Even before the big Christmas rush is over, chocolate makers and chocolatiers are already busy designing new products and exciting flavours for the next big event in the chocolate calendar, Valentine’s Day. Still, this is one of those days that always seems to be quite far ahead, and suddenly you look at your calendar, and it’s: tomorrow!? So in this post I will try to remind you just a little bit ahead of the last minute and show you the products that I found the most interesting among the UK Valentine’s chocolate offer. Forget the boring dessert boxes and give your loved one something better to indulge on. (And yes, your loved one could be yourself too ;))
Dormouse Chocolates – anatomical chocolate heart
Healthcare professionals, biology addicts will surely appreciate this anatomical heart made out of single-origin bean-to-bar chocolate. Available in Peruvian dark and milk, and caramelised Madagascan white chocolate.
These pretty half hearts are filled with either hazelnut praline or salted caramel and available in dark and milk chocolate. Perfect size to share (if you do). The Valentine’s filled chocolate collection also includes some interesting new flavours such as a caramel with cep mushroom, a rose and lemon turkish delight truffle, honey and whole almond, espresso martini and they come in a beautiful red velvet heart box.
Lovely Nicaraguan cacao is used to make these hollow hearts, Nicalizo for the milk and Rugoso for the dark version. Both decorated with edible gold leaf and holding two smaller hearts, one filled with caramelised milk chocolate ganache and the other with fresh raspberry jelly.
No more trouble if you’re loved one is vegan and you struggle to find non-dairy chocolate delights for them other than dark chocolate. Solkiki specialises in vegan, ethically and directly traded bean-to-bar chocolates and they have some amazing milk and white versions. Their Valentine’s offer includes two special edition vegan white chocolate bars: Strawberry Meringue Cream and Raspberry.
A local pick is my new favourite dessert kitchen in Cambridge, Dulcedo. They have amazing pastries and cakes on display every day along with a wide selection of fresh macarons, filled chocolates, nougats, honeycomb and a variety of dragees (my favourite is the chocolate covered coffee bean with cinnamon). Their Valentine’s filled collection includes hearts, lips, lipsticks with flavours such as blueberry, salted caramel, gin&lemon, strawberry crunch and orange.
B is for Brownie: fudge heart brownies
More into cakes? Up your beloved’s usual brownie experience with this single origin chocolate brownie topped with generous scoops of muscovado fudge, now heart-shaped, and always freshly baked to order.
If you still can’t make up your mind or you’re truly late (it’s already the 14 Feb and you’ve got nothing), you could get a gift voucher (I can send you an e-voucher too), so your beloved can choose some chocolates for themselves from my webshop. Or even better, why not book both of you on my upcoming Craft Chocolate Club tasting event on Saturday, 17th February 2018!
Special Offer: use VAL18 at checkout for a ‘buy one get one free’ offer to this specific event.*
I hope I gave you some good gift ideas. And of course Valentine’s Day doesn’t mean that it’s the only day we ought to show our love for each other (including partners, family and friends), so let’s keep sharing the chocolate love! I’ll make sure you Taste. Better. Chocolate. if you follow my journey. There are some very exiting things ahead. Stay tuned!
Sharing the chocolate love
Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. I didn’t receive any money or products in exchange for featuring these brands. The products listed might be subject to availability.
*offer valid until there are available places left, valid only for Craft Chocolate Club on Saturday, 17th February 2018.
Without even setting a goal for it, I just happened to follow a morning routine from the 1st of January: ramble through my stash of craft chocolate bars or hot chocolate flakes, choose one, decide whether I’ll use milk or water, grab my frother and after a few minutes I’d cozy up with my hot chocolate before starting the day.
Think about for a second, what comes into your mind when you think about hot chocolate? My earliest memory is from my childhood when my grandmother used to prepare a traditional hot cocoa drink using unsweetened cocoa powder, then there was the rise of the instant cocoa powder (‘blame the bunny’) that even I could mix up with cold or hot milk. For a long time, hot chocolate meant a cocoa powder based drink, although I sometimes sacrificed a leftover Easter bunny or chocolate Santa, only issue being that they never mixed well and were way too sweet.
An interesting language fact is that in Hungarian we have two separate words for hot cocoa drink and hot chocolate. The former is referring to the cocoa powder-based drink, the latter to the drink made with hot chocolate mix or real chocolate. So when travelling abroad, I had many disappointing experiences of ordering hot chocolate or chocolat chaud, and instead of a creamy, thick hot chocolate I ended up with a hot cocoa drink. The situation is further complicated by the use of ‘sipping chocolate’ and ‘drinking chocolate’ in English, these are both used to describe the chocolate-based drinks and not hot cocoa drink.
Hot chocolate made with Peruvian single-origin, bean-to-bar chocolate shavings by Chocolate Tree.
When you realise how endless are the possibilities with using real chocolate to make your hot chocolate instead of using cocoa powder it’s a real game changer. Of course, the craft chocolate bars that you collected during chocolate shows are more expensive than a tin of cocoa powder or hot cocoa mix, I was also quite reluctant at first to melt them down into a drink. Let me share with you a few tips and basic recipes that will certainly give you a delicious chocolate drink that you won’t regret.
‘Frankencocoa’ – recycled chocolates
The term “Frankencocoa” popped up on Instagram coined by Jess (@seattledessertgeek) referring to hot chocolate made with a mix of different pieces of chocolates, basically a “house blend” of your own. It’s a great way to use up odd ends and small bits of chocolates or bloomed pieces that just linger around in your cupboard or box and wouldn’t give you a great satisfaction if you’d decide to just eat them on their own. Bloomed chocolate especially has a very dry, chalky texture due to fat migration (cocoa butter separates and moves to the surface of the chocolate creating white spots). These pieces can get a second chance of revival in the form of a hot chocolate. You can also play around with different types, percentages and origins and see how the overall flavour changes from one recipe to the other. For example, instead of adding sugar, you can sweeten your drink by mixing in some white chocolate, that will also make it creamier.
“Frankencocoa” blend with added cornflour for extra thickness
Taking it one step further, my friend Patricia from Eating the Chocolate Alphabet started to create what she calls a Chocolate Solera. Basically she collects a piece of all the unflavoured chocolates she tries throughout the year, and on 1st January 2019 she’ll whip up a gigantic Frankencocoa. I can’t wait to see the final mix and the resulting drink!
Thick or thin?
It’s all a personal preference whether you like your drink to be light, like a hot cocoa drink or thicker and creamier, more like a pudding. I personally prefer the thicker versions, but if the flavour is right, I don’t mind a lighter version either. Thickness and creaminess are easier to achieve with a milk-based drink due to the higher fat content. For extra creaminess, try adding some double cream to your recipe. Playing around with chocolate to liquid ratios, you can even do a ganache-based hot chocolate using only double cream and chocolate, this creates a decadent version and less is probably more, so opt for a smaller mug or teacup when serving as it can be particularly filling.
I firmly recommend you to use a mini-whisk or even better a milk frother to mix your hot chocolate as you need to create a perfect emulsion for a delicious result. A simple spoon is unlikely to do the job (I know this from my failed attempts as a child to melt down my Santa-army) as you need friction. Just like making a mayonnaise or vinaigrette, you’re mixing water with fat, so the whisk helps to break down each element’s molecular structure and help them bind together into an emulsion. The result is a homogenous, creamy liquid instead of tiny chocolate particles floating in milk (which happened to me as a child). Also, the frother just makes it so much fun to prepare the hot chocolate. I love how it swirls the liquid and I could watch for hours the foam that forms on top. I also noticed that the fresher the milk, the thicker and more stable your milk froth will be. Once I frothed for so long, and incorporated so much air into the milk that the entire mug of hot chocolate (a more liquid version) became a chocolate milk foam and more than doubled in size. I also use this little gadget when making water-based hot chocolate. In fact, I think it is even more important in this case. Funny to compare the difference of foam bubbles on top:
Water-based (vegan) hot chocolate in Paris at Ara Chocolat made with Costa Rican dark chocolate.Bubbly foam on top of a hot chocolate mixed with whole milk.
Looking back to the traditional Mayan and Aztec versions of hot chocolate or recipes that are used up to now in Central and South America, the addition of cornflour/cornstarch is an easy way of thickening up your recipe without it becoming heavy. Depending on your recipe, you can end up with a very thick, pudding-like hot chocolate, that is even delicious as a treat when cold.
Spanish-style hot chocolate made with 85% Colombian chocolate at York Cocoa House with a complimentary white chocolate button.
Choose your base
Then, there’s the big question: what base to use dairy or water? Of course, again, it is a personal choice. The main difference here is that because water has no fat content compared to milk (or milk alternatives such as rice/almond/hazelnut/coconut milk), in order to get a creamier hot chocolate, you need to increase the amount of chocolate and decrease the amount of liquid. The advantage of water-based hot chocolates is that you don’t compromise on the flavour, so make sure that you choose a very good quality chocolate. The nuances and unique flavour profile come through beautifully, but so do the flaws. Consequently, if you want to hide off-flavours, bitterness or unpleasant notes, using milk will help you to achieve a nicer result.
It’s harder to froth the mix if using rice milk for example, but keep experimenting as there are different brands and some are easier to use for baristas.Preparing a water-based hot chocolate, first you pour in hot water just enough to cover the chocolate to melt it, then mix, and fill up with more water. Here using Kokoa Collection buttons.
If you’re using milk, the consistency and creaminess depends on the kind of milk you use. I always go for full-fat cow’s milk, because I prefer the flavour, but you can use semi-skimmed milk too. Fat-free milk would almost fall in the same category as water in this regard. Milk alternatives such as rice milk, nut milks, soy milk, coconut milk tend to give less creamy results than full-fat milk, but slightly creamier than water. Important reminder here is that these alternative milks have their own unique flavour (whether sweetened or unsweetened), so this will also influence the final flavour of your hot chocolate (same goes for goat’s or sheep’s milk, if you choose those).
Kokoa Collection Madagascar mixed with waterKokoa Collection Madagascar mixed with whole milk
Add-ons
Of course, the possibilities are truly endless already, but you can go even further by adding some extras to your hot chocolate. I’m no maths person, but I’m sure you could easily have a different kind of hot chocolate for a whole year by trying all the possible combinations (and maybe even more!). Challenge accepted?
Depending whether you use any extra sweetener, you can play around with different sugars, honey varieties, sugar syrups (those coffee-syrup things), maple syrup, agave, coconut sugar, or any other alternative you have on hand. Just bear in mind again, these will alter the final flavour of your drink.
Tcho Chocolate’s Golden Milk bar was a great base for a spicy, warming hot chocolate, but you can add the spices yourself as well to create your own version.
Spices are another great way to customise your hot chocolate. Cinnamon, vanilla, gingerbread spice mix, nutmeg, chilli, cardamom, star anise, chai spices are some of the easiest options. You can also be a bit more adventurous and try a version of golden milk using turmeric and ginger or add matcha powder. If you can find freeze-dried fruit powders, you can make fruity hot chocolates. Strawberry and raspberry go well with dark, milk and white chocolate equally. Another option is using flavour drops (you can get them in the baking aisle of supermarkets or specialist shops like Lakeland) and make orange, lemon, mint or marzipan flavoured (if using almond extract) hot chocolates.
Although I’m personally not a big fan of marshmallows, it’s fun when they melt into your hot chocolate. I was converted by Pump Street Bakery who put a giant vanilla marshmallow on top of their single origin hot chocolate, and I was just blown away how creamy, frothy the drink was because of this. (I’m not sure I’d say the same about those pink and white mini mallows you can get in supermarkets and that smell like plastic bags… ouch.)
Pump Street Bakery’s in-house hot chocolate using their Grenada bean-to-bar chocolate topped with a giant vanilla marshmallow (and accompanied by their amazing Eccles cake)
Adults-only
A splash of rum, Irish cream or Cointreau? Again, whatever your heart desires. Just make sure no kids go near your mug. And while we’re here, have you ever thought about mulled wine hot chocolate? Sounds crazy right? I saw this recipe in one of my favourite chocolate books, Adventures with Chocolate by Paul A. Young. Now, he is the one known for his truly adventurous and unique flavour combinations (think his Marmite truffle or the more recent Beef dripping caramel), so I knew this will be phenomenal. The recipe calls for a water-based hot chocolate with added cocoa powder, mulling spices, sugar, clementines and of course red wine. The result? Mind-blowingly delicious. I’ll share it with you in my next post along with other hot chocolate recipes that I love.
Hot chocolate is not just for kids, I hope this post made you realise that. With creativity and good ingredients, you can create delicious hot chocolates that will delight you and give you a boost of energy and happy feelings (chocolate triggers endorphin release in your brain, like when you’re in love). “It’s like a warm hug from the inside” we tend to say, and it’s true. Use the best ingredients you can find and you’ll be rewarded with not just a hot drink, but with all the benefits it will bring to your day and life.
In a follow-up post, I’ll share with you my experience of having a hot chocolate each day as well as my favourite recipes. Until then, please share your hot chocolate thoughts in the comments below.
Disclaimer: This post reflects my true and honest opinion and I wasn’t paid or recompensed in any way to write it or to include the above-mentioned brands or products.
Better later than never, here’s my personal recap of the UK’s biggest chocolate event of the year, the London Chocolate Show. This is part of the Salon du Chocolat world series, and this year was the fifth occasion that the British capital welcomed chocoholics, chocolate makers, chocolatiers and cacao producers from around the world.
Happy Beetle with two fresh cacao pods from the Dominican Republic
I hardly exaggerate if I say that I was waiting for the 15th October more than Christmas. There’s of course plenty of other chocolate events that I’d love to go to, like the NorthWest Chocolate Festival in Seattle, but since I live in the UK, London is not to be missed. Even more so that I won not one but two (!) pairs of tickets to the show on Instagram! Huge thanks again to Zara’s Chocolates and Solkiki Chocolatemaker for giving away some of their free tickets. How incredibly lucky I was, don’t you think? This made it possible for me to bring along not just my husband and son (spoilt child, I know! – although too young for chocolate still, so I had to eat his share too…;)) but my mum and my best chocolate friend too! How cool is that?!
I decided to visit the show on Sunday, which is the third and last day of the event. There’s usually less of a crowd than on Saturday, although many products sell out by then. That’s how I totally missed out on Paul A. Young’s beef dripping caramels among others. But, you’ll see, there’s many benefits to go at the end as well.
Highlights of my LCS-2017 experience
Fresh cacao Hands-down the most exciting thing at the show for me was to try a fresh cacao bean! I’ve seen fresh cacao pods before, in fact I got two fresh pods two years ago at the same event, but when I opened one of them, the pulp was already starting to dry onto the beans and it was tasting weird. This time however, at the exhibition area of the Dominican Republic, a lady was offering the fresh beans directly from an opened pod. It was wet and sticky, with a slightly acidic smell. I was so excited to try it! I thought that the white flesh will separate from the bean easily, but this wasn’t the case. So all I could do was just to suck on the pulp and discover that it tastes like a bit underripe banana. It was a green, tropical taste, so familiar. I bit the bean in half to see the inside. Beautiful deep purple colour was revealed under the white pulp.
The texture of the bean was similar to a soaked walnut, it was bitter, but not like bitter dark chocolate. The taste had absolutely nothing to do with chocolate. Mind-blowing! How on Earth did someone find out how delicious this little bean can be?! Wish we could time-travel to see.
The show welcomed many origin countries and cacao producing farms this year, so tasting fresh beans was possible at a few other stands as well. I think this is a wonderful idea, as this really brings chocolate closer to people.
This is chocolate before it’s born
Last but not least, many of these exhibitors brought along fresh and dried cacao pods, or even real cacao tree plants (!). Do you think they travelled home with those? Of course not. They were throwing away all those beauties used as props in their decorations (it’s not possible to make chocolate from them, you see). Thankfully, I knew this, and about half an hour before the end of the event I asked one of the stands whether I could take a cacao pod with me. They said yes, and even seemed happy that there’s one less thing for them to think about. In about ten minutes, their stand was all emptied as others jumped on the offer too. It’s a win:win situation. I mean look at these beauties (my mum wanted one as well of course!). .
Taste Tripper Tour
A mini version of Jennifer Earle’s Chocolate Ecstasy Tours was a perfect opportunity for me to do a quick round of some of the highlights of the show based around the title “Weird & Wonderful”. The other mini-tours included origins or chocolate pairings (such as “Gin & Chocolate”), but I love adventurous flavour combinations, so went on the W&W tour. We followed Jennifer and her umbrella (just like a real tour guide!) zig-zagging around the stalls and other visitors to find the most exciting flavours available at the show. As it was Sunday, some of the truly weird stuff had gone already (such as “Curry Shrimp White Chocolate” by FuWan Chocolates or Paul A. Young’s “Beef Dripping Caramel”), but we still had a great time trying other flavours.
All the “weird & wonderful” chocolates and some of their makers (left: Villakuyaya, middle top to bottom: Paul A. Young, Zara Snell, Russel 5th Dimension, right: Aneesh Popat)
6 tasting stops included: FuWan Chocolates (Dark Chocolate with Red Quinoa and Puffed Rice), Zara Snell from Winchester Fine Chocolates (Seven Seed Praline bar and her famous Moroccan Rose filled chocolate), Villakuyaya from Ecuador (Dark Chocolate with Masala Chai and Coconut & Vanilla), Aneesh Popat – The Chocolatier (Dark chocolate with chilli, popping candy and passion fruit, Dark chocolate with cardamom), 5Dimension Chocolates (filled chocolates: whole grain mustard, brie), Paul A. Young Fine Chocolates (Marmite truffle, Guittard’s single origin ganache).
We tasted a lot in about half an hour and had the chance to talk to many of the actual chocolate makers or chocolatiers and received a tote bag with some soft drinks and snacks and a few discount coupons to use at the show. All this for £5 was a good investment I think. .
Tree-to-bar chocolates Tree-to-bar means that the chocolate is actually made by the same people who own the cacao plantation, so it’s basically made at the source. Until recently, cacao producing countries and even farmers were selling all their crops to chocolate makers living in the US, Canada, Europe, etc. and they didn’t really get to taste their own chocolate. Luckily more and more farmers and cocoa producers had the opportunity to start producing their own chocolate and now looking to sell it worldwide and not just on their local market. The new kids on the block like FuWan Chocolates represent places like Taiwan (I seriously had no idea that Taiwan is a cacao producing country, but hey welcome!), SVG Cocoa – Vincentian Chocolate from St Vincent and the Grenadines (hint: it’s in the Caribbean above the island of Grenada).
As close to the origin as you can get – chocolates made at the plantation
Why is it such a big deal? Because more people can realise how wonderfully diverse cacao can be and also getting a closer contact with farmers can help to raise awareness about cacao farming conditions, issues and challenges all along the supply chain. .
Talking to makers and chocolatiers
Wandering around the chocolate show’s stalls, being attracted by colourful creations and the sweet smell of chocolate samples is of course a lovely feeling. But talking to the makers, getting inspired by their passion, determination, creativity, understanding a bit more what they are doing, what are their objectives, challenges, future plans, and sometimes even getting a warm, friendly hug from them is an invaluable thing for me. This isn’t just networking, this is sharing a passion for chocolate in this amazing chocolate community. I just love to be part of this. And I would like to take the occasion here to thank each and every person for their time to chat to me in the middle of this buzzing chocolate fair.
Lovely chat to makers, distributors, industry experts, fellow chocolate lovers! (pictured left top Ali Chocolate Tree, bottom Albert 5th Dimension, middle top Ingemann Fine Cocoa Nicaragua, bottom Bob Solkiki, right Bo San Beau Cacao, not pictured: many more!)
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Tasting Session with ICA
The reason it would be great to attend all the days of the show is to be able to listen to more demos, talks and take part in tastings. This year, instead of watching live demos on stage in the chocolate theatre, I decided to attend one of the tasting sessions organised by the International Chocolate Awards. They set up a booth where we could sit down around a table and taste some award-winning chocolates while talking about different aspects of the chocolate industry. It’s always a bit of a hit-and-miss because one never knows who will turn up to these tastings. There were some people like me, fine chocolate aficionados, and also some people who just generally like chocolate, but might still be unaware of the difference between mass-produced and fine flavour chocolates. The presenter has to accomodate everyone, which went reasonably well in this particular case.
In the first part, we tasted several award-winning micro-batch chocolates by Hummingbird, Duffy’s, Solkiki, and FriisHolm and compared flavour notes, terroir, different chocolate making styles. Micro-batch is defined by the size and type of equipment the makers use, not necessarily by the amount of chocolate they make in a single batch.
In the second part, Sophie Jewett from York Cocoa House was talking about their new project of building a totally transparent chocolate factory and learning space for chocolate lovers and chocolate professionals alike : the York Cocoa Works. They are building on York’s chocolate heritage but bringing to the table the modern challenges of cacao farming, supply chain, chocolate manufacturing, customer education. Part of this is their new bean-to-bar chocolate line, from which we tasted a few origins. Added bonus of these sample was that they were made there and then at the show from cocoa beans coming from Casa Luker‘s (Colombia) and Akesson’s (Madagascar) stand among others. They had ovens to roast the beans and they also brought several small grinders and let the visitors crack and shell the beans, add them to the grinder, and add further ingredients like sugar to the mix. Their master chocolatier was doing a demo on hand tempering on a marble slab, moulding the bars that were later used as samples on the stand and at our tasting session as well.
Artworks recreated in chocolate, you can tell why Mona Lisa is smiling 🙂
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Chocolate Art exhibition Overwhelmed by the number of stands to visit, chocolates to taste, talks and tastings to attend, I always find it hard to set aside some time to look at the additional exhibitional areas of the show. This time was no different, but I tried to have a quick look and I really liked what I saw. Making chocolate is an art in itself, but this was brought to a whole new level at the show. Chocolate was used here as paint, and we could see the chocolate smile of Mona Lisa, and the works of Munch, Mondrian, Van Gogh, Gustav Klimt, Michelangelo or even Banksy recreated in chocolate. Wouldn’t it be fun to have chocolate paintings at home? If you get bored of them, you can just eat them or melt them down in a hot chocolate or brownie 🙂 (haha, just kidding!)
+ and of course my amazing chocolate haul from the show including some of the newest makers
Loads of new chocolate for me to try! Love the tote bag from Beau Cacao. Not pictured: filled chocolates from 5th Dimension and Paul A. Young, just to be fully honest with you)
Did you attend the London Chocolate Show 2017? What were your highlights? Tell me in the comments below.
As promised in my previous introductory post about Harrer Chocolat, this time I will show you three of their award-winning chocolate bars more in detail. Flavoured solid bars and enrobed ganache bars are the flagships of Harrer’s chocolate product line so I thought I will taste some of these. The range is very wide, from kid-friendly white and milk chocolates sprinkled with colourful beans or coloured with freeze dried strawberries, through all-time favourites like whole hazelnuts, fruit&nut, strawberry and raspberry, salted caramel, finishing with adventurous pairings like their popular white chocolate with mint, using trendy ingredients like matcha tea, tonka beans, ylang-ylang, smoked salt. And last but not least their wine or spirit flavoured ganache bars are the fruits of cooperation with some of Hungary’s most famous wine and spirit making companies.
Modern and colourful design
Before tucking in, let me just briefly talk about the packaging. All the bars are 9x9cm square shape and come in a teal coloured box matching the brand colours and decorated with a shiny embossing of floral curves. All the important information regarding the bar is on a removable label that showcases the main ingredient of the bar on the front (plus the award labels) and ingredients in both Hungarian and German on the back. The bar can easily be pulled out on either side as it is sitting in a white pocket perfectly safe. I love how the whole packaging is completely resealable and that this little pocket is cushioning the bar so well. The removable flavour label makes it very easy for them to customise their packaging, so it is possible to buy some bars for occasions with cute labels like ‘I love you’, ‘Thank you’ or ‘Happy Birthday’, with the logo of a company (Harrer is sponsoring for example the VOLT Festival, one of Hungary’s biggest music festivals in Sopron) or a landmark (e.g their Sopron collection).
Tonka bean
Firstly, just take a moment to look at the bar itself. It’s a thin ganache square enrobed in a thin layer of milk chocolate. The top side of the bar has a slightly wavy surface which can be achieved by blowing air on the chocolate before it sets. You can try this technique when hand dipping chocolates, but it’s a built-in fan that does the job for you if you have an enrobing machine. And then you turn the bar to check the bottom. My jaw literally dropped. I know, it’s not such a big thing to use a structure sheet on the bottom of chocolates to create a relief, in this case the Harrer logo, but I just wasn’t expecting such an attention to detail. This is a minor detail and doesn’t really affect how the chocolate will taste. But really, do you think a chocolate will taste bad after taking so much care to create its look? I doubt it. But let’s see!
I love the irresistible aroma and flavour of tonka beans
Honestly, do you know anyone who doesn’t like tonka beans? I don’t. (But hey, comment below if you do!) There’s just something so comforting when you smell this wonderful spice. Vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg all in one. It has a lovely warmth without being too spicy and it pairs really well with milk chocolate. Harrer knows this well too, as here you have a thin layer of velvety milk chocolate ganache infused with tonka beans covered in a 50% milk chocolate. I think it was a really good choice to use a stronger milk chocolate here as with a lower percentage this combination could end up tasting overly sweet. I hope you can see from the cross-section photo how perfectly balanced the filling-to-shell ratio is. The chocolate is soft and smooth, creamy. The smell and later the taste of tonka beans dominates throughout but is never excessive. I wonder if someone can restrain themselves from eating this bar in one sitting. I only managed because I have two other ones to try…
Apricot
This bar has the same look as the previous Tonka bean bar, but this time the milk chocolate ganache has an amazingly fresh fruitiness from the puréed dried apricots. The apricot aroma hits your nose as soon as you open the packaging. This is not because they added any flavourings. The trick here is to use a splash of apricot pálinka (a Hungarian speciality, basically a fruit brandy) and a bit of nutmeg to enhance the flavour of the fruit in the chocolate. It works brilliantly. Again, look at the cross-section photo, you can almost see the apricot fibre in the ganache. It’s like 1 of your 5-a-day! Yet the mouthfeel is still smooth and creamy. The ‘World Gold’ International Chocolate Award in 2015 is absolutely well deserved for this creation.
Delightfully fruity apricot ganache with a punch
Caramelised Rosemary
Among the many fruity, spicy or alcohol-filled bars this was one has the most intriguing flavour to me. So I obviously had to try it. Some herbs go really well with chocolate, think mint, lavender or even basil but this was the first time I saw rosemary in chocolate. And not only rosemary but caramelised rosemary. I couldn’t wait to finally try it.
Beautiful balance of flavours created with an unusual ingredient
This time we are looking at a solid 50% milk chocolate bar, but the packaging and the size of the bar is the same. The mould design is simple and elegant showing the Harrer logo and replicating the floral curve motifs from the packaging. The bar is thin and easy to break, it gives a satisfying snap. The aroma reminds me of something from my childhood, I can’t exactly picture what. Is it a dessert, some other food, or just a memory? I can’t tell. But it’s a familiar and pleasant feeling. As the piece of chocolate starts to melt on my tongue and I slowly inhale, the rosemary’s true flavour kicks in with a punch. It is not overwhelming, but strong and fresh. I think you need to like rosemary to like this chocolate, but if you do, you will have a great tasting experience. To get the caramelised rosemary they used Muscovado sugar which, with its deeper, molasses-like flavour, compliments the earthy and floral notes of the rosemary. Pairing all these with a 50% milk chocolate turned out again as a good choice in my opinion. But I’d be curious to try this in a similarly earthy-floral single origin dark chocolate too.
Do you like flavoured milk chocolates? What’s your favourite? Comment below!
Disclaimer: My review is 100% my true personal opinion about the products (whether I bought them myself or received as a gift). This is not a paid advertisement for the company.
It’s only ten days until Easter, a peak time in chocolate trading, when every shop is flooded with chocolate eggs, bunnies, hens and chicks, lambs and hot cross buns. And no matter how early or late Easter is, those (in)famous creme eggs hit the shelves bang on Boxing Day (yes, last December!). I always think it’s waaay too early and you will see from this blog anyway, that I am not a huge fan of anything by Cadbury, especially these chocolate eggs filled with a painfully sweet fondant (sugar paste).
So, in today’s post I would like to show you some alternatives. Living in the UK makes it so easy to swap boring creme eggs to something much better. There is an ever-growing offer of beautifully handmade, delicious chocolate treats, that are created with higher quality chocolate, less sugar, and with lots of creativity and passion. My list is almost entirely based on what I found on Instagram, my favourite platform to see what other chocolate makers and chocolatiers are up to. Also, this list is a very subjective collection, and probably missing many creations that exist on the market. But hopefully, I can give you some ideas in time to fill your Easter baskets.
If you have kids, and you are thinking that these are too expensive yet not enough for them, please think twice. Choose quality over quantity, and you will see that kids are genuinely open to new things. And if we stop saying: “Honey, you won’t like this, it’s dark chocolate”, we get one step closer to a generation growing up on good quality chocolates (consumed in moderation). If I haven’t convinced you, just take a look at this recent survey and see how much sugar your kids will consume if they receive the average amount of traditional Easter treats. I honestly hope that you will change your mind.
No kids? At least, you don’t have to share your chocolates with them (or trying to eat them hidden behind a cupboard door). There is no excuse for not treating yourself to some really good chocolates!
Let’s see what are my favourite picks* from this year’s Easter season:
Pump Street Bakery
It all started with the chicken (or the egg?!). In time, I will write more about this British chocolate maker, launched at a place that first became famous for their freshly baked breads and pastries, hence the name. Then they decided to make chocolate directly from the cocoa beans (bean-to-bar), and they’ve had a triumphant success. If you have already tried their chocolate bars, then you know, that these two bean-to-chickens will be a bliss (if you haven’t, just believe me!). The milk chocolate chicken is made from their 58% Madagascan chocolate, high cocoa content (= less sugar), creamy and fruity. The dark chocolate chicken is made with their Jamaican 75% dark, a rich chocolate with sweet fruity notes. They weigh 35g each. Both chickens are available from their web shop for £5.95 each, and come in a cute, specially designed cardboard tube, sitting on a nest.
Milk and dark bean-to-chicken (photo: PumpStBakery)
Dormouse Chocolates
Manchester-based chocolate makers teasing us this Easter with three bean-to-egg creations. Two darks, a rich and fruity Guatemalan 72% and their award-winning Madagascan 75.6% with a deep oaky flavour note. The third is a high cocoa milk chocolate egg, Guatemalan 51.5% cocoa giving you a satisfyingly creamy caramel flavour. They are £10.00 each available from their website.
Ever heard of the Triple Truffle? Jamie Kemp, chocolatier of JK Fine Chocolates is the inventor of these triple-layered delights (a creamy caramel centre surrounded by a single-origin ganache layer and enrobed in single-origin chocolate), and this year he created these rustic mini eggs filled with some of the best single-origin chocolate ganaches from Vietnam (70% Tien Gang by Marou), Ecuador (70% by Montecristi) and Venezuela (43% milk), and of course his award-winning salted caramel. Available in a box of 8 (2 of each flavour) for £12.50 or a box of 16 (4 of each) for 22.50 from his web shop.
Single origin eggs filled with delicious ganache
and award-winning salted caramel (photo: JKFineChocolates)
Zara’s Chocolates
Moving to Bristol now to show you these funky cactus eggs by Zara’s Chocolates. All three milk chocolate eggs are made and decorated by hand and hide a golden egg inside. For a more futuristic design, you can choose one of their marbled eggs: a 67% Madagascan dark with a crunchy almond brittle lining on the inside, a 36% Javanese milk with a honeycomb pecan crunchy inner layer, or the all-time favourite salted caramel egg available in both milk and dark (39% or 76% Ecuador) with 6 salted caramel chocolates on the inside. The three cacti eggs are £10.00, the crunchy eggs are £13.00 and the salted caramel eggs are £18.00 from their web shop.
Russel and Albert are well-known for their amazing (and multiple award-winning!) filled chocolates inspired by their travels, but come Christmas or Easter, they also offer seasonal products, that are just as great! I mean, look at these beautiful galaxy eggs, they are handmade from high quality Colombian chocolate. Choose either 65% dark or 50% milk for £13 each. Another fun product they have is their Disc’O Egg, which is layers of 34% white, 50% milk and 65% dark Colombian chocolate discs, weighing a total of 400g, perfect for sharing (if you do :)). Unfortunately, the Disc’O egg is not available online, but you can grab one if you happen to be at Taste Chocolate Festival in Bristol at Easter weekend for example. (See more Easter chocolate events at the end of the article.)
New kids on the block, Hill St. was founded in 2016 by two brothers, a chocolatier and a designer. Website still in progress, but if you happen to be near Saffron Walden, check out their chocolate shop. Their Easter range of shapes come in different sizes and are filled with caramel eggs, praline characters, moulded chocolates and wafer crisp chocolate pearls.
The egg-cowboy, the sheep and the pink chicken (photo: Hill St. Instagram)
Chocolate Events this Easter
What better way to enjoy chocolates at Easter than to visit a chocolate fair or festival. This year, there are several locations to choose from, so don’t miss out if you are in the area. Click on the links for more info about the venues and event programmes.
*Disclaimer: This list is my subjective selection. This is not a paid advertisement of the chocolatiers or events that are mentioned. I didn’t receive any money or favour for writing the article.
Milk and dark bean-to-chicken (photo: 
Bean-to-egg (photo: 
Fun cactus eggs and crunchy marbled eggs (photo: 
Galaxy and Disc’O Eggs (photo: 
The egg-cowboy, the sheep and the pink chicken (photo: Hill St. Instagram)