July 20th: Jaxx

I don't know about you guys but there is something about the word 'NEW' that always seems to be able to grab my attention when looking at packaging on supermarket shelves etc. It was a simple bit of signage shouting this very word at me that caught my attention in my local Londis convenience store when I walked in there recently and came across these new chocolate products called Jaxx. NEW NEW NEW ... Hook, line and sinker I was sold! I obliged and bought a few packs of the two flavours on offer.

The 50.0g packs informed that they had been manufactured by a producer called Bonds Confectionery. I hadn't heard of them before so I did a little bit of research, and stumbled across the Jaxx facebook site. The limited amount of information on display currently suggests that they are only available in the likes of Martin's, McColls, Londis and Spar - these are all smaller UK convenience stores. From what I could gather, the range consists of three different flavours of chocolate coated biscuit bites - my thoughts on the two I could get hold of are below:

Jaxx Milk Chocolate Coated CrunchesKcal 222 Fat 14.3g Fat(sats) 10.3g Carbs 22.3g (per bag)
'Milk chocolate coated crunches'

I believe these are supposed to be the original variant in the range and consisted of shortbread biscuit centres covered in milk chocolate. In terms of size they were about twice as large as Malteasers, it's a pity they didn't taste twice as good :D From my first mouthful it was obvious the chocolate was of a very low quality. It was very sugar based in it's flavours and it melted with lazy waxy melt generating very few cocoa impressions whatsoever. The biscuit centres were more generous to the taste in terms of their buttery malt flavours, but these were similarly short lived and failed to create a substantial or lasting flavour impression.

5.6 out of 10



Jaxx Milk Chocolate Coated Coco CrunchesKcal 222 Fat 14.3g Fat(sats) 10.3g Carbs 22.3g (per bag)
'Milk chocolate coated coco crunches'

As you can most likely tell by the photographs this differed very little from the above blue coloured variant apart from the simple substitution of the shortbread biscuit for a chocolate based. As expected the exterior chocolate was no different whatsoever from the aforementioned and was unfortunately every bit as poor. Similarly though, the chocolate biscuit centres were at least at little more contributive, supplying just an additional hint of chocolateyness as if someone had sprinkled just a fine dusting of hot cocoa powder into the biscuit.

5.8 out of 10



Overall by and large these were totally unimpressive. Aesthetically and propositionally the concept of Jaxx isn't actually bad when you think about it. Chocolate covered biscuit bites aren't exactly a leading edge innovative concept for anyone, but lets be fair there aren't too many other players apart from Payne's Poppets who play in this chocolate mini-snack on the go offerings. Unfortunately, these Jaxx chocolates are pretty much every bit as poor as anything Payne's have to offer. I thought the quality of the chocolate was frankly abysmal, with the only saving grace really being the biscuit centres which were on the whole pretty tolerable. As nice as it would have been to have unearthed a cool new brand to recommend to you guys, I simply cant do that here. I would just avoid them altogether if I were you.

July 18th: Hotel Chocolat The Essential Holiday Kit

You may have noticed that the Hotel Chocolat summer range grew considerably this year with them adding several new products to their 2011 portfolio. With the newer offerings like the Knickerbocker Glory chocolates taking centre stage, it would have been all to easy to just forget some of the better products of yesteryear. Someone at Hotel Chocolat HQ obviously had the thinking the cap on though - I present to you todays selection box offering, the Hotel Chocolat The Essential Holiday Kit.

This wonderfully presented collection of treats included products I had reviewed in both 2009 and 2010. The selection was made up of Sticky Toffee Minidome Chocolates, Gemstones and a Tiddly Pot full of Raspberry Ripple Puddles - a collective 170.0g of chocolate. As aforementioned I thought the bundle was put together quite phenomenally in terms of it's appearance. All three of the products were contained within a cardboard box that was decorated with a very cool, retro British Summer holiday suitcase theme. Inside all three of the different chocolate offerings had their own packaging style which gave a nice sense of individuality.


Hotel Chocolat Chocolate Gemstones - 'Pieces of fused white & dark chocolate'.
I first reviewed these back in May 2010 (See HERE). To be frank they weren't a product I particularly liked then, and I didn't feel any different about them now a year on. Still a year on I felt bad chewing on the chocolate that I normally liked to just let melt on my tongue. This of course still wasn't a possibility as the waxy glazing agent layer around the pieces meant they wouldn't melt otherwise. On the contrary my Sister and Mother absolutely loved them, and described them as a 'posh persons M&MS'.

Hotel Chocolat Tiddly Pots Raspberry Ripple Puddles - 'White chocolate blended with raspberry crispies'.
I first reviewed these back in 2009 (See HERE). Back then I gave them a big ChocolateMission thumbs up and I'm glad to report I would still do the same thing today. Just as I found last time, the creamy, vanilla noted white chocolate hosted a superb, real tasting set of dried raspberry crisp pieces. These puddles were once again a brilliant exhibition of how to match ingredients to create delicious combinations. The only drawback was that the Tiddly Pots container was by no means big enough - it did look cute mind you!! :D

Hotel Chocolat Sticky Toffee Minidomes - 'Milk chocolate shell with sticky toffee sauce, decorated with whit chocolate'
These hadn't officially had their own review before, however if you check several of the older selection box reviews (HERE) you will notice that I had previously sampled many different variants in different shapes and sizes. What can I say about these that hasn't been said before!? ... well not much apart from the fact they were as outstanding as I expected. The 40% milk chocolate shells provided all the typical fresh creamy cocoa flavours, whilst the sticky toffee fillings offered equal measures of sweet butter and tempered brown sugar. They could have done with a hint of salt, however this didn't stop all eight of these disappearing within minutes of them being opened.


Overall this was lovely little package that included some of Hotel Chocolat's best summer offerings. As I said at the start of the post, with so many new products out this year its easy to forget some of the better ones that had been released previously. This Hotel Chocolat 'The Essential Holiday Kit' is a great way of making sure that some of the past year products aren't forgotten, whats better is that when bought collectively the package works out much cheaper than buying them individually as well :D For my own personal taste it doesn't contain the optimum mix of products with the Gemstones in there. I would take that all with a pinch of salt mind you considering it was the Gemstones that were my Mother and Sister's favourites. This collection showcases some of Hotel Chocolat's greatest strengths with their caramel and fruit chocolates, it would make a terrific gift for someone this summer.

8.4 out of 10

July 16th: '7Days of Chocolate Reviews' - Edition 80 - Lucky Charms Chocolate

SITE UPDATE

Hi All,

Another week has flown by here on ChocolateMission, I hope you everyone has enjoyed the reviews that have been and gone. If you missed out on any of them this week be sure to check them out here:

Hotel Chocolat The H-Box Summer Desserts - See HERE
Ritter Sport Thank You - See HERE
'Bits n Bobs' British Chocolate Biscuit Classics - See HERE

I've been so hectic with my day job this week I haven't been able to give much as much love to the site as I would have wished. In the coming weeks I'm aiming to make some aesthetic changes to the site to freshen things up a little. If anyone has any suggestions or think they might be able to help me out with this then please get in contact.

Upcoming this week we have more from Hotel Chocolat, Bits n Bobs and again whatever I feel like posting on Friday. Despite my busyness I've managed to accumilate a whole host of new products that will need reviewing at some point this weekend. I'm just off to update the news page so be sure to give that a look over this afternoon.

Have great weekends and remember to visit the NEWS PAGE.

JIM


SNACK OF THE WEEK ..... a new part of '7Days of Chocolate Reviews' which will feature any manner of snacking product I have been products munching on in the week Kcal 122 Fat 1.1g Fat(sats) 0.2g Carbs 24.9g (per 30.0g)
'Chocolate flavour cereal with marshmallow pieces'

Last week I mentioned that my pals at AmericanSoda had recently sent me through some fantastic American goodies for me to try out. Last week I started off by swapping my usual breakfast for these Kellogg's Chocolate Cookie Dough flavoured Pop Tarts (See HERE). This week my usual bran flakes cereal was put aside again - as I got stuck into these General Mills Lucky Charms Chocolate.

For all my readers who live outside the US I can let Wiki inform you that 'Lucky Charms is a brand of cereal produced by the General Mills food company. It first appeared in stores in 1964, and consists of two main components: toasted oat-based pieces and multi-colored marshmallow bits (marbits) in various shapes' ... suffice to say this is THE kids cereal of all kids cereal in the US. So what did I make of them!??? Well like a lot of cereals I've tried like this one, I found Lucky Charms chocolate tasted just fine but ultimately failed in satisfying my hunger. Frankly this came as little surprise, though I must admit I found the chocolatey cereal taste and sweet marshmallows more of a guilty pleasure than I first thought I would. In the future I don't think I would buy or eat these on their own, but mixing some in with another more substantial cereal will definitely be something I do from time-to-time to give my breakfast a little perk up.

6.6 out of 10

You can buy these HERE at AmericanSoda

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July 15th: 'Bits n Bobs' British Chocolate Biscuit Classics

This post was inevitable the moment I broke my initial promise of never reviewing any chocolate biscuits or cookies on the site. As I have never been one for being all that mad keen on biscuits, my plans in the early days of ChocolateMission were to leave reviews like this to the biscuit reviewers of the blogosphere (See HERE). Since my 'Bits n Bobs' posts started however, the amount of readers commenting and requesting I review some of the UK's classic chocolate biscuits has frankly got too much. Excuses over with :D I today bring you my reviews of the British cult classics - McVitie's Chocolate Hobnobs, McVitie's Chocolate Digestives and of course Bourbon Creams.

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McVitie's Mini Chocolate Digestives
Kcal 199 Fat 9.9g Fat(sats) 5.1g Carbs 24.8g (per bag)
'Mini wheatmeal biscuits topped with milk chocolate'

How on earth do you introduce a biscuit like the McVitie's Chocolate Digestive? Answers on postcards please because I don't have a clue :D Digestive biscuits have been one of those products that have been around here in the UK since ... well ... forever (1876 if you believe Wikipedia - 1925 saw the first chocolate ones). Although mainly famed for their ability to be dunked in tea, for the review today I left tea out of the equation and bought a pack of Minis to enjoy as an afternoon snack. The thin chocolate layer on the upperside of the biscuit was thin in it's portioning, but just as with the Hobnobs reviewed below it was more than adequete at providing a chocolate flavour hit to each and every biscuit consumed. Despite the added chocolate context, the iconic brown sugar noted savoury wheat flavours were every bit as prominent and delicious. Comparing this biscuit to the others on show today, I would say the lighter viscosity and flavour impact of the Digestive isn't quite as satisfying as a total product. Non-UK ChocolateMission readers will certainly still be wanting to try these out though.

7.6 out of 10


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Bourbon Creams
Kcal 67 Fat 3.0 Fat(sats) 1.8g Carbs 9.3g (per biscuit)
'Sandwich biscuits filled with chocolate flavour cream'

Acting as the middle part of our McVitie's sandwich today we have the UK family favourite the Bourbon Cream. If Wiki be believed again, I believe this biscuit was first produced in 1910 (originally under the name Creola), thus it is slightly younger than the grandad of this selection the Digestive. Nowadays Bourbon biscuits/creams are produced by several different companies, all of which make identical products. For the review today I picked up a pack produced by Crawford's in my local shop, a bargain at £0.49 a pack (I thought so anyway). Three of these biscuits roughly equated to the McVitie's Mini bags I reviewed for the other mini reviews, so it is of this basis that I make the following comments. Despite not being contained in a foil wrapping, the biscuits managed a good crisp texture and I loved the contrastive mouth feel created by the sandwich crunchiness and smooth inner cream. The outer biscuit portions were predominantly buttery and sugar led in taste, but the revelation of the cream delivered the desired the sweet chocolate flavour hit. I wouldn't rate the overall taste as high as either of the McVitie's options, but an advantage this biscuit has over them is that also brings the fun factor of splitting the biscuit apart without any breakages :D This is a fantastic chocolate biscuit.

7.7 out of 10


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McVitie's Mini Chocolate Hobnobs
Kcal 194 Fat 9.4g Fat(sats) 4.7g Carbs 24.6g (per bag)
'Mini oat and wheat biscuits topped with milk chocolate'

Hobnobs have forever been a permanent fixture in our family household since I can remember, mainly due to them being the choice of biscuit of my old man. Just the thought of our family biscuit tin running out of Hobnobs is enough to send shivers down my spine - never under any circumstances do you want to be caught nabbing the last one :D For my own safety I chose to buy a bag of Mini Chocolate Hobnobs for the purpose of this review. This bag contained about 15-20 perfectly bitesized mini biscuits that were kept fresh smelling and in good condition thanks to the foil bag in which they came packaged. Placing the thin layer of chocolate face down on my tongue I first let the sweet tasting chocolate melt away taking in the pleasantries of the soft solid to liquid transition and the sweet tasting chocolatey cocoa flavours. Then munching on the core biscuit portion, the fine crunch delivered a variety of delicious brown sugar noted wheat and oat flavours. In comparison to the other biscuits the taste was just a tad saltier, and the texture just a bit more viscous. From a personal point of view I would say it was these two attributes that make Chocolate Hobnobs the superior biscuits, and most certainly my pick out of the three.

8.4 out of 10


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So there you have it ChocolateMission readers. Chocolate Hobnobs are my favourites out of these fantastic chocolate biscuits but what about you guys? Let me know what you think!

July 13th: Ritter Sport Thank You + Competition Winner

COMPETITION WINNER

Last week I reviewed one of Ritter Sport's latest creations their reader devised Cookies & Cream bar (See HERE). Within that review I gave all you ChocolateMission readers the opportunity of trying the bar for yourselves with the launch of a Twitter based competition to guess which of the three consumer designed wrappers I thought was best.

Well one week on I can reveal that the winner is @Ste_Collins who correctly guessed that I thought wrapper number 1 (pictured below) was my favourite. I have to say it was a close run thing between that one and number 3 (the chequered chef one!), but in the end I preferred the less busy, simple design of the first.


Thanks ever so much for all the entries - keep an eye on the Twitter feed (HERE) for future competitions.

On to the review today ....

Kcal 563 Fat 38.0g Carbs 47.0g (per 100.0g)

The review today will be short and succinct what with the announcement of the competition winner. Another reason for this being relatively brief is because there isn't much to say :D This Ritter Sport Thank You chocolate is a recently released offering that has snuck in the back door whilst the Summer 2011 and Cookies & Cream bars have taken centre stage.

This 'Thank You' chocolate is the newest addition to Ritter's 250.0g range and has been designed for the occasions where 'you want to say thank you to a loved one' .... awwww isn't that cute :D The milk chocolate came packaged in a rather gaudy looking multi-coloured wrapper that I personally didn't think looked all that great (sorry I prefer the plainer designs - boring Jim!!). So what was supposed to be so special about this chocolate? Well it was 40.0% milk chocolate that had been 'enriched with Trinatiro cocoa' of course haha!! Laugh I may, however it was actually very nice and like their 35.0% milk chocolate I reviewed a year or so ago, a noticeable improvement from their rather more generic standard milk chocolate. No doubt aided by it's thicker melting texture, the cocoa flavours were just more forthcoming and tasted deeper layered with rich milk and honey notes all coming to the fore.

Overall this was a better than average milk chocolate, and would be a bar I would gratefully receive or gift in the instance where a good old 'Thank You' is in order for someone with plainer tastes. It wont light your world on fire, nor does it look as special as a box of chocolates from someone like Thorntons or Hotel Chocolat. As a standalone milk chocolate though it's a decent offering from Ritter Sport.

8.0 out of 10

July 11th: Hotel Chocolat The H-Box Summer Desserts

Before you start reading the rest of this review go grab yourself a coffee or a fresh cup of tea and prepare yourself for another post featuring a whole bunch of superlatives describing some Hotel Chocolat truffles :D

Hotel Chocolat Mondays continue this week with me taking a look at the latest 'H-Box' creation from the guys at HC. This time around I was treated to a 'Summer Desserts' themed box, a none to dissimilar proposition from last years 'Just Desserts' offering. This years selection contained eight pieces which I will go in to more detail below. As one would expect there were some chocolates carried over from last year, whilst also some new ones created for 2011.

As always the selection came beautifully presented with a menu containing a detailed descriptor for each piece. All round, myself and my ever willing taste assistants agreed the selection was well varied, though my father though it could have perhaps done with another dark chocolate offering as there was only the single truffle.


As I alluded to above there were a few pieces in the selection that I had already come across in previous reviews. Pictured in the group shot above, the Chocolate Brownie (Very Good - See HERE), Mousse au Chocolat (Superb - See HERE), Eton Mess (Superb - See HERE) were all consistent from previous encounters. If you haven't had a Hotel Chocolat Eton Mess before you really haven't sampled one of their finest truffles!

You see the white chocolate on the far left!? This was a Lemon & Passion Fruit Tart chocolate which I mistakenly assumed I had reviewed previously (it looked uncannily like the Mango & Peach Cheesecake - See HERE). Unfortunately in between the time it took for me to realise my mistake and including it in this group shot, someone *ahem* my mother *ahem* managed to eat the only portioned in the box haha :D :D Well she said it was excellent, Superb-worthy in fact. She described the combination of the white chocolate and real tasting lemon and passion fruit flavours as a match made in heaven. She is a real fan of Hotel Chocolat's fruit flavoured chocolates, and this she said was one of the best ever. Superb.


Red Berry Mousse - This a reshaped version of the Red Berry Mousse from the Christmas Sleekster Selection (See HERE). Once again I thought the strawberry and raspberry filling was extremely well executed. Good.

Coconut Bombe - One of the new ones for 2011, this Coconut Bombe proved itself to be a fantastic addition to the mix. The outer crisp shell of milk chocolate and dessicated coconut sprinkles complimented the extra smooth truffle filling quite amazingly. The centre was billed as white chocolate on the menu, though as you can see from the photo it was in actual fact a milk chocolate ganache. Was this an annoyance!? No not really - the coconut flavours were just as prominent and expertly delivered within the rich, creamy cocoa tones. Very Good.



Neapolitan - Another new for one for 2011 - if you haven't seen my full review of this terrific truffle I suggest you head HERE. Just look at the layering of the truffle, as you can imagine the Neapolitan effect is captured exceptionally. These chocolates are so worthy of yet another Superb.


Summer Pudding - Yet another carried over from 2010. Just as it was last year the truffle was bursting with strawberry, raspberry and blueberry influences within it's creamy smooth centre. As you can see from the cross-section it was yet another intricately made truffle that looked mightily impressive when halved. With two of these pieces in the box this year I even managed to nick one myself before my mother nabbed them :D Very Good.


Overall I gave away my thoughts of this box in the opening paragraph so I needn't bore you all much longer with a long winded conclusion this time around :D What can I say that hasn't already been said when it comes to Hotel Chocolat's competencies when it comes to these sort of chocolates?? In my opinion (which is shared by the rest of my family!) these guys really do set the standards when it comes to many types of truffles. Their one real speciality though has to be their fruit based ones - the evidence being the now legendary Eton Mess and Summer Pudding offerings. This years Neapolitan and Lemon & Passion Fruit Tart have only furthered provided further evidence of their expertise. I needn't say whether I recommend this Summer Desserts box as you only have to look at the scores for each piece. Another wonderful Hotel Chocolat offering.

8.8 out of 10

July 9th: '7Days of Chocolate Reviews' - Edition 79 - Kellogg's Pop Tarts Frosted Ice Creme Sandwich

SITE UPDATE

Hi All,

It's been another great week on the site with reviews from some of my favourite brands. Below are the links to all three of them just in case you managed to miss out on reading them first time around:

Hotel Chocolat Summer Slabs 2011
Ritter Sport Cookies & Cream + Competition
Browne's Hand Made Chocolates Assorted Truffles

The Twitter competition that is currently being run from the Ritter Sport midweek post is going get guns so far and entries have been flooding in. Remember to enter all you have to do is start following @Chocmission, Retweet one of my reviews and then finally correctly send me your answer to which of the three Ritter Sport wrappers I liked best from the review Wednesday - A winner will be announced next Saturday - Best of luck - Full details HERE.

Next week on the site we have more Hotel Chocolat summer chocolates, a long awaited return for 'Bits n Bobs', and lastly whatever I feel like posting on Friday :D

Have great weekends and remember to visit the NEWS PAGE.

JIM


SNACK OF THE WEEK ..... a new part of '7Days of Chocolate Reviews' which will feature any manner of snacking product I have been products munching on in the weekKcal 190 Fat 5.0g Fat(sats) 2.0g Carbs 33.0g (per pastry)
'Chocolate toaster pastries with an ice cream flavoured filling'

My friends at AmericanSoda have just recieved their latest shipping container over from Stateside, and they sent me over another parcel full of American sweets and treats to share with you all for my Snack of the Week feature. During the course of the last 5 days I've once again replaced my usual ultra healthy bran based bowl of Kellogg's cereal with these rather less wholesome Kellogg's Pop Tarts Frosted Ice Creme Sandwich toaster pastries - here's what I made of them.

If you recall my previous reviews of Pop Tarts you will have noticed a common theme of me finding them a none to satisfying breakfast option due to the limited amounts I felt I could consume and any one given time. To my surprise this Ice Cream Sandwich variant made a bit of headway on this issue, and for the first time ever I felt a degree of comfort eating two of the pastries in a sitting. This was mainly due to the usual Pop Tarts throat burning sensation being all but absent here, in comparison to other past reviewed flavours these were noticeably less sharp and poignant in their sugary sweetness - [hew! The outer chocolate pastry was a little on the bland side, but when heated it did deliver a chocolate flavour hit to a decent enough standard. The inner filling was surprisingly less sugary than I expected and had a sweet milkyness that had just a hint of vanilla. All in all I still won't be replacing my usual cereal with these, but as an alternative every now and then I could be convinced to get some of these in the toaster.

7.7 out of 10



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July 8th: Browne's Hand Made Chocolates Assorted Truffles

This is a review that I thought for the life of me would never happen! A long, long time ago, dedicated ChocolateMission reader Thea posted a message on the request page asking me to review some chocolates from one of her all time favourite chocolate makers Browne's - a company hailing from Devon who make handmade produce.

I have to admit I wasn't the quickest off the mark with this particular request (naughty Jim!!), so it came to both my surprise and immediate disappointment when I read in March that the company had been put into the hands of administrators (See HERE) i.e. they were closing down - DOH! At this point I believed I had failed Thea and was destined never to try their chocolate.

.... That was until I was given these a few weeks ago ... a 180.0g assortment of truffles from none other than Browne's!?? .... So what did I do next? Well I did what any person would do in this 21st Century! I Googled it!! Here's what I found (See HERE). Indeed, Browne's had been saved by two local entrepreneurs who had just sold their brewing company - HURRAH! Browne's were saved and I had a box of chocolates to make my way through! All was right with the world :D

Pictured above - Orange & Kirsch

As I mentioned above these Assorted Truffles were gifted to me by a friend, and I was straight away impressed by the clean cut design of the box and the inner truffles which were similarly immaculate. The decision to include a menu in hindsight was probably not the best idea as it was inaccurate, but the thought was there at least and this is something that could be easily addressed in the future.
Pictured above - Rum & Raspberry

So what's going on with me randomly placing the chocolates throughout the post and not going into specifics on them? Well to save you all the feeling of wanting to reach through your computer screens and strangle me, I've decided not to write 'great tasting outer chocolate, superb mouth feel with the inner fillings, but poorly flavoured' six times in a row.

I could have honestly cut and pasted that for every single one of the six flavours on offer here. It was unanimously agreed by all that tried these (my old man and mother helped me out here haha!) that all three of the chocolate types used, the milk, dark and white were all fantastic and contributed exactly what was desired from each. The milk was creamy in it's cocoa flavours, the white was even creamier and vanilla noted, and the dark was richer and offered fine tasting unsweetened coffee hints. This was all fantastic, and it got even better with the revelation of the truffle centres which were all as soft as can be and melted luxuriously in the mouth. The issue with every single one of the six chocolates however was that the filling was just so under strength and lacking in flavour. This was made all the more disappointing as the mild taste contributions that were offered showed great potential - especially the fruit flavoured ones. For the record I would awarded all of these chocolates a Standard rating.
Pictured above - Strawberry & Champagne

Overall as glad as I am to see Browne's back in business I have to say I wasn't blown away by my first experience with them. Taking things from a positive point of view, there are a number of things that show they are a brand with massive potential. The presentation of the chocolates, the actual chocolate coatings and textural mouth feel of the chocolates were all superb, and lead me to believe that with a few minor tweaks they could produce something very special. Unfortunately there were little blemishes such as the inaccurate inner menu, which alongside the significant issue of the mild flavoured fillings made these more of a mediocre chocolate assortment offering than they needed be. I would be over the moon if you guys were not to be put off by my this review - please do try their chocolates and let me know what you think. If only to get behind a small British firm that has had it's troubles recently.

7.7 out of 10

July 6th: Ritter Sport Cookies & Cream + Competition

Listen up ChocolateMission readers!! Today you not only get a brand spanking new review of the latest Ritter Sport Cookies & Cream bar, but you also get the opportunity to enter a prize drawing to try it your very self!!

This Ritter Sport Cookies & Cream has been long in development and was created off the back of a 'Create your own flavour of Ritter Sport' competition that ran in Germany early this year. As part of the competition, Ritter also asked their fans to create packaging designs for the wrappers - and the three winning bars are displayed throughout below. All you have to do today is to pick your favourite out of the three, and hope it matches my own!! :D ... simple eh!? All you have to do to enter is to start following me on Twitter and to send a tweet to @ChocMission with your answer and a '#competition' I will announce the winners in the next '7Days of Chocolate Reviews Post' .... shall I talk chocolate now :D


This latest offering slots into Ritter's existing range of 100.0g bars and comes described as 'white chocolate filled with a vanilla cream filling with pieces of chocolate cookie' - yumtastic I thought!

As you can see above the chocolate looked attractive on the eye, and as ever the filling appeared plentiful sandwiched between the outer clean cut white chocolate. After allowing for a brief cooling time in the fridge, myself and the rest of my family split the bar into four-by-four quadrants and tucked in with high expectations. After consuming our servings, thoughts were then shared, and our opinions were oddly unanimous. We all thought the mouth feel of the chocolate was sensational with the crisp out chocolate playing off nicely with cooling sensation brought to the party by the softer inner filling that was lined with crunchy cookies pieces. The taste was concluded to be pleasant, but not all that engaging with the vanilla and sugar flavours proving to be more one dimensional than expected. It must be reiterated that the sweet milky bourbon taste was liked all well round, but I think more was expected from the cookie element which didn't provide much in the way of flavour.

Overall the general consensus behind this chocolate was that it was enjoyable, yet could of been better. It was one of those chocolates that you could happily eat all day long without getting much satisfaction from it. From a personal point of view I thought it needed more of a flavour input from the cookie pieces to give the taste an extra dimension. It wasn't far off being an exceptional chocolate, however it's lack of depth in the taste and subsequent satisfaction credentials have left it more of a mediocre chocolate offering. Who cares what we say though eh!? Get yourself in the mix to see if you are lucky enough to try it yourself by entering the competition above.

7.6 out of 10

July 4th: Hotel Chocolat Summer Slabs 2011

Over the past few weeks I've had a number of readers requesting that I review some of the new summer themed flavoured slabs that Hotel Chocolat have produced for 2011. Having been kept busy by the Hotel Chocolat Summer Dessert Peepster Slection for the last couple of Monday's, I thought it best to give you my full run down of the larger slabs in a 3-in-1 special.

All of these chocolates came in 200.0g sizes and in the traditional single piece thick slab Hotel Chocolat form. Just so no one complains about me leaving off the prices (Richard haha!), these are currently priced at £7.00 on the Hotel Chocolat website. Here's what myself and my family thought of them:

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Hotel Chocolat Neapolitan Nibble - 'Stripes of milk chocolate, white chocolate and strawberry flavoured white chocolate studded with cookies'. Expectations are normally sky high when Hotel Chocolat chocolate is about our household, but after trying the Hotel Chocolat Neapolitan truffles to big success earlier in the year (HERE), hopes were really quite high. On the face of things the slab looked nice with the clearly defined chocolate types nice and evenly distributed which we all thought was pretty cool. This design not only brought variety to the party, but also a good bit of fun breaking it apart (which has to be said was a whole lot easier thanks to the cookies bit in the bottom!). Speaking of the cookie pieces, we also all thought these were a clever addition to the chocolates, as they created an 'ice cream cone' like effect once the chocolate had melted. With the variety of the 40% milk chocolate, vanilla toned white chocolate and wonderfully real tasting strawberry this was a slab that was given a big thumbs up by one and all. It was certainly a great product for sharing with people what with the fun there was to be had with it's separation.

8.6 out of 10



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Hotel Chocolat Fizzy Lemonade - 'A milk chocolate slab fused with lemon flavoured white chocolate and cracking sherbet. Decorated with solid lemon flavoured white chocolate drops'. This was certainly a very good looking slab on the eye and the fragrant lemon scents that wandered out the packet when opened were a pleasant reminder of the flavour theme at hand. Any reader who has been reading this site for any long duration of time will know that I have a severe dislike for anything along the lines of 'popping candy' or 'cracking sherbet' as Hotel Chocolat so elegantly put it. Well what can I say!? The lemon sherbet didn't do anything for me here! The usual thick melting luxury mouth feel and progressive cream based cocoa tones were all made negligible by the one dimensional, placid lemon flavours, and the horrid fizzing sensation going on at the back of my throat. It was commented on by other family members that the lemon influx was not as suited to the milk chocolate as it has proven to be in similar white chocolate alternatives. This was a fair opinion from my perspective, and was a point I thought best underlined by purely decorative lemon pieces, which were non-enhancing of the taste apart from the most subtle of lemon volume. I'm sure some of you are thinking this slab was in for a tough review before I even tasted it, though I can assure you it got a fair ride thanks to it be test driven by the rest of my family. Certainly not a bad chocolate, but nowhere near one of their best.

7.2 out of 10



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Hotel Chocolat Cherry Pop - 'Solid milk chocolate and cherry flavoured white chocolate slab, with popping candy and naturally coloured white chocolate swirls'. In a change up from the norm, I've saved the WORST until last :D Indeed the worst scoring slab has the job of going last today and this honour falls to the Hotel Chocolat Cherry Pop chocolate. I'm sure all your eyes are being drawn to the rather poor presentation score this slab has scored (see graph below!). It looked beautiful with it's swirled chocolate design and smelt wonderfully fruity when the pack was unsealed! ... so what was the problem? Well my hatred of 'Popping Candy' got taken to new levels today. The ghastly stuff not only ruined the perfectly melting mouth feel textures of the chocolate, but it also caused the slab to have the most annoying and disgusting sticky layer on it's outer sides. This made it nigh on impossible to handle without creating a mess, which came at great frustration to everyone that tried it. This was such a shame as the chocolates were as usual fantastic and the cherry influence was real tasting and nicely implemented. The inclusion of the 'Popping Candy' was understandable given the flavour theme they were going for, though part of me thinks it would have been much more wise to implement it in a far smaller volume. I wouldn't buy this one again - Hotel Chocolat have such far greater things to offer.

6.8 out of 10



Overall the scores pretty much tell the story here. If you want my recommendations then I say the Neapolitan Nibble is your best bet. Personally I would be more inclined to buy the Hotel Chocolat Summer Peepster Collection what with it offering the glorious Eton Mess, Tiramisu and Mississippi chocolates. I hope you enjoyed the reviews today - let me know what you think of these yourselves.