Godiva have chosen the first day of Chocolate Week to launch their Christmas range, and we went along to their Chocolate Café in Harrods to check them out.
The range is surprisingly good, with a good balance of quality and fun. Amongst the offerings are this shiny, beaded ball, filled with individually wrapped chocolate squares, Christmas figures (Santa, Snowman and Gingerbread Man), and ‘Christmas Tree’ boxes of subtly Christmas-flavoured milk, dark & white pralines.
There’s also a rather attractive box, encrusted with the Godiva logo in Swarovski crystals that contains pralines on the top layer and a draw with individual squares of chocolate underneath.
But the most surprising thing for me is the new range of single origin chocolate squares. This box contains chocolate made with beans from Uganda, Costa Rica, Venezuela and Ecuador. There’s a matching box of pralines made with the same chocolate.
This is a completely new thing for Godiva, and it’s really good to see them responding to changing tastes this way. I have to admit, I’m not much of a Godiva eater, but it seems they have something for everyone this year.
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I may have become just a tad nervous about reviewing Trader Joe’s chocolate bars: sharp-eyed readers often point out that the chocolate’s identity has such origins as Vosges and Pralus. So who knows who might be behind the innocent “Fair Trade Organic Belgian Milk Chocolate Bar?” But at least I knew it had to be a Belgian company. Further, my brain began jumping up and down upon seeing the shape of the chocolate’s mold: I knew I had seen it before.
Unlike some, this is a distinctive mold, one I have only seen once before. After much trawling through my old chocolate pictures, finally I discovered a little and lonely picture from nearly three years ago, featuring the Hageland dark chocolate I picked up at Walmart. Comments on that post revealed that the people behind Hageland also provide the chocolate for the Whole Foods brand. This bar may not, after all, be related, but I’m nearly positive that it is.
There are three things to learn from the ingredients list: the cocoa content is 32%, the ingredients overall don’t look bad, and it is only “organic natural vanilla flavor” that flavors the chocolate. Hmm. The bar’s appearance is perfectly fine, and it has a fairly long melting time for a milk chocolate. Also are its flavors a step more developed than some: layered, containing hints of other notes I can’t quite place. The mouthfeel is very smooth, possibly too smooth, but at least it isn’t a very greasy bar.
Whatever its origins, this bar is worth its couple dollar price tag. Fair for Life and Organic certified, 100 grams, and satisfyingly sweet, it certainly won’t be your worst chocolate purchase.
This is one of the samples we were given on our recent trip to Pierre Marcolini’s factory in Brussels, and probably the one that intrigued me the most.
As you probably know, Pierre Marcolini is one of the few chocolatiers to make chocolate from the bean themselves. In other words, they are chocolate makers as well as chocolatiers. This is a product that could only be made by a chocolate maker, and as the name suggests it’s a primitive form of the kind of modern chocolate we’re used to.
It’s made by grinding the cocoa beans, cocoa butter and cane sugar just the way normal chocolate starts out, but where a chocolate bar would be further refined, tempered and moulded, this is just packaged up after that initial grinding. The result is a product that varies in consistency from powder to flake-like chunks. It’s very rough, and for me, that’s its beauty.
Those big clumps contain so many fine chocolate particles and so much air that the moment you put one on your tongue it melts away to almost nothing. It has a sweet, slightly fruity and very chocolatey flavour. It really would be very easy to just take a big spoon to the tin and eat giant mouthfuls of the stuff.
But how are you meant to eat it? Well it doesn’t come with instructions, but I found it to be very nice indeed sprinkled on ice cream. In fact, I’m sure it’d be great on just about any dessert. I also found it worked very well as the basis for a hot chocolate. I added some cocoa powder and a little ginger and it was very nice indeed.
However I still think the best way to eat this stuff is out of the tin with a spoon. That’s how I’m going to finish off the rest of this tin.
Marolini tell me they’re working on getting this into their online store soon (link below). In the mean time, I suggest dropping them an email if you want to try this for yourself.
Chocolate Week is nearly upon us, which means there are all sorts of chocolate related events going on up and down the country. Many restaurants & bars will be having special chocolate themed menus for the week, and last night we were invited along for a preview of a very chocolatey addition to the menu at The Botanist in Sloane Square.
The mixologists at The Botanist and their sister venue Chiswell Street Dining Rooms, have come up with four special hot chocolate cocktails, all made with Hotel Chocolat’s ‘liquid chocolate’ range of drinking chocolates.
We were lucky enough to sample all of them….
The Ultimate Hotel Chocolat (£4.00)
This is a non alcoholic hot chocolate cocktail. So really it’s just a hot chocolate. It’s made with Hotel Chocolat’s caramel liquid chocolate with hazelnut syrup and mint. I’m not the biggest fan of chocolate and mint, and while this is quite refreshing, it was just a bit too sweet and creamy for my tastes. This was particularly evident after having tasted the other cocktails, which are all richer. If you can’t have alcohol, it’s a reasonable hot chocolate, but it’s only really going to have appeal to serious mint-choc fans.
Chocolate Orange Melt (£8.00)
Made with dark chocolate and orange pieces, Cointreau, double cream, orange bitters and decorated with orange zest. This one was much more like it. The aroma of the fresh orange zest immediately draws you in, and there’s just the right balance of orange flavour and alcohol to warm you up nicely on an Autumn evening. Orange and chocolate is another of those combinations that people tend to love or hate, but this one is definitely worth trying.
Naughty but Spice (£8.00)
This one is our favourite. Made with Aztec Chilli Chocolate and spiced rum, and decorated with a sprig of Rosemary. This is a deliciously warming hot chocolate with just the right level of alcohol and a very slight chilli kick for that little bit of extra warmth. The Botanist have apparently tweaked the recipe on this one, and it was originally much more alcoholic. They seem to have got it right now. This is the one you have to try.
Nutty Divine (£8.00)
This cocktail is made with Hotel Chocolat’s classic Liquid Chocolate, Jamaican Rum, Creme De Cacao and hazelnut syrup. It’s the one that has the strongest alcohol flavour, and if you love the flavour of rum, you’ll like this one. For us, it wasn’t quite up to the ‘Naughty But Spice’ cocktail, but this is the one you should go for if you want a little more of an alcoholic kick.
These hot chocolate cocktails are available at The Botanist and Chiswell Street Dining Rooms from 8th – 14th October. Thanks to The Botanist for allowing us to preview them, and to Judith for the invitation.
