Update: This competition is now closed.
I can’t say I’m a big fan of Cadbury Dairy Milk, but I have to admit that having your name on a chocolate bar is kind of cool. So when Cadbury sent us this 360g bar of ‘Cadbury Chocoablog’ Dairy Milk to show off their new Joyville Made personalisation service, I thought the best thing to do would be to give it away to a Chocablog reader.
This is a Twitter based competition, but if you’re not on Twitter already, it only takes a minute to sign up.
To enter, just follow Chocablog (so we can let you know if you win!) then retweet a link to this page.
You can click this link to tweet now if you’re logged in to Twitter.
This competition is open worldwide. One entry per household only.
The competition will close at 12 noon GMT on Saturday 19th February 2013, and a winner will be picked at random and notified by direct message on Twitter.
Harrods may not be a name you would normally associate with chocolate, but this year the department store has an extensive Valentine’s range, from chocolatiers large and small, including some own-brand offerings like this.
We’ve never reviewed any Harrods branded chocolates before, so I was keen to see if they could live up to the store’s luxury image.
Obviously, the packaging is what you’re going to notice first, and as you can see, it’s really rather nice. Made from a thick red card with gold embossing, it certainly looks the part. The Harrods name adds a certain something to the feel too of course.
Inside though, it’s a fairly standard looking box of Belgian, with the chocolates squeezed in with no room to spare.
The important thing to keep in mind here is the difference between Belgian chocolates like these and ‘fresh’ chocolates that you might find at your local artisan chocolatier. These chocolates are designed to have a fairly long shelf life (4 months in this case), and as such they use preservatives and don’t feature ingredients like fresh cream, which would have a shelf life of no more than a couple of weeks.
That doesn’t have to be an issue, but it’s always worth keeping in mind. Long shelf life chocolates like these rarely taste as good as ones made with fresh, local ingredients. So I’ll be comparing these to the likes of Hotel Chocolat or Thorntons, rather than Paul A Young or William Curley.
With that in mind, I decided to dive in. There’s no menu as such, but there’s a nice selection, with two of most flavours. That’s a simple thing that goes a long way to making a box of chocolates a shareable experience. The only exception is the foil-wrapped red heart in the centre of the box, which turns out to be a fairly average praline.
I happily worked my way through each chocolate in the box, but after a while, I was finding the sugar level a bit hard going. Some of the centres are also a little dry for my liking.
I think these chocolates would suit someone with a much sweeter tooth than me. While I didn’t dislike them, it’s really tough to justify the price when there are just too many small artisan producers making nicer chocolates – some of them are even available in Harrods.
At £27.95 for 240g of Belgian chocolates, you’re clearly paying a premium for the Harrods name. Having had a preview of the Valentines range available in store, I can say that they have some quality chocolates and wonderful patisserie on offer. I don’t think I would part with quite so much of my hard earned money for this particular box though.
We’ve reviewed Paul A Young’s brownies several times in the post, so the chances are you already know what to expect here. A delicious, gooey, fudgey, chocolatey block that may not technically be a brownie, but it tastes so good, that doesn’t really matter.
This Valentine’s Day variation is made with chipotle chilli, maldon sea salt and muscovado sugar, and in my opinion, it’s up there with the best of Paul’s creations.
The initial flavour when you bite into this brownie is quite random, thanks to the scattering of salt and sugar on the surface. You might get some sweet sugar crystals, or you may get something a little saltier. But that initial burst gives way quickly to a deep, rich chocolatey flavour with a smokey edge, thanks to to the chipotle.
It’s a flavour that works very well with the chocolate, and as the brownie melts away in your mouth, the heat from the chipotle starts to take over. While quite noticeable, the heat is never overpowering though, and like the taste, it’s perfectly balanced.
But would you give a brownie for Valentine’s day? Well you probably wouldn’t give a normal brownie, but given that these creations are practically a meal in themselves I’d say it was perfect for sharing. And it’s sure to add a bit of spice to Valentine’s Day.
Paul A Young does not currently have an online store, but if you call one of the shops, they can often arrange delivery for you.
I’m recently back from a week away in Egypt, and naturally I had a little trawl around the local shops to see what was on offer by way of chocolate.
If you have any interest in chocolate and visit any Muslim countries, you’re probably already aware of a couple of things.
1. there isn’t much in the way of locally produced chocolate, and what there is can be decidedly average
2. Arabs have a major sweet tooth, meaning that good quality chocolate is fairly hard to find.
Tucked away in the corner of a supermarket was this light green box of milk chocolate pistachio creams, and they seemed like they might actually be worth checking out. So I did. It turns out ‘Emoti’ is a brand name, and these chocolates were made by a Belgian company called Elysberg Confiserie. The chocolate part is made from 30% cocoa milk chocolate which is fairly average. The box contains a tray of twelve pieces, which look quite attractive when placed away from the cheap looking tray!
The chocolate is sweet and distinctly average but when the centre starts to melt the magic happens, and it has very little to do with the outer shell. The pistachio cream filling is rather lovely, and my palate welcomed it more than it did the milk chocolate. In fact I’d go as far as to say that I would happily have taken the filling on its own. Better yet, how about a dark chocolate version made with something a bit more decent?
It’s almost as though you’re tasting a filling that took ages to get right but was then just covered in ‘the usual’, and that’s a shame. Okay, we’re not talking top end chocolate here, but I think this product would really benefit from a makeover which included a new coat.
I doubt these are easy to find in the UK, and to be honest I wouldn’t go mad trying to track them down. I’m sure there must be other chocolatiers making much better pistachio creams.
