October 11th: Hotel Chocolat The Little Box of Horrors

Hotel Chocolat Mondays return, and this week I kick off the first of my 2010 Halloween reviews. Those of you who have followed the site for the last year will be aware that Halloween is far from my favourite holiday season. As much as I don't like the day itself, I have to admit I have always been more than willing to review some of the offerings from the likes of Hotel Chocolat etc (See past reviews HERE). My look at the 2010 range starts today with me taking a look at the 'Little Box of Horrors' selection, which came described as a 'hair-raising collection of horrific Halloween chocolate figures, lollies, and spine-chilling caramels'.

Generally speaking, the presentation of the entire package was fantastic. My photos wont be doing it justice, but the box was beautifully presented with the all the inner constituents remarkably crafted in to some very cool looking Halloween designs. Below are my brief thoughts and ratings on the different bits and pieces.

Skull Chocolate Licks - For something that looked so gruesome these were some very tasty chocolate lollies which came in Hotel Chocolat's standard milk and white chocolate varieties. With each weighing 35.0g they proved to be a decent sized snack, although I did sort of defeat the object of them by removing the sticks at the first given opportunity. Kids will love these. Very Good.

Yikes Milk Chocolate Pieces - These were simply three milk chocolate Halloween Shapes that had been lifted straight from the Hotel Chocolat Boo! Selection. The chocolate moulds looked aesthetically interesting, and the 40% milk chocolate was it's usual top quality generating a finely balanced sweet cocoa taste that had a healthy creamyness to it. A little boring, but hey you can't complain when the chocolate is that decent. Very Good.

Milk Chocolate Figure Slabs - One thing you can certainly say about this box is that you get value for money. These 60.0g milk chocolate slabs came in different three different varieties - Terrifying Tombstone (plain milk chocolate), Fiendish Finger (with shortbread pieces), and lastly Ghoulish Ghost (with popping candy). I could have done without the popping candy slab (I gave that one away haha!), but both the biscuit and the shortbread slabs were delicious as you would expect. Very Good.

Vampire's Eyes Caramel Truffles - These looked so, so gross when I was photographing them :D I was at first a little put off by the artificial looking red caramel centres, but I was a little reassured by the 'naturally coloured' billing. In terms of taste I wouldn't have chosen to pair white and caramel together (sugar rush!), however these still proved themselves to be very tasty and the creamy, vanilla flavours of the white chocolate, and the buttery, toffee flavoured caramel seemed largely unaffected by the odd colourings. Very Good.


Overall this was a fine collection of different chocolate treats with every single piece well worthy of it's Very Good rating. With pretty much all of the different constituents comprising of their house milk and white chocolate recipes, I was never afraid of what the standard of the chocolate might offer - everything was simply delicious and I was happy eating each and every one of them. When you couple the tastiness of all the pieces with the fantastic standard of presentation and value for money, then you have a pretty special Halloween option at hand. If I was being overly critical I would suggest they leave the popping candy slab out and substitute it for a white chocolate slab to be consistent with everything else in the box. That said I can see younger chocolate lovers being keen on that slab as well as the lolly pieces so my views probably aren't entirely representative. If you are looking for an 'all-in-one' Halloween selection you should check this Little Box of Horrors collection out.

8.6 out of 10