Who’s up for an extra thick chocolate egg for Easter? Hotel Chocolat have you covered. And to get you in the mood, I’ve reviewed a couple of them for you here.
I have a particular weakness for caramel, so when I was offered the chance to review an Easter egg from Hotel Chocolat, it was this Rocky Road to Caramel that I chose. It wasn’t just the caramel that drew me of course, it was the lure of it being an extra thick chocolate egg. Do you remember those thick shelled chocolate eggs we all got as children? False memory syndrome most probably, but Hotel Chocolat have tried to address the issue.
Extra Thick Chocolate Egg
So? Two large milk chocolate egg halves wrapped in thick gold foil and contained in an attractive boutique style box. I thought it somewhat reminiscent of an old-fashioned hat box. One egg half is covered with a rocky road mixture of crispy puffed rice, cookies and chocolate chunks and the other half with a layer of caramel chocolate.
They’re enough to satisfy the most voracious of chocolate appetites. The chocolate is the standard house 40%, which although sweeter than I like, is still way ahead of most of the high street chocolate available.
Extra Thick Chocolate Egg – The Chocs
Each egg half contains six filled milk chocolates making a total of twelve unique treats. Some have familiar fillings and some I’d never tried before. They’re mostly themed around caramel and praline with the odd truffle to ring the changes.
I particularly enjoyed the Billionaires Shortbread which is a lovely mix of caramel, cookie pieces and praline. The Choc Chip Cookie is also fun. It’s milk chocolate with whole hazelnuts and pieces of dark chocolate cookies scattered throughout.
The Caramel Praline with pecan nuts is really delicious. It’s slightly crunchy with a wonderful taste of pecans and caramel ending up with a strong hit of praline. I’m not quite sure why Dizzy Praline was so named, but it has a lovely rich hazelnut flavour and is not as sweet as some of the others. An Orange Praline is most enjoyable with a nice balance of orange to hazelnut.
I was thrilled to see three liquid caramels, two of which were my favourite salted caramels. One is in a milk chocolate shell and one in a dark one – mmmm.
As well as a solid milk chocolate bunny, there’s a really cute little chick, which I thought was an owl until I read the description – oops! I was still happy to bite its head off and was very glad I did as it contains crushed caramel pieces and Maldon sea salt. Another big yum.
Extra Thick Chocolate Egg – The Verdict
Now to the burning question. Are those shells properly thick?
Weeelllll! In parts is the answer. The edges are really thick and excitingly, I found them quite difficult to break. Some of the middle is also very thick, but some of it is really quite thin. But I wasn’t disappointed, the shell is a lot thicker than most. And it would be difficult to eat if it was as thick as the outer edge all the way through.
The Eggsibitionist
The Eggsibitionist is another Easter egg from Hotel Chocolat with a properly thick shell. Just like those I remember from childhood. I liked the play on words and wondered whether the artistically marked mini eggs lurking within were straight out of some modern art gallery.
It’s made of their house 40% milk chocolate, which I couldn’t wait to get my teeth into (and didn’t). The chocolate had an almost coconutty aroma with a smooth, creamy mouth feel and a satisfying depth of flavour. The egg contained 12 mini eggs in 6 flavours – one each, no squabbling.
Vanilla Custard Egg
This has the consistency of custard but is more reminiscent of good vanilla ice-cream in a milk chocolate shell with a hint of bitterness to it. Very pleasant.
Milk Praline
Mmmmm hazelnuts roasting on an open fire. No mistaking the flavour here, hazelnut to the core. A fine quality praline, this was our favourite.
Mouse au Chocolat
For the dark chocolate lover, this is ideal. A 70% dark chocolate shell filled with a smooth and not overly sweet dark ganache. It was rich and the taste of chocolate lingered long on the palate – CT thought that one of these was a meal in itself.
Strawberry
We both found this white chocolate rather too sweet and a bit sickly for our palate. The strawberry ganache, disappointingly, tasted artificial. Oh dear!
Chocolate Brownie
This one was very nice but I could see no real connection to a chocolate brownie. It tasted of cocoa pops, which I guess is no surprise as this is what it contained.
Caramel
I do love a caramel and this was the one I was most looking forward to. Unfortunately, the caramel is overly salty which somewhat detracts from the enjoyment. It does, however, have a really nice 50% milk chocolate shell.
More Easter Eggs You Might Like
- An Easter eggstravaganza
- Chocolate Easter eggs – the best of the nest
- Easter chocolate bites
- Homemade Easter eggs
Stay in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you get to try an extra thick chocolate egg, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do share photos on your preferred social media site and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.
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glennamy says
Got this for my daughter – her reply was ‘This is what I would like next year please!’ I didn’t get a sniff!
JaynesDen says
This looks so luxurious. I would need to be a very good girl to receive one of these.
Perky says
Mmmmmmm! I’m coveting these Ostrich eggs so much! This is my fave, hope the Easter Bunny is good to me this year!
cakeboule says
OMG I wish I had ordered that now – I tried the sleekster egglets which were very good but this looks better!
thelittleloaf says
I really really really want this egg for Easter – have been not-so-subtly suggesting this to my boyfriend for a couple of weeks now. Maybe he’ll read this and get the hint?! 🙂
Charlotte Pike says
I thoroughly enjoyed this egg, too. You are right, the billionaire shortbread chocolate was very good. My egg is now no more…
VegBoxBoy says
I’ve been instructed to purchase one of these the day after Easter Monday (when they’ll probably be half price). Lucky you getting sent one to review: looks veh nice.
Green Dragonette says
That looks so so good-must order one-for a present-oh what the heck it’s going to be for me!!