December 17th: Heavenly Cakes Chilli Brownie

Kcal 'a few' Fat ??? Fat(sats) 'a smidgen' Carbs 'minimal of course'

Before I launch in to my final Heavenly Cakes review of the year, I must first give you all notice that they are still able to fulfil orders that are placed by midday tomorrow (December 18th)!! That means all you ChocolateMission readers still have the chance to take advantage of the 10% discount they are offering you all - just enter the code 'JCM001' at the checkout stage online and the amount will be deducted from your final basket. One of the cakes you may want to consider putting in that basket of yours is this Heavenly Cakes Chilli Brownie, which is another of their specialist creations for Christmas 2010.

I received this Chilli Brownie in a single serve portion, though like I always do I shared it with a friend to get a second opinion. Aesthetically this brownie looked innocent in regards to it's chilli content. If I could suggest one improvement to be made for this cake, I would tell Heavenly to make the chilli contents a bit more obvious on the eye. If the ingredients are in there, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't have more attention brought to them. I think it would create a nice talkability factor for the cakes also.

Thinking about it now, it is funny how some food trends develop. Not so long ago if you had mentioned that someone had flavoured a chocolate brownie with chilli, it would probably have been suspected that they were being used for some sort of practical joke. Nowadays chilli and dark chocolate is almost considered a classic combination - this brownie supplied further evidence to why this should be so. Taking the brownie out the packet it felt almost worrying how familiar the tempting brownie scents were to my senses - too many Heavenly Cakes this year perhaps Jim? ... Never!!! Hopefully from my photograph above you can get an idea of how well the cake had been baked. It had a terrific crisp exterior and a soft, gooey, viscous centre - texturally it was almost perfection. I always pull out the corny phrases for Heavenly Cakes reviews, but this really was 'love at first bite'. The base brownie taste was packed with buttery chocolate cake flavours and was nicely enhanced with solid chunks of plain 50% cocoa chocolate chunks which had been dispersed throughout. Although the chilli didn't play so much a role in the taste of the brownie with it's weak to mild pepperyness, boy did the Jolokia chillis (pictures HERE) come to the party in the latter stages of each mouthful. The heat feel generated for the vast majority of the bites was amazingly balanced and delivered a very pleasant winter warming mouth sensation. My friend did comment at times that the chilli was perhaps a little too eager, but I would probably put that more down to the fact we at our portions so quickly :D

Overall Heavenly Cakes have a lot to be proud of here again as they crafted yet another fine tasting and unique cake offering. As I mentioned in the paragraph above, the idea of a chilli flavoured brownie not so long ago would have just been treated as a joke. Heavenly have proven here that this combination is suitable not only for plain chocolate bars, but is also more than appropriate to be enjoyed in cakes and brownies - now I can't recall any other of the mass manufacture brands being as bold as this yet!? Although I would have loved Heavenly to have used a slightly stronger dark chocolate, the friend that I tried this with said it was spot on in terms of richness so I'm guessing they have got the cocoa strength spot-on for the common consumer. The chilli fire power was also well integrated - it wasn't excessively peppery in the taste, and brought a magnificent, warm cosy feel to mouth. Recommendations are easy here - get involved if you like your chilli flavoured chocolates.

8.8 out of 10