I have to confess, I hadn’t heard of Mychelle’s Baketique before. The American style cupcake bakery has opened a Christmas pop-up on the fifth floor of Harvey Nichols, who got in touch to ask if they could send some samples. Who am I to refuse?
What arrived at my door was this rather cute box packed with goodies.
The biggest item in the box is this fun snowman. It has a handmade – and to be honest, home made – feel about it. It’s a little silly, but I still quite like it.
The surprise was cutting into it and finding a whole apple, rather than some cakey surprise. I didn’t have any description of the items and I have to admit I was a little disappointed to find something so… healthy.
Having said that, the juicy apple was a rather nice counterpoint to the sweet white chocolate, and the flavour worked quite well.
Also in my box of goodies were long, thin snowmen on sticks and pretzels dipped in chocolate and covered in hundreds and thousands.
I was a little concerned about what vegetable might form the centre of the snowmen, but these ones are filled with a soft and slightly chewy marshmallow. Needless to say they’re very sweet, but I did manage to scoff a whole one.
My surprise favourite from the box was the pretzel sticks, which have a very nice crunch and a good balance of sweet and salty. They look quite Christmassy too.
Obviously these are aimed at kids more than they are at me, but I still quite enjoyed them. If you’re in Harvey Nichols, it’s certainly worth a look to see what’s on offer.
Mychelle’s Baketique can be found on the fifth floor of Harvey Nichols, Knightsbridge until December 30th.
Godiva Chocolate and I go way back. At one time, they represented the epitome of exclusive, high-end chocolate to me and I only ate them on very special occasions. These days, I would consider myself much more worldly about chocolate, but yet I still find myself drawn to Godiva truffles for both nostalgia’s sake and also because I still enjoy them.
So I was very happy to get my hands on a slender box of Godiva Limited Edition Holiday Truffles for those reasons, but also because it has a trio of special seasonal offerings which sounded interesting. The other 50% of the box was taken up by two of their mainstays – a milk chocolate truffle and a couple of dark chocolate truffles which I’ve had many times before. There’s really nothing wrong with them at all, but I was all about those seasonal ones. Here’s my thoughts:
Gingerbread Truffle – to begin with, I was a little concerned that Godiva had forgotten to put any ginger into this truffle, but I just needed to be patient. Definitely a slow-builder, with the ginger slowly building up and then gently disappearing into the creaminess of the milk chocolate. I like this one a lot.
Cranberry Truffle – easy to spot thanks to the cranberry-coloured sprinkles on top. The centre is very, very tart, but I wouldn’t necessarily pick it out as cranberry because it is more reminiscent of cherry to me. A very bold fruity truffle and very tasty.
Raspberry Linzer Torte Truffle – as someone who would happily sit down to a slice of the actual torte, this isn’t a disappointment. It manages to balance the cinnamon, almond and raspberries flavours so they all get their time in the spotlight. It is just a touch too sweet for my tastes, but it didn’t stop me from demolishing it.
Not a bad mix at all, and those seasonal varieties are what really makes this worth searching out. Or rather would make it a lovely gift to receive, so you should probably start dropping really unsubtle hints immediately.
I find myself in the unusual position of having to write this review without any of the product in front of me. I did have some, as you can clearly see from the photos. But they disappeared. I’ve no idea where they went. I guess someone must have eaten them…
As you can see, these are quite simple. £6.95 buys you 135g of rather moreish lemon and rose flavoured Turkish Delight cubes, covered in 70% Grenada chocolate. It’s the contrast of the sweet turkish delight and rich Grenada chocolate that makes them work so well. It takes the edge of the sweetness just long enough for the cube to melt in your mouth and for you to decide you need another one. Once you start eating them it’s very difficult to stop.
Of course, whether you really like these comes down to how much you like Turkish Delight. If you do, you’ll probably find the bag disappears in seconds. And if your experience of Turkish is limited to Fry’s Turkish Delight, then this is something you really should treat yourself to.
If you live in the UK there’s a very good chance you’ve heard of Keith Valentine Graham, aka Levi Roots. He first appeared on British TV show Dragon’s Den with his ‘Reggae Reggae’ sauce and was an immediate hit, successfully selling his idea and getting backing from two entrepreneurs. Fast forward six years and Mr Roots is a multi-millionaire, and (as one might expect) his sauce is being marketed quite aggressively, with new variants, ready meals and snacks appearing on supermarket shelves.
I suppose it was inevitable that someone would suggest a chocolate bar, particularly as chilli and chocolate are one of the oldest flavour combinations. What we have here is a Caribbean version which uses Scotch Bonnet Chillies. If you don’t know your Chillies it might be worth mentioning that Scotch Bonnets are up there in the top five for heat. If you cook with them, it is advisable to wear gloves – they’re that dangerous.
I spotted this bar in one of those novelty shops that sell whistling key rings, remote control helicopters and dad gadgets. Price wise, it’s getting close to a premium chocolate brand with this 100g bar retailing at a whopping £3.50 (that’s a pound an ounce folks) and my curiosity was piqued as to whether this was going to be worth the money or an overpriced novelty aimed at people stuck for something to buy a difficult male friend or relative (or challenge a mate).
Reading the back of the box didn’t exactly fill me with confidence. If you ask me, milk chocolate with 32% cacao is never going to be great. I was beginning to form a picture of what this bar was about, and it wasn’t good.
When it came to the tasting I’m afraid my fears were confirmed. The chocolate is poor. Very poor. My first taste had me thinking ‘here’s a bar of generic milk chocolate which is probably being made by the same factory that makes all of those novelty ‘Bochox’ and ‘Emergency chocolate’ bars you see in supermarkets, only they’ve added a load of fiery chillies to the mixture’ – and that’s pretty much it. Further package reading and a bit of research told me that this bar is being made by the same people that manufacture the Marmite bar Dom reviewed a couple of years ago, which pretty much confirms my initial assessment.
The first square allowed enough of the chocolate flavour out for me to ascertain that it’s cheap, overly sweet confectionery. There’s plenty of fire in there though, as the second square confirmed. By pieces three and four it was all about the chillies, which is probably a good thing (and also part of the plan – “If we shove enough chilli into this, nobody will know the chocolate is awful”) and after four squares I was completely over the whole business bar a persistent chilli burn going on in my mouth.
Is this bar worth £3.50? No. Would it make a good present for a chilli/chocolate fan? No, there are far better products available for a similar price.
This bar typifies what’s wrong with ‘gifting’ chocolate – overpriced, poor quality rubbish wrapped in familiar branding. I’m pretty sure I could come up with something better using dried chillies and proper chocolate. The only thing I can’t do is package it so that gullible punters are attracted to it.
Avoid.
