September 19th: Go*Do Organic Chocolate Selection

Back in February I put up a link on the news page directing you guys to an article talking about the launch of a new brand of chocolates called Go*Do (See HERE). A few months down the line and it wasn't long before I got the opportunity to try out a few offerings from their current range. Before I talk about my thoughts on them, it's probably worth me giving you a bit of background on the brand itself. As explained in their own press article

Go*Do was "launched in October 2010 and has proven very popular in Italy and Japan". In Italian the word GODO means to enjoy "sensual pleasure" (ooooh err!), and the bars are made by a fifth-generation Italian family in their "state-of-the-art factory near the Italian Lakes". Go*Do have total control “from bean to bar – farming the cocoa, harvesting the beans, making the chocolate and forming the bars". According to their website, the "cocoa they use is organically grown in Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and Peru – all areas known for high quality cocoa". Supposedly this all culminates in superb bean quality and a truly sustainable brand - I think I will be the judge of that :D

Over the past week I tried out three of their current range which I sampled in 35.0g mini bar portions. The packaging and presentation of the range was hardly what I would call unique (remarkably similar to Green & Blacks if you ask me!) but I thought it did the job nonetheless with it's paper sleeve and inner foil wrapping combo. Below are my thoughts on the bars I tried.


It made sense to start off with the plain dark chocolate offering I had so this was the first bar of theirs that I tried. My initial feelings placing the first few blocks on my tongue were rather similar to how I ended up feeling about the range as a whole - tasty but unspectacular. The first flavour influences to greet me were a plethora of milky cocoa notes and these established a pleasant unsweetened, chocolatey cocoa taste from the onset. The texture of the melt was kind and smooth - this was definitely the best paced and most pleasant mouthfeel of the three on show today. The only real thing holding this chocolate back from being one of true quality was it's lack of progression from it's initial flavour establishment. The dark chocolate taste was fresh and non-bitter, but it lacked a little depth and didn't have the definition of say a Hotel Chocolat or even a Lindt dark chocolate.

6.8 out of 10




With the above lack of flavour development evident across the plain dark chocolate I was hoping the additional coffee influence here would solve a few of these problems. To an extent the coffee factor did exactly this, however there were some additional very obvious drawbacks due to it's inclusion. The back of the pack revealed that the bar contained 10.0% coffee nibs - thats tiny little pieces of coffee beans to you unawares folk! The obvious plus side of this was that the dark now had that extra dimension of flavour, with the strong tasting coffee coming through strongly in both aroma and taste. Unfortunately the drawback of these nibs were that they were almost a complete chocolate spoiler for me, as they brought a horrible gritty feel to the mouthfeel and melt. I loved the taste of this one but texturally it wasn't nice.

7.3 out of 10



Did I do my usual trick of saving the best until last? Well no not quite, but it was still pretty good. Out of three this was the one I had least faith in - not many manufactures can make decent white chocolate so why could an infant brand like Go*Do belong in their company!? Well I'm pleased to say that Go*Do managed to do a relatively good job here - they certainly have a good base white chocolate to which I hope they will do some flavoured varieties with later down the line. Taste wise I would say it was similar to the Green & Black's vanilla white chocolate with it's light milky taste noted very lightly with a touch of well rounded bourbon vanilla. It didn't quite have the creamy long lasting taste of some of the real top white chocolates I have reviewed previously, but it was noticeably higher quality than the cheap sugary abysses of the white chocolate world.

7.1 out of 10


Overall its understandable the scores awarded here might not be too inspiring for many of you, but I hope I have got across the point that I believe Go*Do is a brand with some real potential. The chocolate itself is of a better than average quality, however I think to make themselves really stand out from a very packed market they will have to make some refinements in their packaging, presentation and possibly introduce some truly unique flavour combinations. At present I think they are positioned way too closely to the likes of Green & Blacks for them to have any decent brand cut through here in the UK. If they are to make a mark on the UK chocosphere they are going to have to offer a bit more than what they are currently bringing to the table.

September 17th: '7Days of Chocolate Reviews' - Edition 87 - Kellogg's Pop Tarts Frosted Blueberry

SITE UPDATE

Hi All,

Another hectic week has passed by on ChocolateMission - we've had Hotel Chocolat going bananas, Ritter Sport driving people nuts with head scratching brain ticklers and finally GU finishing us all off with some tasty looking cakey treats. If you don't have a clue what I'm talking about check out the links to the reviews below ...

Hotel Chocolat Go Bananas - See HERE
Ritter Sport Noisette - See HERE
GU Anytime Chocolate Hazelnut Slice - See HERE

Hopefully you guys will have all clocked the competition going down in the Ritter Sport Noisette review ... answer me this folks ... why do the Germans use Hazelnuts so often in their chocolates? I'm accepting all answers in the comments section! We've had some brilliant answers thus far please keep them coming in.

Apologies if the site is feeling a little random at the moment in regards to my own personal responses and updating of news pages/comments etc. You might be able to tell there is a lot going on behind the scenes at the moment :D Hopefully I can fill all you guys in at a later date.

Anyway ... I'm sure you are all way more interested in what's due up next week. To be 100.0% honest with you guys I don't have a clue :D One thing you can garuntee is a Bits & Bobs post, but the other two days I will play by ear - there are so many new products flying in my way at the moment I need to get my house in order.

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 weekKellogg's Pop Tarts Frosted Blueberry
Kcal 200 Fat 5.0g Fat(sats) 1.5g (Per Pastry)

I've been opening several of my 'Snack of the Week' reviews recently with the line 'replacing my usual Bran Flakes cereal, this week I've been trying ...', but American Soda's mission to make me work through their entire collection of Pop Tarts and American cereals has meant I haven't touched my so called breakfast norm for weeks now. Indeed this week it was the turn of yet another Pop Tart flavour from the States - the Frosted Blueberry variant. From what I'm aware this Blueberry flavour is one of the oldest in Pop Tarts range. The guys from American Soda sent over a standard 8 count box - two of which I gave to a work colleague (who just so happens to be a Pop Tart enthusiast) for a second opinion.

I like pastry and I like blueberries, but boy I wasn't looking forward to these. My memories of trying the Kellogg's Strawberry Pop Tarts we get here in the UK were still fresh in my mind and that must have been over ten years ago. I remembered those being so throat scorchingly sugary sweet that I binned them after only a few bites - tried once and never again. Suffice to say fruit flavoured Pop Tarts haven't been high on the agenda since, however these Blueberry Frosted have gone some way to changing my mind. The combined brown sugar noted pastry and sweet, sticky jam filling taste still rendered the taste on the sweet side of things, though that unsettling sickly feeling that some Pop Tarts create never came to fruition. In both a chilled and toasted state I was impressed by the realness of the Blueberry fruit flavours, and I easily consumed two each sitting when washed down with a highly complimentary glass of chilled milk. For a product I was half dreading ('dreading' sounds OTT for a Pop Tart taste review doesn't it :D haha) I'm willing to eat my words on these. I enjoyed them and would have them again - now I wasn't expecting to say that.

7.7 out of 10

You can buy KELLOGG'S POP TARTS HERE HERE at AmericanSoda

CHOCOLATE NEWS

Visit the ChocolateMission news page for all the latest developments in the Chocolate market ... Click the banner below ....

September 16th: GU Chocolate Hazelnut Squares

Like many people I work in a busy office environment in a job where my day-to-day workings are changing at an ever gathering pace. One thing I can always count on however is that on any given weekday at roughly 4:00 pm in the afternoon it's tea time. At this point in the day the energy levels are enhanced with caffeine and normally a small sugary snack (well for me anyway!). This week I've been treating myself to a new range from GU puds - these 'Anytime' cakes.

The 'Anytime' cakes are essentially 'snack pack' portions of GU's 'Naughties' cakes range I have featured on ChocolateMission before (you will see the links below). I found these three variants in Tesco last week at £1.00 a pack, sitting next to the likes of Mr Kipling and the Cadbury cake bars etc. At that price I felt like the single serve packs (which claim to be for sole indulgence) were hitting a premium price point that some my find off putting - what do you guys think?

Below are links to my original reviews of both the Rocky Road and Millionaire Flapjacks flavours. They remained consistently good from the big tub formats, so it is the Hazelnut Chocolate Squares we will focus mainly on today.


GU Anytime Millionaire's Flapjacks - See HERE

GU Anytime Rocky Road - See HERE

GU Anytime Chocolate Hazelnut Squares
Kcal 270 Fat 12.0g Fat(sats) 5.0g Carbs 31.0g (per 3 squares)

To my knowledge these Chocolate Hazelnut Squares are solely being made for this new 'Anytime' range so you wont be finding them in any of the larger tub formats like seen for the two variants above. On pack these came described as (surprise-surprise!) 'Chocolate hazelnut squares, sprinkled with crunchy hazelnut pieces'. I should have heeded this as a warning as when I opened the packet I was met with a mass exodus of tiny hazelnut fragments, most of which are still stuck in-between the keyboard keys of the laptop I'm using right now.

Following a brief clean up, one of the squares finally made it's way in to my mouth - a comfortable fit given it's perfect one mouthful size. Unfortunately I have to report what followed was a largely underwhelming experience, as taste wise these didn't deliver. Chocolate flavour hit wise, these were a more than adequate set of cakes. They seemed to bring a degree of rich chocolatey flavours to the party initially, however even these came across as limited latter on in the flavour development as a layer sugary chocolate caramel interjected with a generic sweet sugary flavour input. Forgetting that, what I found most disappointing about these cakes was the lack of presence of the hazelnut in the taste. Despite the smattering of hazelnuts adourning the top of the piece, neither the bottom layer of cake or upper coating of chocolate established any sort of nutty flavours. This ultimately left me feeling very underwhelmed by these supposed Chocolate Hazelnut Squares.

6.2 out of 10



Overall I would say the Millionaire's Flapjacks and Rocky Road cakes are just about there in terms of pulling off the £1.00 price point but as far as the Chocolate Hazelnut Squares go I would seriously reconsider your purchase before investing. Have any of you guys come across these yet? Thoughts and opinions are of course most welcome.

September 14th: Ritter Sport Noisette

Kcal 553 Fat 35.0g Carbs 52.0g (per 100.0g)

As I mentioned in my review of the Milch + Weizenpops last week, Ritter Sport have somehow managed to squeeze in another two new flavour variants alongside their usual seasonal limited editions. The second new chocolate which I'm featuring today is the new Ritter Sport Noisette. Propositionally this bar sounded very familiar to a lot of previously reviewed Ritter bars that had featured on the site before - Nougat Praline (See HERE) and Nuss in Nugatcreme (See HERE). Looking at the scores of those two, this bar obviously had some promise as this was an area where Ritter had shown some competency in before. One thing this one did have me wondering though is whether the hazelnut is the national nut of choice in Germany!? I don't think there is another country in the world that flavours so many of their chocolates with this one ingredient - If someone can tell me why Germany loves hazelnuts so much I will send you a bar (best explanation wins!!)

Unlike last weeks bar which was a 250.0g beast, this Noisette is an addition to the standard 100.0g range. As usual the presentation of the chocolate was of a fair to good standard, though Ritter have had to double up on the choice of colour given for the wrapper - Keks + Nuss (See HERE). The Chocolate inside the plastic packet was branded with the usual Ritter logos and broke apart with a surprisingly soft, almost gooey ease. Aroma wise the chocolate was relatively mild in fragerance, however there was a detectable nutty hazelnut scent that was decently reassuring.

My worryingly ever improving German language reading skills led me to interpret that this was a bar consisting of simply 'milk chocolate with hazelnut mass' i.e. gianduja! Reading that, the soft yielding texture suddenly began to make sense and it struck me as extremely promising that the total bar consisted of over 13.5% hazelnut. Suffice to say I was expecting a big time hazelnut flavour hit and I guess on balance this it was delivered to a relatively good standard. Containing 30.0% cocoa the chocolate was it's ever fair self and delivered it's standard milky sweet flavour base. Just as the break up action suggested, the texture was very unique and this chocolate melted in true gianduja fashion with an infinite fast, smooth softness and almost a cool melting sensation. As the quick melt developed the hazelnut flavours became increasingly prevalent in their raw woodiness, however they were very short lived and thus severly limited the chocolates ability to feel totally satisfactory.

Overall this chocolate had some pretty obvious pros and cons that are well reflected in the scoring chart you see below. Working in it's favour, it tasted very nice and the promised hazelnut influence was brought to the party by the very generously portioned hazelnut mass ingredients. Another area where this bar had strength was also in the mouth feel that it had as it melted - anyone who has ever had gianduja chocolates will know what to expect here - spectacular! Unfortunately this Noisette bar did admittedly have it's shortcomings though with the most notable weakness being it's inability to serve as a fulfilling chocolate. Normally I feel that a 50.0g portion of any chocolate is a more than adequate amount, yet not at all with this one. There's no doubting this Noisette bar tastes great, but it's really not one you want to be eating if it is hunger satisfaction you are after.

7.8 out of 10

September 12th: Hotel Chocolat Go Bananas

Kcal ??? Fat ??? Fat(sats) ??? Carbs ???

Get out the tissues, today we have ourselves our last Hotel Chocolat review from their Summer 2011 collection. Luckily for you guys I have saved one of my favourites until last. From the off it was all to obvious that this Go Bananas slab had all the makings of a Hotel Chocolat classic and it certainly had my banana loving Mother excited at the prospect of trying it. The descriptor of 'milk chocolate and banana flavoured white chocolate' left little to the imagination and certainly didn't temper our sky high expectations.

You may have seen that Hotel Chocolat have treated me recently to some of their 500.0g slabs. This 'Go Bananas' offering came in the smaller 200.0g size, though it still came across as just visually impressive with some grand design work with it's swirled chocolate and yellow covered splodges. Again I had minor issues with the practicality of the breaking up of the slab, and it's non-fresh sealed paper based material, but hey, who am I kidding the chocolate lasted less that 48 hours once opened anyway.

So with it's milk and white chocolate split was this a story of two halves? Well no not really .... both were incredibly tasty :D You will see by my photo above that it was the 40.0% house milk that made up the slight 60:40 majority at least visually. This was perhaps slightly misleading as the yellow squiggles where also white chocolate so carried the banana flavouring across both chocolate types. In terms of taste and texture this slab was just fantastic, and exhibited some amazing real tasting fruity flavours within it's always delightful thick melt. The milk chocolate had a more cocoa focused flavour base versus the creamier, vanilla noted white. What was consistent across both chocolate types were the incredible banana flavours which were created by the small specs of dried banana and the flavourings present in the white chocolate. For a fruit flavoured chocolate it was surprisingly satisfying - that's not to say it didn't disappear in double quick time.

Overall Hotel Chocolat have managed to sign off the summer season with one of their best efforts with this 'Go Bananas' slab more than meeting expectations. Compared to some of the other offerings I've reviewed over the past few months this was one of the simpler in terms of proposition (See Cherry Pop HERE). I think it was this simplicity of just being banana flavoured milk and white chocolate that bore dividends - this wasn't one of those chocolates that needed the full bells and whistles. As I said above, both chocolate types were as tasty as each other, though I can see white chocolate fans really taking to the white with the dried banana crisps just that little bit more prevalent. It seems ridiculous I bother adding a recommendation sentence in here ... what the heck :D ... highly recommended with two thumbs up for you banana fans.

8.7 out of 10

September 10th: 7Days of Chocolate Reviews - Edition 86 - Kellogg's Froot Loops

SITE UPDATE

Hi All,

Another week passes on the ChocolateMission and we had a nice blend of new and old product reviews. If you missed anything this week please see the links below ...

Hotel Chocolat Nut Mania - See HERE
Ritter Sport Milch + Weizenpops - See HERE
Cadbury Caramello - See HERE

There has been plenty of interesting Chocolate news this week, including the rather unfortunate latest financial figures from Thorntons which sadly aren't showing a pretty picture - See NEWS PAGE HERE

With all these new products coming out lately I seem to be booking all these reviews day-to-day so to I'm a little hesitant to say what is coming up in the next week. One thing I am sure of is that midweek there are prizes to be won in the review :D All I will say is come armed with some knowledge about German chocolate and just make your answer sound like you know what you are talking about :D

*** BREAKING NEWS ***

I have just received the go ahead for an interview spot with the people at Ritter Sport! Look for that in the next few weeks.

Have an enjoyable weekend everyone. There is a festival of sport what with the Football, Rugby, Cricket and F1 being on. You have to love that now.

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 weekKellogg's Froot Loops
Kcal 110 Fat 1.0g Fat(sats) 0.5g Carbs 25.0g (per 29.0g serving)

Life's easy when you have splendid people like AmericanSoda sending you interesting American products to review :D Indeed, the only thing I have moan about 'Snack of the Week' this week is that Kellogg's decided to spell Froot Loops in a very silly way. Honestly my brain couldn't hack having to be so stupid and spell fruit with a double-O :D

All week I've been eating my through these single serve Kellogg's Fruit Loops packs which replaced by usual Bran Flakes cereal. For those not in the know, Fruit Loops cereal is produced across several geographies including America, Australia and Korea, just annoyingly not the UK (See WIKI HERE). The cereal itself comprises of ring-shaped pieces (hence "loops") and come in a variety of bright colours that are enhanced with natural fruit flavours. Aesthetically they do look impressive - I can't think of another cereal that quite has so colour to it (Haha certainly not Bran Flakes!!).

Despite the artificial, fake look, the cereal actually surprisingly tastes pretty fruity. The taste of sweet fruits is sweet and ill-maintained due to the lighter than light texture, but genuinely this is a unique cereal that provides a curiously moreish taste. The fruit flavours are hard to pin down to a single fruit, though anyone who has tried 'grape' flavoured candy from America will familiarise the taste instantly. Like most of these Kids cereals I wouldn't promote their consumption on a daily basis, but Froot Loops are worthy of a try if you fancy something just a little different in your breakfast bowl.

7.8 out of 10

You can buy KELLOGG'S FROOT LOOPS HERE HERE at AmericanSoda

CHOCOLATE NEWS

Visit the ChocolateMission news page for all the latest developments in the Chocolate market ... Click the banner below ....

Spetember 9th: Cadbury Caramello (US) - (Original Post - August 7th 2008)

Kcal 220 Fat 10.0g Fat 6.0g Carbs 29.0g

My continued relationship with AmericanSoda (See HERE), has given me the opportunity recently to revisit a few of the American products I first reviewed way back at the start of the ChocolateMission. Two weeks ago you may recall me checking back over my past review of one of my all time favourite bars, the 3 Musketeers (See HERE). Whilst I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of my redux review of that bar, I thought it would also be worthwhile seeing whether the Cadbury Caramello bar had improved since I last tried it.

Well one thing I think we can all agree on is that my photography skills have improved since August 2008 :D - I hope you guys now have a better idea of the bar presentation. Wrapper and production wise there was no difference. The foil wrapper still looked attractive, but disappointingly the bar was still split into four large sized blocks.

This format of course meant that the same issue I found over three years ago was still unfortunately there. I found the taste of the chocolate still pretty closely aligned to Cadbury UK chocolate (perhaps a touch less creamy!), however the usual thick melting texture still wasn't there. Just as with my experience in 2008, I found the caramel to be more of a mid grade syrupy sweet experience compared to the UK golden nectar that has that ever so delicious butterscotch, salt licked delightfulness. The burnt sugar aftertaste was still retained and gave it some unique character, but my own personal preference still resided with the sweeter finish of the British bar.

Overall like the 3 Musketeer bar there was no difference in what I perceived over three years ago and I still feel very comfortable with the original score I awarded it. Having since tried a crazy amount of different Cadbury Caramel bars from all corners of the globe since my last review of this US Caramello I would say it was probably one of the weaker ones. I can recommend trying this bar if you are interested in seeing how the same chocolate bars vary by region as it does offer something different to what many of the others do. Based on satisfaction delivery as a chocolate bar though I would still say you would be more happy sticking with the UK option.

8.1 out of 10

-----
Kcal 210 Fat 9.0g Fat 6.0g Carbs 29.0g

Today I continued my pursuit of finding the best Cadbury Caramel bar sampling the US variation. The US bar shares its name with the equivalent Australian bar...'Caramello'. The bar weighed in at slightly less than the UK Cadbury Dairy Milk with Caramel at 45.0g, and was split into four bigger sized blocks in comparison with the six blocked UK and eight blocked Aussie variations. Aesthetically this didnt bother me - it still looked nice but as I will go into, the design of the US bar did indeed have a few detrimental repercussions.

After opening the wrapper I was confronted with a familiar cocoa smell - it also had quite a strong sweet caramel scent which combined with the cocoa made for a very appetising prospect. Texture wise the bar had a slightly different proposition to its UK /Aussie counterparts. Due to the bar being split into four blocks it felt only natraul (and most convenient) to eat it in four chunks. The base of the bar was particularly thick and the caramel was well and truly crammed into each of the four block pockets...to the point of overspill (see above picture). What this all made for was a slightly detrimental texture as the two ingredients felt very isolated from each other. What I enjoyed so much with the UK version was the way the chocolate and caramel were proportioned, and how the chocolate melt coincided with the slow release of the sticky caramel. Unfortunately this wasn't the case here as the thick chocolate base did not retain the same melt in the mouth quality and conversely acted as a massive barrier between the two components combining ... slightly disappointing. Taste wise the chocolate retained many of the attributes of the UK Dairy Milk - it was creamy and had a rich cocoa taste ... absolutely delightful. The caramel in the US version was more akin to the Aussie version and didn't have quite the same smooth flavour depth of the UK equivalent. It was still pleasant but it had an over agressive 'burnt' aftertaste despite having a very sweet initial flavour.

Overall this didn't quite live up to the standards of the UK Cadbury Dairy Milk with Caramel. The design of the bar with its four block approach came at detriment to the texture and made for a weaker synergy of flavours between the chocolate and caramel. The taste of the chocolate retained most of the UK Dairy Milk qualities and was very pleasant, though the caramel was not quite of the same standard and varied in its taste. This is still a great chocolate bar but simply not as good as the UK version.

8.1 out of 10

September 7th: Ritter Sport Milch + Weizenpops

Kcal 576 Fat 38.0g Carbs 52.0g (per 100.0g)

I did tell you all I could have filled last weeks 'New product' review slots with several other alternatives! Carrying on our trend of chocolatey innovations, today we have another offering from our German pals Ritter Sport, who have recently released another two new bars to their range that fall outside of their seasonal limited editions i.e. two new permanent offerings! The first one which I'm reviewing today is this Ritter Sport Milch + Weizenpops ... hold that comment or e-mail asking me what that means :D ... it translates as Ritter Sport Milk & Wheat Puffs.

This new Milch + Weizenpops is the latest addition to the 250.0g range that is now made up of seven different offerings. The yellow colour packaging was only a slightly paler shade of yellow than the Cornflakes bar, though the branding and on-pack pictures were enough to differentiate it. The 6x6 blocked grid was easy to break up and the chocolate looked immensely appetising with the filling appearing even more plentiful that normal with the cream coloured centre clearly studded with the wheat puff cereal throughout.

The back of the wrapper described this bar as 'milk chocolate filled with a soft milk cream, sweet crisp wheat and hazelnuts'. The nut content wasn't something I was expecting, but it was a welcome surprise and as I will go into it was more than a welcome addition. Starting with the milk chocolate, it delivered on all expectations, bringing a full bodied sweet chocolatey flavour base. The filling inside was very much as described and had a softer, crumblier texture whilst reinforcing the dairy centred flavours established by the chocolate. On their own, the wheat puffs may have tasted a little plain and thus been meaningless, however the small fragments of nuts brought a tasty woody savoury flavour note to the party, and this contrasted nicely with the sweeter creme and chocolate elements. Despite it's 250.0g size this was unfortunately one of those Ritter bars that was almost impossible to stop eating - you'll be surprised at the rate you make your way through it.

Overall the Ritter range is becoming so large and with it consisting of so many high quality offerings it seems all to easy to just dismiss this as another 'run-of-the-mill' offering. If one were to cast aside all that had gone before however, and view it as an independent chocolate in it's own right, then it would have to be seen as a very tasty offering that does a good job combining chocolate, milk and cereal. Some may argue that this is one of the plainer tasting Ritter's out there, but I would counter that by saying that the contrasting sweetness of the chocolate is great paired with the cereal and nuts - trust me it will keep coming back for more. Would I buy it again? Perhaps not for myself, but as a 'safe' option for someone I know has plainer tastes I think this would be a great chocolate.

8.2 out of 10

September 5th: Hotel Chocolat Nut Mania

Kcal ??? Fat ??? Fat(sats) ??? Carbs ???

With the launch of all those new products last week the Hotel Chocolat Monday series was stopped in it's tracks. Fear not though ChocolateMission fans, today we are back on form and I will be reviewing another new addition to the original slab range. As I stated a few weeks ago, Hotel Chocolat have been really quite sensible with their portfolio management, and have continued to develop their core slab range in the background to all the limited edition seasonal offerings they have been making. The latest one that myself and my family sampled this week was this Nut Mania offering. This slab came described as 'a full-on nut fiesta chocolate slab' and can be bought both in-store and online - See HERE. Cheap plug over with lets get cracking (groan!! Haha!)

Just as the Hotel Chocolat Le Grand Crunch did last week, this slab came in a huge 500.0g size - trust me folks that's a heck of a lot of chocolate :D Given the packaging, some might say that this size is too big as one thing I have noticed about these large slabs is that once the seal on the paper based sleeve is broken, the material isn't ideal for keeping the chocolate in the freshest state. Minor grievances aside, everyone agreed the slab looked tremendously impressive with the wholenut pieces evident throughout both the milk and dark chocolate portions - the nutty scents emanating from the chocolate were very tempting.

Taking the slab out of it's sleeve, it soon became apparent that the heavy nut content was going to have its advantages and disadvantages. To get the insignificant negativity out the way first, I have to make reference to just how difficult it was to break apart the slab without causing a terrible mess. Snapping off decent sized chunks proved to be a hell of a challenge - I'm still finding fragments of chocolate and nut on my carpets now! Speaking in a more positive fashion you may well have guessed this tasted like an absolute dream. I needn't tell you again how individually brilliant both the 40.0% milk and 70.0% dark chocolate were, but I will focus more on how well they combined with the nuts, which were each brilliant in every which way. Indeed, the almonds, halzenuts, pecans and pistachios were all delightfully fresh and crunchy in texture and they added terrific savoury flavour notes with elements of salt (pistachios), wood (hazelnut) and butter (almonds and pecans) consistently contrasting with the sweeter cocoa flavours offered by the chocolate. As with a lot of Hotel Chocolat chocolates, a decent sized chunk of this slab made for a fine partner with an after dinner coffee.

Overall the record needn't be changed, this was another very tasty chocolate from our people at Hotel Chocolat. Above I resisted the urge of describing how delicious both types of chocolate were - suffice to say the 40.0% was it's ever delightful creamy chocolatey self, and the 70.0% was just as impressive with it's richer, earthy cocoa flavour base. Of course the X-factor for this Nut Mania were the nuts, which were just terrific in every sense apart from their consequential messiness. Every different nut type made their own unique contributions to the taste and also maintained their superb crunchy freshness even days after opening. Lovers of nutty chocolates will feel right at home here - it always seems silly recommending it to chocolate nut lovers but I can't imagine any one of them feeling disappointed with this one.

8.1 out of 10

September 3rd: '7Days of Chocolate Reviews' - Edition 85 - Lily O'Brien's Uglies

SITE UPDATE

Hi All,

I hope you will all agree that it's been a pretty cool week on the site where I've managed to fill the review slots with new product offerings from Mars, Thornton's and Nestle.

Mars Triple Choc - See HERE
Thorntons Bakewell Tart - See HERE
Quality Street My Purple Bar - See HERE

The arrival of a new season has brought about vast amounts of NPD - being totally honest with you guys I could have filled these slots several times over with various other products sent my way in the last week or so. You will notice today that I even managed to fill 'Snack of the Week' with another new set of products from Lily O'Briens.

Suffice to say it is really busy times for me at the moment. The site is attracting a record number of visitors and comments and I can only thank all of you who continue to provide constant feedback and your own thoughts on whatever I'm reviewing.

Please do make sure you are visiting the site regularly and contributing. You are what make the site worth the effort so please endeavor to spread the ChocolateMission word. As a side note the ChocolateMission Twitter feed is being used more and more by myself - Sign up to it HERE.

Some good news this week - Hotel Chocolat have their 50% sale on right now!! Get involved by clicking HERE (yes that is an affiliate embedded link! It helps support the site so please use it).

Have great weekends - Oh and don't forget 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

As I stated above in my Site Update today, Snack of the Week consists of yet another two new products you should be seeing appear on retailer shelves near you soon. Indeed, Lily O'Briens have decided to extend it's recently launched 'Uglies' range further afield than it's Irish homeland and extend distribution to the UK. This Uglies range consists of two varieties - Their Honeycomb Crunch and Cocoa Cookies. I was lucky enough to receive some single pack samples of both - my very brief thoughts on them are below:

Lily O'Brien's Honeycomb Crunch
Kcal ??? Fat ??? Carbs ???
'Honeycomb and wheat scrunchies smothered in milk chocolate'
This single piece 20.0g chocolate looked appetitisng split in half and there was evidence of copious amounts of both the promised honeycomb and wheat cereal pieces. Essentially this was very similar in proposition to the Cadbury Crunchie Clusters (See HERE) and frankly it didn't taste that far apart from them either. The chocolate was obviously differentiated from the Cadbury alternative in that it was a touch less sugary but with less distinctive in it's milky taste - the melt was also a lot thinner in comparison to Dairy Milk. Chocolate aside the honeycomb and cereal delivered exactly in line with expectations - sweet honey led flavors burst out from their respective crunchy crisp textures. Pleasant but frustratingly small and moreish.

6.8 out of 10




Lily O'Briens Uglies Cocoa Cookie
Kcal ??? Fat ??? Carbs ???
'Cocoa cookie pieces smothered in milk chocolate'
This was another 20.0g single piece chocolate that was very similar to above not only in proposition but also product delivery. In a nutshell this simply swapped the honeycomb and wheat cereal, for chocolate biscuit pieces. In terms of taste these Uglies Cocoa Cookie chocolates were far less sweet than the above and their chocolatey flavour impact left a longer lasting impression in the mouth. The flavour longevity was longer, however their small size subsequently made them similarly unsatisfying.

7.2 out of 10



Hey forget what I say :D What do I know :D You know I'm always keen to hear what you guys make of these. Drop me a line with your thoughts I'm interested to hear from you.

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September 2nd: Quality Street My Purple Bar

Kcal 208 Fat 11.2g Carbs 24.0g (per bar)

The week may be drawing to a close but I still have one last new limited edition product for you guys to take a look at. This Quality Street My Purple Bar was announced back in July (See HERE) with the Nestle spokesperson bodly stating the follwoing:
“With the launch of My Purple Bar, Nestlé Confectionery is giving retailers the chance to benefit from one of the most innovative launches of 2011. Scoring extremely highly when tested with consumers, this new and exciting chocolate single comes from the mega brand Quality Street.” I wasn't sure about the 'most innovative' comment, though when I put my mind to it I couldn't think of a mass produced bar currently on the UK marketplace combining these three ingredients (surprising huh!?).

This bar weighed at a catch-weight 40.0g and came in an easily divisible 4 block format. My photograph above probably hasn't done this all justice but this was one really well presented product. I was very impressed with the wrapper especially - it was simple, yet did what it needed to do superbly. The branding was prominent and had nice stand-out with it's swish font style, whilst the purple foil material did a dual job of looking aesthetically relevant and also keeping the contents fresh. Big thumbs up to Nestle for this here.

For those unaware the 'Purple one' in traditional Quality Street refers to a milk chocolate that contains caramel and hazelnut - this was exactly what was on offer here. Pre-empting free flowing oozing caramel I first chilled the bar in the refrigerator to ensure that such circumstances were avoided. Breaking the bar into it's four pieces, I liked the way it had been constructed as it carried through a sense of familiarity with the shape of the blocks. Normally in a case like this I would de-construct the taste by it's three different components. Unfortunately I have the displeasure of just being able to summarise them all by saying the collectively made for a very heavy sugar led taste that had a disappointing level of mild nuttiness to it. The milk chocolate shells were noticeably lacking chocolatey flavours and the caramel innards were almost devoid of any of the desired butter and toffee notes. The hazelnut pieces inside weren't exactly sparsely portioned, but as stated already they were lacking in flavour and didn't bring to the party what they should of.

Overall this bar just simply didn't fulfil the needs I wanted it to, and ultimately I was left feeling disappointed by it. As I aforementioned there wasn't one single constituent that let this bar down especially, it was just the fact that all three of the milk chocolate, caramel and hazelnuts weren't half as flavoursome or contributive as they should have been. Being an old bugger :D all I could think about when trying this bar was how much so Cadbury need to bring back the Cadbury Nuts about Caramel bar that they used to produce (See HERE). That bar there was one that I never understood why Cadbury took out of their portfolio - I would be interested to hear from anyone of you if you would similarly like to see it's return. Back to the matter at hand, at £0.65 you aren't going to break the bank giving this one a try. I unfortunately have to close with the conclusion that I wouldn't recommend it based on taste though.

6.4 out of 10

August 31st: Thorntons Bakewell Tart

Kcal 551 Fat 35.5g Fat(sats) 20.9g Carbs 47.2g (per 100.0g)

In true blink and you'll miss it style, Thorntons have been celebrating their 'Chocolate Jubilee' 100th birthday this year. Indeed for such an amazing feat they have gone about telling everyone in a very underwhelming fashion - as a marketeer I can't help but see the missed opportunity they had here! Anyway, as part of their understated celebrations they have been releasing a few limited editions to their square bars range - the latest being this Bakewell Tart flavour. I first tasted this chocolate back in February when I was the recipient of some pre-samples courtesty of of one of Thornton's' PR agencies. Ever since this time I'd been really looking forward to writing this review - Thorntons were on to something here!

As with all Thorntons limited editions this one came in a 80.0g size and it took me the best part of three sittings for me to finish it. Colour wise the packaging was all sensible and nice looking; Thorntons really are starting to run out of colours for these square bars though, they are going to have to repackage them soon if they are to avoid it starting to get confusing. The chocolate blocks themselves were styled in the usual block format though when broken apart there were tiny specs of red fruits and biscuits clearly visible.

The most immediately striking thing about this chocolate that I noticed both times I tried it was that the chocolates' aromas were very strong, and really set the Bakewell Tart flavour experience up nicely. The 37.0% cocoa milk chocolate at the heart of the bar was on the whole enjoyable in it's own right with it's honey noted milky flavours, however it really just acted as an unfussy 'carrier' chocolate for the Bakewell Tart elements. From the very first to the very last piece, it was the almond, biscuit and dried raspberry contents which dominated the taste and boy did they achieve the Bakewell Tart taste superbly. Quite frankly this was what a Bakewell Tart flavoured chocolate would taste like in it's ideal form - they couldn't have achieved the flavour creation they set out to make any better. There were elements of red berry fruit, buttery nut and even a pastry like flavour input that created a sensationally engaging and ever developing taste. On a minor note, texturally this bar wasn't ideal as the fruit seed particles from the dried raspberry created a bitty, unecessary roughness to the mouth feel. I'm sure some may think the contrary and that it adds to the authenticity to this fantastic tasting offering.

Overall this was a delicious chocolate that achieved it's proposed flavour expertly. As I stated above, if you ever wanted to create a chocolate that was Bakewell Tart flavoured, this is exactly how you would go about it. The Bakewell Tart experience was executed about as well as possible, with the only real drawback for me being the texture of the melt which at times was far from ideal with the rough feeling seeds. Looking over at Dom's review on Chocablog (See HERE) our thoughts on this chocolate were largely consistent so I'm quietly confident that my own displeasure at the seed issue isn't me being overly fussy. If we are talking purely taste I honestly can't recommend this chocolate enough - even more so if you are a fan of Bakewell Tarts generally. For all their failings communicating their 100 year birthday they haven't half created a delicious chocolate here.

8.4 out of 10