almost certainly politely decline, but the fact that this bar uses real fruit and not oils or artificial flavourings made me think that it was definitely worth trying, and I was right.
Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say it tasted mysterious and exotic, but it certainly is intense and full bodied. To my mind dark chocolate should be 70% cocoa or more in order for it to deliver that dark, bittersweet cocoa flavour, and this one does just that, but once the chocolate starts to melt you encounter the wafer-thin layer of candied raspberry which cuts through the chocolate, providing a unique hit of fruit flavour. The choice of raspberry was inspired. Possibly the only fruit that would sit so well with the dark chocolate – not too sweet, and definitely not overpowering. This bar is a shining example of a well thought out and well made product.
Well done the Belgians! A top buy.
Christmas, a time for giving. If you’re reading this, you’d probably agree that it’s a time for giving chocolate, and a great opportunity to splash out a bit.
Well, I think it’s pretty safe to say that Santa knew what I fancied, and he delivered something a little out of the ordinary this year. You’ve probably seen links to Hotel Chocolat at the top of these very pages. Many of you may have even clicked through to see what they were offering. well, folks, this really IS posh chocolate.
As you can see from the first photo, this is a single estate bar. The beans were all grown in Ecuador, on the Hacienda Iara.
A 72% dark chocolate bar, with Pink Peppercorns and Peri Peri Chilli.
Not to everyone’s tastes, I’m sure, and certainly not something you’d wolf down while watching Xmas telly!
urther evidence of poshness came when the bar was unwrapped. It is just that – a bar. No lines, no creases, nothing but a neatly inscribed Hotel Chcoclat logo. A look at the other side was a bit of a surprise – they certainly weren’t joking about the pink peppercorns! The whole back side of the bar is studded with the little fellers.
I bet you’re now wondering what on earth this thing tasted of. Well, I decide that the best approach was to get the chocolate melted and moving around my palate as quick as possible, so a small chunk was placed (choccy side down!) on my tongue and allowed to melt.
The chocolate itself is wonderful stuff. It melts quickly and delivers a rich, bittersweet taste, the way a good chocolate ought to. Then the peppercorns and chilli kick in (especially if you start nibbling the peppercorns) to finish the taste sensation with their heat and bitterness. Lovely stuff!
So what’s the overall verdict? I wouldn’t buy this for just anyone. Whilst the chocolate itself is of the highest quality and absolutely delicious, the chilli and peppercorns put it in the realm of the slightly odd (although as we know, the Aztecs were doing this sort of thing centuries ago). This is a bar for delicate nibbling, not scarfing down in a few mouthfuls. It tastes fantastic – provided you like a little fire in your chocolate!
I daresay the price makes it a special treat as well (I wouldn’t know, it was a present) and as such you’d have to pick your recipient carefully (or gauge your dinner guests’ tastes pretty well). Certainly worth trying, and definitely a classy number. Recommended.
I’ve always loved Kinder chocolate. Possibly my favourite childhood treat of all time is Kinder Surprise. The chocolate was always gone in seconds, but the toy inside always lasted… well, at least an hour (at least 50 minutes of which was usually spent putting the damn thing together).
So I didn’t take a lot of persuasion to buy these when I saw them on the supermarket shelf. In fact, the box actively jumped into my shopping basket without any human intervention. Honest. Kinder chocolate screams from the supermarket shelf, demanding to be eaten.
This 100g box contains 8 small, individually wrapped bars. Each bar consists of delicious Kinder chocolate with a soft white milk chocolate filling.
As is usually the case with Kinder, the chocolate itself is quite thin – but it more than makes up for that in taste. It’s smooth and creamy and simply delicious. The white chocolate filling is even creamier… and even delicouser. Yes that’s a word.
The only slight disappointment with this is that you don’t get quite as much as it might seem from the size of the box. Each bar is divided into “chunks” with rather too much space between them. That said, at 99p it’s still fairly good value, and the 8 mini bars lasted more than a day – something of a rarity in my house. It’s probably not something dark chocolate lovers – or those with more sophisticated tastes – will go for, but it’s a fun little treat for kids of all ages.
