Dark Chocolate: Officially Yummiest

Well this is quite surprising. The results of our entirely scientific and absolutely accurate poll are in, and it’s official. Dark chocolate is best.

Whod’ve thunk it?

Last Minute Halloween Recipes

Still looking for chocolatey Halloween recipes and recipe ideas? Try some of these!

• Stupidly cute! Hairy Daddy Longlegs Cupcakes
• Chocolate Mice – …although rats would be more spooky
• I would think any chocolate brownie/cake recipe would work fine for this Graveyard Pizza
• If you are talented enough to cut dough along the dotted line: Vampire Bites
• I am not sure I’d have the nerve to eat these Witches’ Warts
• Frozen delight. The Frankenstein heads are cute too! Cookies and Cream Bats
• I’m not sure these are actually edible but they sure look the part! Chocolate Brains
• Quite spooky if you use the glow-stick as recommended: Mississippi Mudslide
• A very posh looking pumpkin: Halloween Chocolate Cake

Got any spooky Halloween recipes of your own? Leave a link in the comments!

Lindt Petits Desserts Crème Brûlée

I came across this little beauty while browsing for Belgian choccy in Sainsbury’s a while back. Intrigued by the concept and in the interests of all Chocablog readers, I took a leap of faith and bagged a bar.

The packaging certainly looked the part – the slim-box-as-wrapper, discreet gold foiling, well photographed squares of chocolate teasing the potential buyer with a saucy flash of their creamy interior. Who could resist? Not me, at any rate. My inner Fat Bloke was definitely up for sampling this one.

My initial thoughts were that this could be a bit of a letdown. After all, just how do you recreate the Crème Brûlée experience within the confines of a slab of chocolate? Surely chocolate and Crème Brûlée go together like sardines and custard? Would it be a Frankenstein’s Monster of chocolate – some weird hybrid combining two great flavours and spoiling them both?

Only one way to find out, kids.

Like our common hero, Little Charlie Bucket, I like to have a smell of a freshly opened bar of chocolate. It gives one a pretty good idea of what’s in store. So, I split the seal, slid out the (surprisingly thick) slab of choccy, ran a nail along the first horizontal seam and cracked the bar.

Now there’s a good reason for my liking of ‘posh’ chocolate. It’s generally very well made, and as a rule it does what it says on the wrapper/box/tin. Well, my friends, this was no exception. First sniff said ‘choccy, cream and caramel’ and so it was to be.

Each square contained a lovely soft, rich creamy layer of Crème Brûlée, which in turn contained little chips of the caramelised topping one would expect. The thing was, these bits weren’t like the nougaty bits in a Toblerone (destined to clump together and find the nearest dental recess or cavity to adhere to), no-no, these were wisps of flavour, adding that slight extra bitter-sweetness to the flavour without overpowering it. The milk chocolate is a lovely full-flavoured blend and there’s enough there to remind you you’re eating a choccy bar first and foremost.

As you may have gathered, I thoroughly enjoyed this one, and managed to keep the bar alive for a good few days before I revealed it to my wife.

My only disappointment has been that to date I haven’t seen any more on sale. Please don’t tell me it was a limited edition!

Aero Caramel

Here’s another variation on the chocolate + caramel theme that seems to be popular these days.

Aero Caramel consists of layer of ‘bubbly’ Aero chocolate topped with a layer of caramel and all wrapped in smooth milk chocolate. The top of the bar gives the impression it can be divided into chunks, but the dividing lines and ‘Aero’ logos are really just there for show.

The bubbles are much smaller than they are in a normal Aero – almost the same consistency as the old Cadbury Wispa. I think I actually prefer this, as it gives the impression of lighter, whipped texture, without feeling you’ve been cheated into buying something that’s mainly fresh air. Makes a nice change from solid chocolate.

Having said that, the chocolate here is decidedly average. It’s not offensive by any means, but it’s certainly nothing special either.

The caramel is so thin that it started to flow out all over the wrapper when I bit into it. And it tastes of… well, nothing but a whole lot of sugar. One of the reasons I like Galaxy Caramel so much is because the caramel has flavour to it, but this is really just a sickly sweet goo.

The overall effect is a very sweet, very sticky chocolate finger. If you’re looking for an instant sugar rush, give this a go, but this bar doesn’t have much else to recommend it.

I didn’t even bother with the instant win promotion. Annoyingly, the web site wants all kinds of personal information before it will let enter the promotional code.