Oh happy day – look what came in the post this morning! Lovely chocolate from Chocolat Chocolat, a company in Cambridge who, among other chocolatey things, are making bespoke chocolate bars.
What an excellent idea!
First you choose your handmade chocolate (from dark 70%, dark
55%, milk 34%, caramel 34% and white 28%) and then the hard work starts –
choose up to three toppings from, brace yourself:
~ Fruits: dried apples,
apricots, cranberries, raspberries, strawberries, raisins and sultanas plus
banana chips.
~ Nuts: grilled
flaked almonds or whole caramelised almonds, hazelnuts, praline, coconut
flakes, pecans, caramelised pistachios and walnuts.
~ Herbs & Spices:
Aniseed, cardamom, cinnamon, chilli espelette (a mild aromatic Basque chilli),
fennel, crystallised ginger, lavender, liquorice, crystallised mint, pink
peppercorns, poppy seeds crystallised rose petals, fleur de sel, and
crystallised violet petals, Plus: Chocolate coffee beans, cocoa nibs, Earl Grey
tea, espresso coffee grains
~ Confectionary: Amaretti
crumbs, chocolate buttons, cappuccino callets (posh chocolate chips), crunchy balls
of various flavours, chocolate coated honeycomb, fudge, fudge brownie, feuilletine
wafer crunch, malt balls, marshmallows, meringue, chocolate crisp, popping
candy, shortcake, gingerbread.
~ Decadent: Gold or silver flake.
There is also an option to have a message on your bar of
chocolate. They suggest Thank You, Happy Birthday or I Love You but I asked for
Sudden Lunch!
My Choices
I tried the dark chocolate first, for which the only addition I had asked for was fleur de sel. I love salted dark chocolate so popped a bit in my mouth almost as soon as I’d got it out the packet. I then accidentally went all dreamy and thoughtful which I think is a good sign.
Milk chocolate with espresso powder and fudge pieces, good choice me! Although I was not immediately gobsmacked as with the dark chocky I notice that I have to keep trying it again and again so think I would describe it as
moreish.
I was nervous of eating the gold flake but it was fine; innocuous but very pretty. The orange complimented the white chocolate well, the chocolate was surprisingly crumbly but that is not necessarily a bad thing!
In addition to the bespoke chocolate bars Chocolat Chocolat offer chocolate bouquets, buttons, hot chocolate, gift boxes and all sorts of
other goodies. Even more – they do
Chocolate Making and Chocolate Tasting courses and all sorts of other
interesting things. I suggest you get over to their site for a browse! Or pop
into their shop if you are in the area, it is according to them, in historic
centre of the city opposite Emmanuel and just around the corner from Darwin in
a 19th century building.
A few provisos, not all of them serious ...
~ The chocolate was
very well packaged indeed so don’t try to open a bar when hungry.
~ The products are not
cheap, £5.95 for a 100g bar but for a special occasion or a gift probably worth
the investment.
~ I think they may
need to practice their handwriting a bit!
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, oddly
enough. Ads on the telly, Christmas
themed programmes, Christmas goodies in the shops and in some cases even Christmas trees
and I must say this pre-empting of the festive is season is not something I
really go along with. You may remember my discombobulation a couple of years
ago when this appeared in Padstow Tesco store on 2nd May 2012!
Well, having had a bit of a rant there I think I might join
in to point out that a little something from Chocolat Chocolate would make a rather
lovely Christmas prezzie or stocking filler.
In Other News
3 comments:
Great choices. I had some of those bespoke choc bars too, they were very good and the website was easy to use.
What did you have on yours? Difficult to chose isn't it!
hm what about the goldfishes one?
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