The nights are drawing in and there is no escaping the autumnal nature of the weather. It’s also chocolates for National Chocolate Week, so time to get tucked up with a mug of cocoa and indulge in this huge selection of chocolate offerings.
Autumn Sleekster
There’s something rather wonderful about the aroma that wafts out from a good box of chocolates when you lift the lid off. Hotel Chocolat never fails to disappoint in this regard. This beautiful gold box, embossed with coppery gold oak leaves and acorns, is the Autumn Sleekster. You can find it on the shelves now, just in time to help us through the shortening days and Chocolate Week.
The Autumn Sleekster contains 27 chocolates for Chocolate Week with the comforting tastes of mellow fruitfulness. I found walnuts, crumble, pecan pie and banana bread. As always with Hotel Chocolat, there are new chocolates to get excited about amongst some familiar favourites.
Salted caramel is my top chocolate and the one I will always hunt for first. Thankfully this box of chocolates reflects my passion. No good selection box is complete without at least one, I reckon. This autumn sleekster not only has two salted caramel pecan pies, but also two salted caramel vodka chocolates. Oh joy!
The salted caramel vodka is warming and sumptuous and the flavours linger on for some time after eating. This makes for a particularly satisfying experience. I was delighted to find an autumnal apple crumble. You really can’t have a self-respecting autumn collection without one of those. It may be a little different from the blackberry and apple crumble I recently posted, but you definitely know what you’re getting. Tart apple alongside spiced caramel sits in a dark chocolate cup with a little crunchy crumble on the top.
I was a little surprised to find that the Banana Bread was one of my favourites. Banana bread is lovely of course, but you don’t expect it to feature in a box of chocolates. It has crunchy walnuts and hazelnuts with banana and just a hint of cinnamon in a milk chocolate shell. For CT, who is rather fond of coffee flavoured chocolates, there were a couple of Tiramisu which kept him happy for a while. With a choice of whipped mousse, chewy florentine, marzipan, pralines and dark chocolate, to mention but a few, there is something to suit every palette.
The colours of the chocolates for Chocolate Week are mostly dark oranges and tans to reflect the seasonal colour. The same goes for the box, which is why I find it so appealing. I think I’ll have to keep it. The nuts, spices, alcohol and general warm coziness found in the chocolates make this a box to dip into after a bracing walk through the autumn leaves. Snuggle up and enjoy. Sorry Denmark, but who needs hygge?
Halloween Bites from Hotel Chocolat
Hotel Chocolat has risen through the ranks in recent years and is now a well known high street chocolate brand. It has an innovative range of good quality and ethically sourced chocolates. They even grow some of their chocolate on their very own Rabot Estate on St Lucia.
It’s a particular favourite of mine as their house milk chocolate has a high cocoa content of 40%. And some of their range goes much higher still. With Halloween fast approaching (groan), Hotel Chocolat have produced a range of ghoulish goodies. They sent me a box of Halloween Bites to get stuck into – which I duly did.
There is something for everyone in this box: dark, milk, white, sweet, sophisticated, it’s all here. The menu card, cleverly tucked into the back of the box is suitably creepy. For those on the squeamish side and I count myself amongst that number, the eyeballs are really quite horrific.
Luckily not all of the chocolates stare back at you. There are cute little pumpkins much more suited to delicate constitutions or even better, the straight salted caramel and dark caramels.
Salted Soft Caramel – I just couldn’t help myself, I reached for this one first. As regular readers will know, I am in love with salted caramel. I have tried the Hotel Chocolat ones, er, once or twice before, so I knew just how good they are.
Liquid caramel with a touch of well balanced sea salt, melts through the milk chocolate giving a burst of exquisite flavour.
Soft Caramel – What a treat. It’s similar to the salted soft caramel, but made with Hotel Chocolat’s darker 50% milk chocolate. I liked it mostly because I”m a big fan of a darker milk chocolate and find it quite hard to source.
Oozy Eyes – White – Filled with a sweet red gory caramel which seemed to have a slightly fruity flavour, these eyeballs were nothing if not grotesque. Kids will love them.
Oozy Eyes – Dark – These eyeballs were even more horrific, filled as they were with a pussy green, slightly salted, but still sweet caramel with an odd flavour I couldn’t identify and thinking about it, I don’t want to.
Praline Pumpkins – Smooth hazelnut praline covered in both milk and white chocolate, I found these to be rather too sweet. But oh, they look so adorable, especially the yellow pumpkin.
Gianduja Bombes – These were the most sophisticated chocolates in the box and despite my love of salted caramels might possibly get my vote for number one in this particular selection. A dark chocolate shell encased a light moussy truffle which had just the right amount of sweetness for me. Like all good quality chocolate, the flavour lingered on the palate, long after the chocolate had melted away.
The Crystal Skull – A large piece of milk chocolate full of cherry flavoured crystals which I found quite delicious, both in texture and flavour – that is, as long as I kept my mind well away from the thought of crunching on skull bones. This was very cleverly done.
Artisan du Chocolat No 1 – Sea Salted Caramels
I had the joy of sampling these sea salted caramels from Artisan du Chocolat at a food bloggers conference in Birmingham a couple of years ago and they have lived on in my memory ever since. When The Handpicked Foodstore offered me a 130g box to review, I nearly bit their hand off.
These caramels are darkly sophisticated and utterly delicious. They are quite small in size and come in a substantial reusable tub presented in a simple, elegant box. Maybe their stylist is Cocoa Chanel.
A dark chocolate shell, coated in cocoa powder contains a liquid caramel that is slightly salted and full on in flavour. The salt is a grey sea salt, harvested by hand from clay marshes in the Vendée, just south of Brittany. It’s reputed to be full of beneficial micro nutrients.
I was fascinated to learn about the Island of Noirmoutier, where the salt is harvested. I’m now keen to visit and walk the three mile causeway to the island which you can only do at low tide. Invented by Gerard Coleman for Gordon Ramsay at Claridges in 2003, these artisan chocolate caramels set the scene for the many sea salted caramels that followed them.
The Handpicked Foodstore is an online delicatessen delivering fine foods sourced from small artisan producers, mostly from the UK. If the chocolate section is anything to go by, I can vouch that this statement is true. I spotted chocolates from Rococo, Montezuma and Artisan du Chocolat to name but three.
A 130g tub containing approximately 24 sea salted caramels costs £13.50. These are not an every day chocolate, but one of these caramels goes a long way and they are well worth considering for gifts and special occasions. Are you listening CT?
Chocolate and Love
There is a new bar in the Chocolate and Love range. It’s a single origin dark chocolate bar. Recently, one winged its way to my door together with a bar of Crushed Diamonds to try. Another intriguing offering.
I’ve reviewed a couple of Chocolate and Love bars before and was impressed with their quality. The ingredients are both fairly traded and organic, which already puts them ahead of the pack.
Interestingly, neither bar contains lecithin, soya or otherwise, so I wonder why this is such a common ingredient in so many other chocolate bars.
The chocolate wrappers reflect the jungle where the cocoa beans are grown. I find the design particularly appealing. You can find further information about the bar and the cocoa growers on the reverse side along with pictures of some of the growers and producers.
As before, I was rather disappointed to find the inner wrapper is still plastic. For me, this does not represent the high quality of what I find inside and I feel, does it a disservice.
Panama (80%) – cocoa mass, raw cane sugar, cocoa butter, ground vanilla
It always surprises me just how different chocolate can taste. As a single origin chocolate, the terroir as well as the type of bean and production techniques plays a part in the unique flavour profile.
The beans used for this chocolate are the finer varieties of Trinitario and Criollo. For an 80% bar, it’s surprisingly unbitter. In fact it’s quite moreish, which is unusual for very dark chocolate. It has a very smooth mouthfeel with notes of coffee and a hint of citrus.
Crushed Diamonds (55%) – cocoa mass, raw cane sugar, cocoa butter, whole cane sugar, milk fat, roasted cocoa nibs, ground vanilla
What a fabulous name for a chocolate bar, for surely chocolate is the diamond of the food industry.
Not surprisingly, this tastes quite sweet after sampling the Panama. CT noted a subtle and very pleasant pear drop flavour to it. The cocoa nibs, however, provide a note of contrasting bitterness as well as texture; this is less of a chocolate to melt slowly and voluptuously in the mouth and more one to crunch with gusto.
Baileys Chocolat Luxe
Oh boy, there’s not much more to say about this, other than one sip and I was hooked. In fact one sniff of the heady aroma of chocolate and alcohol and I abandoned all restraint. Warming, soothing and velvety, this is the ideal antidote to those autumn blues. The flavour of chocolate and whiskey slowly inveigles itself from the tip of the tongue to the back of the throat and everywhere in between in a most delightful way.
I started with a small glass and very quickly progressed to a second. CT, who has always been a secret Baileys tippler, was equally enamoured of this chocolate version. “They say Guinness is good for you but Baileys Chocolat is better”, quipped CT. As it turned out, he found it served as an excellent medicine for the autumnal cold he picked up.
The serving suggestion is to pour over ice, but we prefer it neat. It would of course be delicious over ice-cream and if I can hide it from CT and his spurious “for medicinal purposes” claims, I have some interesting ideas for using it in Christmas baking.
Just out, this chocolate in a bottle has taken three years in the making. After 839 attempts at getting a perfect blend of whiskey and Belgian chocolate, Anthony Wilson, the son of the original Baileys Irish Cream creator, finally cracked it. Baileys Chocolat Luxe (15.7%) is now available at £16.99 for a 50cl bottle. Try not to drink it all at once.
Divine Chocolate Bars
An ethical chocolate producer I rate highly is Divine, which released the first Fairtrade chocolate available in the UK. The cocoa farmers in Ghana own nearly half of the company, so we can be assured that Divine is truly offering a fair price to the growers. I have written about them before in my post Divine Intervention where you can find out a bit more about the company.
Some time ago now, Divine sent me a couple of bars of each of their newest creations. I really don’t understand where time goes anymore, but one thing I do know, there is always plenty of things to write about. As before, the chocolate arrived well packaged, but I was keen to open the box and have a look at the new bars.
Divine chocolate bars are distinctively adorned with striking west African Adrinka motifs. They draw my eye every time I see them. On the inside of each wrapper, you will find a story from some of the cocoa farmers belonging to the co-operative. This is a particularly inspiring feature which brings to life the journey of bean to bar and shows Divine really does care about the people involved in the whole chocolate making process. I have yet to be disappointed with any of the Divine bars I’ve tried, so let’s see how these two bars fare.
These 100g bars are available at Waitrose and on the Divine online shop retailing at £2 a bar.
Milk Chocolate with Toffee and Sea Salt
(38% cocoa – sugar, cocoa butter, skimmed milk powder, cocoa mass, butterscotch, butterfat, sea salt, soya lecithin, vanilla).
With my predilection for the sweet and salt combination, I was looking forward to trying this one. The chocolate itself is smooth but with interesting textural editions of toffee shards and salt crystals. The flavour of toffee is the first to impact the palate but then the salt comes through, which is probably the right way around.
Interestingly the toffee lingers on the palate after the saltiness has dispersed – a pleasant sensation. It is not as sweet as you might expect and isn’t overly salty. Both CT and I detected notes of coconut in the chocolate, which we both really liked.
Dark Chocolate with Chilli & Orange
(70% cocoa)
Chilli chocolate is a particular favourite of mine, so I was looking forward to trying this one. Perhaps not surprisingly, the first notes I detected were citrussy orange ones. Luckily, they’re not overwhelming or synthetic in quality, as is sometimes the case with other brands of orange chocolate.
The chilli then begins to make its presence felt in a gentle but increasingly firm manner which leads to a pleasant afterglow in the mouth. Again, the chocolate is very smooth and melts delightfully on the tongue. We both found this to be surprisingly moreish for a dark chocolate.
Fudge Kitchen
Just in time for Chocolate Week, Fudge Kitchen have launched a gourmet fudge collection of nine chocolate miniatures – Chocolate Indulgence. This Bath based company have been making their specialist whipping cream fudge for the last 30 years using an old American recipe from the 1830s.
Handmade on traditional marble slabs, the fudge is also hand decorated for individual effect. I generally find fudge too sweet for me these days. I wasn’t, however going to turn down the offer of trying some when I got the chance.
Devilishly different, according to Fudge Kitchen, I was keen to see how it compared to some of our own Cornish fudge. The fudge squares are attractively presented in their own box. It includes a key to inform us which one of the nine flavours is which.
All made with whipping cream, butter, golden syrup and chocolate of course, Fudge Kitchen, use no artificial additives in their products and indeed there was nothing on the list of ingredients to cause me to frown. The pieces were large, so I shared them with CT, although the sharing fairy may not have approved of my somewhat irregular divisiion of the spoils.
The fudge is of the fudgy variety rather than crumbly and is very dense. I enjoyed all of them, but as predicted, I found them a little on the sweet, side. Although some more so than others. I think the flavours would come through better with less sugar involved. I find too much sugar tends to overwhelm the palate.
They’re all very rich, so probably best enjoyed a little bit at a time, which is how it should be really.
Fudge Flavours
Dark Chocolate and Pistachio – rich and sweet with overtones of molasses, this was very nice, but I couldn’t detect any pistachio flavour. CT thought the flavour more akin to liquorice.
Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt – one of my favourite combinations, so I was particularly looking forward to this one. It smelt wonderful, sweet and richly chocolatey at the same time. There was a definite taste of the salty sea which I liked, although when it comes to salt, less is more. It was less sweet than the pistachio and CT noticed a slightly drying effect on the palate, which you often get with dark chocolate.
White Chocolate and Raspberry – this is a classic combination and worked very well in the fudge, I thought. The raspberry flavour was refreshing and maybe because of this it wasn’t as sweet as I was expecting it to be. In fact it was quite delicious and turned out to be my favourite.
Belgian Chocolate Swirl – tasted more like vanilla fudge than chocolate to me. Nice, but lacking in any particular distinctive characteristics.
Chocolate Fruit & Nuts – rich and nutty with raisins and walnuts creating a chewy texture giving it additional interest. CT likened it to Christmas cake.
Hazelnut Heaven – a fudgy praline with a nice flavour and smooth texture, but rather too sweet for me. CT enjoyed the way the flavour persisted on his palate.
Double Trouble Chocolate – tasted like milk chocolate and reminded me a little of a chocolate version of the Indian sweet barfi.
Chilli Chocolate – the chilli worked really well with the chocolate fudge allowing the flavour as well as the heat to slowly develop. This was my favourite after the raspberry. It was really quite hot, but this helped to punch through its sweetness.
Rich Chocolate Classic – as its title suggested, this one was very rich and tasted the most chocolatey of all; because of this it was a little less sweet.
Choccy Munchy Seeds
Now here is an intriguing idea – chocolate covered seeds. If you need an excuse to eat chocolates for Chocolate Week, this might just be it. Pumpkin and sunflower seeds all enrobed with our favourite ingredient.
Choccy Munchy Seeds sent me their new chilli and ginger version as well as a packet of their apricot mix. Well, chilli and ginger combined with chocolate was not something I was going to say no to.
These Choccy Munchy Seeds come in packets of 50g so are just about right for a moorland walk. They cost between £1.50 and £2.00 and are available at Harvey Nichols or directly from Munchy Seeds online. The seeds have a decent amount of chew to them and this slows down consumption and increases the enjoyment.
Tasty treats these are indeed, but I’m not sure they are quite as healthy for you as the manufacturer would have you believe – sugar is, after all, quite high up in the list of ingredients and these did taste rather sweet. That said, if you’re looking for a chocolate snack, these are likely to be better for you than a standard confectionary bar.
All in all, these were a fun and interesting way to increase our intake of some useful vitamins and minerals. They were, actually, good enough to inspire me to have a go at making my own. I’ll let you know how I get on.
Belgian Dark Chocolate with Chilli & Ginger
Unlike my chocotos, these are not going to cause a major melt down in your mouth. Instead they leave a pleasant, if subtle warmth behind. Covered in Belgian Plain Chocolate (65%), the seeds are more palatable than they might otherwise be.
Although I enjoy raw pumpkin seeds, I’m not so keen on sunflowers in their raw state. The best bits are the ginger chunks. The chilli contributes to their overall heat and deliciousness – shame there were so few of them.
Belgian Chocolate Mix with Apricots
The pumpkin seeds and apricot pieces are covered in the same 65% dark chocolate as the chilli & ginger. The sunflower seeds, on the other hand, are enrobed with 30% milk chocolate. This made for an interesting combination. Again the sunflowers benefited from their chocolate covering and the dark chocolate offset the sweetness of the apricots.
Mug Of Cocoa
Who doesn’t love a hot cup of drinking chocolate? For this mug of cocoa, head over to my recipe for hot chocolate: the real deal. Or you may find this post reviewing various drinking chocolates useful.
Keep in Touch
Thank you for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you try any of these chocolates for Chocolate Week, I’d love to know what you thought. If you post pictures on social media, please use the hashtag #tinandthyme so I can see them.
For more delicious and nutritious recipes follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest. And don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to my weekly newsletter. Or why not join the conversation in our Healthy Vegetarian Whole Food Recipes Facebook Group?
If you’d like even more chocolate reviews, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them.
Choclette x
Twiddle Dee says
I’d love to try the salted caramels 🙂 Natalie Gillham x
Ellen Stafford says
I had a sample of chocolate baileys and it’s lush!!!
glennamy says
Lone the chocolate ideas… I was wondering in regards to Bailey’s, is it a strong whiskey taste as I do not like just whiskey straight up, and as Bailey’s is a mix is it more palatable for a non whiskey lover?
Heather Haigh says
Sounds incredibly moreish – chocolate and Baileys – got to be good.
Amy Jo McLellan says
I can’t believe I missed these Halloween chocolates – they looked so cool!
Joanne Higgins says
have to agree, the Bailey’s choclat Lux is to die for….. very yummy indeed xx
Angie Hoggett says
I’ve tried the Baileys Chocolat Lux, it’s brilliant in cocktails too! x
debbie godbolt says
Hi Baileys Chocolat Luxe tastes amazing but is soo expensive thank you for the review x
William G says
Wow these look great! And gorey enough to stop my wife from eating them!
Maya Russell says
I love the look of everything on this post – the Bailey’s glasses especially. The Halloween bites are so good!
Lindy Hine says
Mmm! chocolate and Baileys – a combination of 2 of my favourite tastes! They must be on a winner with this one!
Gill Bland says
I bet that choc baileys would be great with icecream. I love the sound of the crystal skull too.
The Caked Crusader says
Love those chocolate pumpkins – they’re so cute!
The Ordinary Cook says
Oh, you did me make me laugh with the description of the green ooze in that Halloween chocolate. I still remember those Artisan du Chocolate chocolates too. Yum, yum.
Katie says
Oh wow love the look of the Hotet Chocolat goodies. Those eyes are freeky, especially with the red and green fillings. Love the sound of the hazelnut pumpkins though!
Jacqueline Meldrum says
Mmmmmm, chocolate heaven. I;ll have some of each please!
Angie Schneider says
Now you have me crave for Chocolate Baileys !
Babucho says
Chocolate baileys sounds great. Thanks for sharing.
Laura Denman says
You’ve made me even more eager to try the chocolate Baileys now. I don’t drink because I don’t like the taste of alcohol unless it is in baking but then I tried a cream liqueur in York which made me wonder if I had found my one alcoholic drink so now I can’t wait to give the sample of chocolate Baileys I got hold of a go =)