June 20th: 'Bits n Bobs' Cadbury Superpost # 3

Back in June 2011 I posted my second 'Bits n Bobs' review that was solely dedicated to Britain's most famous chocolate producer Cadbury Ltd - See HERE. Well since then I've managed to accumulate yet another random assortment of Cadbury chocolate goodies. When I say 'random assortment' there I do really mean it! Some of the products you will see today were purchased in my local supermarkets, whilst others have come from as far afield as Canada. Without further hesitation I suggest we get on with things ....

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Cadbury Sweet Marie

Cadbury Sweet Marie
Kcal 320 Fat 18.0g Fat(sats) 7.0g Carbs 33.0g
'Fudge covered in fresh roasted peanuts and light rice crisps, all smothered in a rich, creamy chocolatey coating'
Origin: Canada

Cadbury chocolates from Canada have had mixed success here on ChocolateMission. The ones that stick out in my mind are the Cadbury Wunderbar (See HERE)and the Cadbury Caramilk (See HERE). Both of these bars were fine examples of what Cadbury Canada could do - I was hoping for similar success from this Cadbury Sweet Marie (formely manufactured by a company called Nielsen).

Like many of the chocolate offerings you get in Canada this was another huge one that both looked large and was large - clocking in at a mighty 60.0g. Aesthetically the film material wrapper and inner bar did little to inspire much confidence, though the strong peanutty smells were a lot more promising. Thankfully these smells weren't misleading - the taste was strongly influenced by the salty roasted peanut flavours which played off very nicely indeed against the sweet caramel and condensed milk like flavours of the chocolate. Each mouthful provided a nice mixture of chewy, crispy and melting chocolate textures. These combined with the multi-layered taste depth and fulfilling size made for another Canadian Cadbury well worthy of a ChocolateMission thumbs up.

8.2 out of 10


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Cadbury Milk Chocolate Rich Tea Biscuits

Cadbury Milk Chocolate Rich Tea Biscuits
Kcal 60 Fat 2.6g Fat(sats) 1.3g Carbs 3.9g (per biscuit)
'Rich Tea biscuits half covered in milk chocolate'
Origin: UK

My recent biscuit superposts have stirred up many reader requests, and amongst them a common found one seems to be a call for me to review Cadbury's own biscuit offerings. There isn't much in the way of innovation with these - Cadbury have quite simply taken the British biscuit classic the 'Rich Tea' (See HERE), and applied a half coating of their own milk chocolate.

As you can see from my graph below I felt comfortable handing out average marks across the entire Jim's ChocolateMission rating spectrum (gosh that sounds geeky! Haha!) - 7.0 just seemed appropriate for the entirety of what I experienced with these. Packaging and overall presentation really run of the mill stuff. Nothing was outlandishly Cadbury branded but it was all still aligned to their 'purple' style, and the biscuits bore the branding on their chocolate undersides. As with any Rich Tea biscuit the flavour notes offered by the biscuit were malty hints of brown sugar. The chocolate taste was apparent, yet not overtly recogniseable as Cadbury due to it's short presence longevity as a cnsequence of it's very thin portioning. At push you could describe the taste as a little more milk led, though it wasn't differentiated enough to have me telling you that you need to buy these over the McVitie's equivalents.

7.0 out of 10


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Cadbury Digestives
Kcal 80 Fat 4.1g Fat(sats) 2.2g Carbs 4.7g (per biscuit)
'Digestive biscuits half covered with milk chocolate'
Origin: UK

Well it wasn't like I was just going to stop at the Cadbury Rich Teas was it :D As you will no likely have guessed, Cadbury also have a Digestive biscuit offering. My US readers might want to refer to WIKI again as you probably won't have a clue what a 'Digestive' biscuit is ... according to WIKI it's illegal for them to be called this in the states - don't you just love random WIKI facts :D

If your a UK reader and need me to describe what a Digestive biscuit please send an e-mail to Wherehaveyoubeen@allyourlife.com ... :D seriously if you haven't ever had a Digestive biscuit before you must have led a very deprived childhood. Suffice to say the biscuit portion delivered the same wheaty, brown sugared, salt hinted taste you would get from any McVitie's and supermarket alternative. As opposed to the Rich Teas above, the chocolate layer here was portioned more generously and that of course helped it come across better in the taste. The chocolate taste still wasn't immediately attributable to Cadbury, but still it was nice enough for what it was. They were better than the Rich Teas.

7.5 out of 10


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Cadbury Mini Animal Biscuits

Cadbury Mini Animal Biscuits
Kcal 95 Fat 3.9g Carbs 13.1g
'Animal shaped mini biscuits half covered in milk chocolate'
Origin: UK

Whilst I was more than happy buying the two Cadbury biscuit products above, I left it up to one of my work colleagues to provide me with these for the review today. I don't know what it is, but buying Mini Animal Biscuits just seems kinda wrong for a twenty-something year old male :D This seemingly wasn't a problem for one of my work fellows, who bought a multipack of mini bags from their local Sainsburys supermarket.

As you will have determined from the description and most likely the photos, these were a similar proposition to the Cadbury Digestives but in a mini format. Portioned in nice looking matted Cadbury bags I have to admit the biscuits looked fun, and the animal characters (Ella Funky the elephant :D Leroy the Lion :D and Rockodile the crocodile :D ... legendary stuff haha) were nicely scribed into each biscuit. Taste wise you may be surprised to hear they came off tasting better than the larger sized alternatives above as the chocolate was a whole lot more prominent in the taste. The sweeter chocolate emphasis brought additional creamyness and played of nicely against the saltyness of the wheat based biscuit. Who would have guessed that the kiddie offering would have come out as the best in class here - not me!!

7.9 out of 10

June 18th: Bits n Bobs June 2012

I'm sure you guys know the deal by now with these Bits n Bobs posts now - short, quick, snapshot reviews of products I've come across on my day-to-day living. I hope you enjoy them and please if you have any requests, musings or inquiries ... hit me on the JCM Twitter feed @Chocmission

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Kate's Cakes Caramel Slice

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

As well as documenting the latest and greatest in the Chocosphere I like to keep my eye on what is happening in the cakes market and recently I've noticed the emergence of new brand gaining distribution in our biggest UK supermarkets. In the last few weeks I've come across a new range of cakes from a manufacture called 'Kate's Cakes' - a company who claim they 'make and bake in small batches using only free range egg and carefully selected non GM ingredients'. I'll be totally honest - I couldn't care less what type of eggs or ingredients they use, I was more drawn to them because they were promising me 'all butter shortbread with a luxurious caramel layer, topped with thick milk chocolate' aka their Caramel Slice :-D With such a tough comparable product from Heavenly Cakes to live up to (See HERE), I guess it gives you some indication of how good I thought it was given the scores I've attributed. For the £0.75 I payed for this I thought it was up there with some of the better mass produced caramel slices I've tried. The biscuit was just how I liked it - with it's buttery, sweet, salt hinted flavours all packaged in a party of textures ranging from the crunchy outside to a soft, crumbly middle. The caramel layer was perhaps not quite on the level of other alternatives as it was just a touch grainy and sugary, however the chocolate was of a fair standard and brought a creamier focus to the heavy sugar intensive taste of the other two layers. Would I recommend Kate's Cakes Caramel Slice!? Well put it this way - they aren't life changing but I don't think you will be left feeling unsatisfied.I'll park by bum firmly on the fence for the minute, I think more research is needed :-D

7.2 out of 10

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Maryland Great British Summer Big & Chunky Cookies

Kcal 123 Fat 6.0g Fat(sats) 3.3g Carbs 15.8g (per cookie)

Summer has certainly kicked in here in the UK in the last few weeks with some glorious weather seen up and down the country. Before I curse us all and call it a 'Great British Summer', Maryland have gone and done that for us all already with launch of these Limited Edition Maryland Great British Summer Big &Chunky Cookies. I found these on sale in my local Tesco superstore - priced at £1.00 and hidden within all the other Jubilee paraphernalia we've seen over the last few weeks. Although the packaging did it's best to blend in with all the other 'wallpaper' GB branded and coloured packaging the actual cookies looked rather cool with the red, blue and white chocolate beans dotted generously amongst the lovely golden coloured cookies. With that I can say that good looks translated in to taste success and being a real non-fan of Burton's Maryland cookies this came as a nice surprise. Compared to the original packs of Maryland cookies I've had previous, the cookie bases tasted a whole lot nicer - less sugary, more buttery and wheaty. The chocolate 'beans' were essentially mini Smarties and brought a decent enough amount of chocolatey flavour bursts whenever encountered. Like many of the GB branded products we've been bombarded with this year these are another that can be categorised as 'ok but not life changing'. It must be said that £1.00 for ten cookies isn't a bad deal.

7.5 out of 10

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Cadbury Popcorn

Kcal 160 Fat 7.6g Fat(sats) 4.4g Carbs 18.7g (per 1/4 bag)

We seem to be getting more and more Cadbury sharing bags by the day with the Twirl Bites and Bitsa Wispa already brought in to the line up in the last twelve months or so. Though both of those were simply line-extensions of existing products, the latest pouch based snack from the lovely folks at Kraft is actually a new proposition altogether and sees Cadbury take their first foray in to the popcorn market  (I cant remember them doing anything in this area before!?). Unlike some of their latest products, the press releases regarding the announcement of Cadbury Popcorn came well before their actual distribution so I was on the look out for this product in all of my local shops.  I finally found them on sale in none other than WH Smith - priced on an introductory £1.00 trial offer. My hard earned pound bought me a 130.0g pouch - an amount suitable for four servings if you believe the nutritional information breakdown. The pack wasn't all that distinctive from many of the other Cadbury pouches - off the top of my head I can name the Caramel Nibbles, Cornflake Clusters and Crunchie Rocks that all use a similar yellow/gold colour scheme - not the cleverest of choices huh!? Although the exterior packaging wasn't all that eye-catching the popcorn looked a little more promising and I was impressed by the large sizes of the majority of the pieces and liked how the chocolate coatings looked nice and thick. When it came to the taste the aesthetic perception didn't mislead and it was the familiar sweet, milky taste of Cadbury chocolate that took a hold flavour wise. The popcorn at the core of each piece had a lovely lick of toffee which further added a small influence of caramel like flavours to the taste. For me the only thing missing was a little lick of salt which I think would have really taken these that step further and probably even more addictive than they were just like this. Whether or not you would enjoy Cadbury Popcorn is no more complicated than asking yourself whether you like popcorn or not :-) If you do then I would suggest a dabble as the Cadbury influence is integrated nicely here. Let me know what you think on Twitter @Chocmission.

7.6 out of 10

June 16th: Competition Winners ....

Well done to my two competition winners @Bananapancakesx and @magichappensxx

They have won themselves some Hotel Chocolat Goodies which I hope they will enjoy.

Dismayed you haven't won this time around!? Don't be!! I've got plenty more chocolate to be giving away folks so keep your eye out for another JCM giveaway coming very soon.

ANNOUNCEMENT: In some exciting news I've this week secured another partnership for the site - all will become obvious very soon but for the moment all I will say is that JCM has truly become global in terms of the what I will be able to represent on the site i.e. more product reviews of the latest products being released from all corners of the globe.

Before I round up I have a tip for you!! Head on over to the Hotel Chocolat site as I would expect them to be discounting some of the leftover Father's day gear they have in stock - Bargains to be had for sure - SEE HERE.

Have a great weekend

JIM

June 13th: Hotel Chocolat Fathers Day 2012

Over the last few days I've had a number of tweets coming my way (@Chocmission) asking me what I would recommend on the chocolates front for Father's day coming up here in the UK this weekend. Well folks tight deadlines have prohibited me from delivering some full on JCM reviews .... BUT ... I'm making this all up to you loyal JCM readers with a lovely little competition.

Twitter: 'Retweet' my tweet of this post & follow me @Chocmission

or

Facebook: Add me as a friend and post a link to this page on your status via Facebook 

... Doing either of these things will enter you in on a draw for one of the three items I'm recommending for Fathers day below. I will announce the winner this weekend!!! So get to it folks!! Retweet/Follow & Post your way to chocolatey goodness!

Hotel Chocolat For My Dad Pocket Selection - This little pocket pack of truffles contains eight chocolates, namely two of the following pieces: Billionaire’s Shortbread (Superb - See HERE), Simple Milk Truffle (Very Good - See HERE), Choc Chip Cookie, Dizzy Praline (Superb - See HERE). You need only take a look at the individual ratings to establish that this is a pretty safe bet if you are looking for a mini selection box gift.
BUY ME HERE

Hotel Chocolat 70% Dark Chocolate with Chilli Puddles - I don't want to spoil my incoming full review of these but let it be said that these are lovely! The richness of the dark chocolate ... the mouth warmth of the chilli ... I'll say no more but if you know your own 'old man' likes being a little adventurous when it comes to his chocolates then make sure you these are in your consideration.
BUY ME HERE

Hotel Chocolat Whisky Truffles - Now these are the all time faves of my own 'Old Man' and whenever we get a selection box from Hotel Chocolat these are always the first he dives in for (See Jubilee Selection box review - See HERE). I recommend these but I must add a little note of caution that Ladies & Gents ... these are strong!! :-D Approach only if your own 'Old Man' will be able to handle some 'blow your head' off whisky liqueur strength.
BUY ME HERE


Remember to enter the competition folks!!!

JIM

June 13th: Ritter Sport Edel-Nuss Mix (100th Anniversary)

Kcal 559 Fat 37.0g Carbs 47.0g (per 100.0g)

Put up the banners, send the cards and pop open the champagne bottles - it's time to celebrate 100 years of Ritter! Yes indeed our friends over in Germany are celebrating their 100th year anniversary and to celebrate they've seen fit to release a limited edition chocolate.

The bar they've released to mark this special occasion is this Edel-Nuss Mix offering - one of the latest additions to their extensive 100.0g range. On the wrapper I was informed that the Edel-Nuss Mix contained 'Alpine milk chocolate with almonds (7.0%), cashews (6.0%) and macadamias (5.0%)'. Though not explicitly stated, further inspection of the ingredients list also revealed that there was also an element of hazelnut involved, with hazelnut mass coming in just after macadamias in the rank order.

In regards to the packaging and presentation of the chocolate I guess there isn't that much to be said as it was all really standard Ritter Sport fare. I liked the idea of combining several colours into the predominantly white wrapper, though I would have perhaps liked to have seen more made of the '100 year' element as it came across relatively understated and subtle in it's placement at the top left of the wrapper.

When it came to the all important taste test my immediate observation was that the nut content was plentiful but all chopped into small pieces. When it comes to nutty chocolates I often cite this as a bad thing though the quality and freshness of the nuts made this a real non-issue. Speaking firstly of the chocolate it will surprise you little to hear my approval of the 30.0% cocoa recipe. It's creamy milk flavours grew in intensity with the progression of the melt, and it's underlying sweetness was a fine partner to the savoury focused nuts. As aforementioned the small chopped nut pieces were crammed into every block and they produced a delightful array of salty, buttery, woody flavours. This was one of those bars I found tremendously moreish and I found it really hard to not just keep breaking off blocks every time it caught my eye sitting on my work desk.        

Overall I give this 100th Anniversary chocolate a big JCM thumbs up and would like to see it introduced as a permanent addition to the range once the year is up. I'm sure if you look back across my Ritter reviews (HERE) you will note that I perceive Ritter's nut based chocolates as some of their better flavours so to me at least it made sense that they picked this mixed nut theme to commemorate such an important birthday. What I liked about this bar especially was that each none of the nuts took precedence in the taste and at different times you could really detect the differing contributions that each brought to the party. If you would like to get a second opinion/perspective of this one I would suggest you take a look at Cybele's review over at Candyblog (See HERE) - seemingly she thought as much of it as I did.

8.4 out of 10

June 11th: Oreo Superpost

Oreo is fast becoming one of the most recognized global food brands with seemingly every market producing multiple products baring the brand name in all manner of different forms. Today I'm posting mini reviews of some Oreo products from Indonesia, Germany and the USA - the brand has certainly clocked up the air miles here that's for sure :-D

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Oreo Brownie Creme Filled

Kcal 370 Fat 16.0g Fat(sats) 5.0g Carbs 52.5g (per 85.0g brownie)

I'm going to kick off the Oreo reviews today with a product sent to me by my good friends at AmericanSoda.co.uk - a UK based, US snacks & food importer (See HERE). These guys were nice enough to provide me with a few samples of Kraft's Oreo Brownie Creme Filled - 85.0g, individually wrapped, single serve brownies.

At this point I would like to point you in the direction of a review I wrote back in May 2010 on the Oreo Brownie (See HERE). In particular I would like to refer you to this part here ...

"My main issue (that my fellow taste tester agreed with I may add) was that the texture of the brownie was just way too dry. The brownie needed some sort of icing, or inner filling to balance the dryness of both the brownie and the cookie pieces."

Well folks please allow me to humour myself by letting me believe it was my review that brought about this rather awesome Creme Filled variety :-D Indeed as I suspected it might, the addition of a simple layer of creme running through the center provided a much needed moistness to the texture and the resulting mouth feel was far superior to the one experienced previously. The creme itself was exactly like you get in normal Oreos with it's vanilla hinted sweetness a delicious, complimentary enhancer to the chocolate cake flavours. This was a more well rounded and satisfying brownie than the last Oreo one I reviewed in 2010. If you like your brownies and/or your Oreo Cakesters then I would highly recommend trying one of these. - I must be some sort genius you know :-D

8.5 out of 10

    
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Milka & Oreo

Kcal 560 Fat 30.0g Fat(sats) 19.5g Carbs 54.5g (per 100.0g)

Unless I've totally missed something I believe this is the first time that we have ever seen a hook up between these two Kraft portfolio brands. Back in 2010 I remember there being a pretty similar Milka Cream & Choc-Biscuits limited edition bar (See HERE), but to think it's taken until 2012 to see any interaction with Oreo and Milka is really quite incredible. As unbelievable as the situation may seem we now do have a Milka & Oreo chocolate bar available to buy in Germany - 'Alpine milk chocolate with an alpine cream filling with Oreo chocolate biscuit pieces', it sounded awesome.

This new bar comes as new variant in the standard 100.0g Milka range and I guess unlike the post today, the Milka brand is the more prominent of the two. On the face of things I thought the presentation was very high quality and I liked the design of the wrapper and the chocolate which certainly looked generously filled with Oreo cookie pieces.

Cuttng to the chase I'm glad to say that the looks didn't deceive, and this was a bar every bit as notable for it's Oreo influence as it was it's Milka, with the crunchy cookie pieces really creating an impression on the smooth outer chocolate, and cool inner creme. The added cocoa flavours bursts from the Oreo cookie flavours were highly complimentary of the creamy, hazelnut noted chocolate and it made for a multi-layered, progressive taste experience. I found the combination to be extremelly well executed and I liked the fact that the Milka and Oreo elements were equally presented rather than it being just a gimmicky branding variety. Well done Kraft - big thumbs up and worthy of a JCM recommendation.

8.6 out of 10

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Oreo Ice Cream & Oreo Double Delight Peanut Butter & Chocolate Cream

Ice Cream - Kcal 140 Fat 6.0g Fat(sats) 3.0g Carbs 21.0g (per 3 cookies)
Double Delight PB & CC - Kcal 140 Fat 6.0g Fat(sats) 2.0g Carbs 20.0g (per 3 cookies)

These two flavours I found in a local Asian supermarket priced at just under £1.00 each. Both variants came in 137.0g roll packs which contained around 15 cookies in each - 5 servings if the nutritional info of 3 at a time would have us believe. Although on the wrappers it was stated that these were produced in Indonesia, they both contained all manner of different languages and translations in regards to the on-pack blurb. Handily, English was one of them so I was able to determine the different propositions being offered by both. Here are what they both offered and my brief thoughts:

Oreo Ice Cream - 'Chocolate sandwich cookies with blueberry ice cream flavour creme'. These had a very distinctive fake fruit smell that I didn't find all that appealing upon opening. The cookies felt small in size, even compared to the normal Oreo single stuff here we get in the UK. I'm not sure if this was a consequence of the air miles but the outer sandwich cookies didn't quite feel up to usual Oreo par. They had a lesser defined cocoa taste, and the lacking volume of inner cream gave them a very texture that seemed to suck all the moisture from my mouth. As aforementioned these smelt incredibly artificial and the taste of the inner blueberry creme was certainly that. It was terribly sweet and reminded me of the horribly cheap fruit flavoured bubblegum I used to get as a kid. I didn't get much enjoyment from these at all and didn't get anywhere near finishing the pack before they headed to the bin.

3.4 out of 10

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Oreo Double Delight Peanut Butter & Chocolate Cream - 'Chocolate sandwich cookies with peanut butter in chocolate cream'. These I was very much looking forward to as a big time peanut butter and Oreo Chocolate Cream fan. Like the Ice Cream flavour these again felt very small in size in comparison to standard Oreos. I don't think I can be dreaming this up as I had open up no fewer than four different cookies before I found one that had enough creme in to use for the photo you see above. Indeed the filling was lacking in volume and unfortunately taste and sadly I have to report that these also pretty much sucked. Yes, despite the promising peanut aromas, the taste never really developed either a strong chocolatey or peanut edge to it and the blander, drier outer sandwich cookies failed again to hold the usual Oreo quality.

4.9 out of 10

Overall after tasting these two I hope the Indonesian market aren't aware of what they are missing because neither of these were up to usual Oreo standards. I believe both of these flavours are currently available in the US so with any luck I should one day be in a position to compare and contrast.Given what I've tried here I wouldn't say they have much to live up to.

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Oreo Double Stuff Heads or Tails

Kcal 70 Fat 3.5g Carbs 10.5g (per cookie)

I have to thank dedicated JCM follower Thea for supplying me with the last Oreo product I'm showing you today. Thea got in contact with me whilst she was travelling in the US, and via the JCM twitter feed (@Chocmission) kindly offered to bring me back any US products I hadn't managed to source from my pals at AmericanSoda. After a quick glance through some of my fellow American bloggers sites, I happened across a few posts about a new variety of Oreos which I hadn't seen available anywhere in the UK - the Oreo Double Stuff Heads or Tails. Being the awesome person she is, Thea managed to bring back a large 432.0g pack for me - I will of course be eternally grateful :-D

As I'm sure you can tell from my photos, the basic concept behind these Oreo Double Stuff Heads or Tails is that they combine both standard and golden varieties of Oreo (with double stuff filling of course). Personally I don't have much of a preference between either the golden or chocolate biscuits, though if you pushed me I would probably side with the latter. What I liked about these was that they essentially took the decision of either/or out of the equation anyway, and presented me the opportunity to enjoy both varieties at the same time. The golden biscuits offered an enhancement of the vanilla hints from the creme, whilst the chocolate portions delivered the usual, sweet, friendly cocoa flavours synonymous with the standard Oreo cookies. Given there is nothing 'game changing' about these I would struggle to generate an arguement saying these are a 'must try'. With that said I would certainly buy them again given the opportunity, they combine two very good products into one very successfully - not always as easy as it sounds.

8.1 out of 10
 

June 8th: Artisan du Chocolat Tasting Selection Box

It's been a long while since Artisan du Chocolat last featured on the site and judging by the experience that my family and I have just had with this Tasting Selection Box I have to say it has been far too long. Hands up I have to admit we were a bit naughty and opened the box up without the 'Old Man' doing his usual mastery photography - the photos you see today are a mix of the ones I was sent by Artisan and the some shots the 'OM' took of the few remaining pieces left after our first attack on it :-D 

I was sent this 285.0g selection last week and I was instantly struck by the classy presentation and overall high quality feel that radiated from the box. The outer packaging was decorated beautifully with sparkly, subtle branding and the sealing ribbon tie ensuring the inner content remained firmly intact. Opening the box up we were amazed at the sheer number of different chocolates inside - there were so many different colours and shapes in front of us it felt like there was only really one thing we could do about it ....

Assorted Os - These thin disk chocolates felt like a good place to start are there were several different flavours on offer. I went straight for the caramel, my mother the cherry, my sister the lychee & rose and my father went with the honey. All round we felt the chocolate was fantastic and we felt that all of the flavours promised were delivered with stunning accuracy. The fruit flavours were real tasting and distinctive, and the mint discs were refreshing and crisp. The other flavours we sampled were praline, pistachio, passion fruit, cinnamon and the aforementioned mint - all were every bit as tasty as the first lot we sampled. Superb.

No.1 Liquid Salted Caramels - Remember these? (See HERE). I needed no second invitation getting reacquainted with these golden nectar laden truffles. My words will never do these justice but I will try my best. These award winning caramels are some of the finest I've ever tasted and no surprises they all disappeared within seconds of the box being opened. As with everything in the selection the chocolate quality was incredibly high with semi-sweet shells establishing a crisp chocolatey base to every piece. The dusting of cocoa on the shell is a genius, yet slight messy touch with it bringing a welcome contrasting rich cocoa influence on the sweet filling. The caramel centres!? Well what can I say - elements of butter, maple, sugar, honey and salt all rolled in to one. Superb.   

South Sea and Tahiti Pearls - (top to bottom) The top two were white and milk chocolates that contained a rich tasting cocoa ganache. These pieces were not only tremendously good looking, but they also tasted fantastic with the smooth feel centres bursting with cocoa flavours. The bottom Tahiti pearl chocolates were equally as good and hid a delicious hazelnut praline underneath the dark chocolate shells. Very Good.

Dark Truffle - The Old Man made a beeline for these and I don't blame him. This was a simple dark chocolate truffle that had a coating of wonderful cocoa powder. He isn't normally one to comment much on the textures of chocolates but even he remarked on the melt in mouth feel. Very Good.

Milk Truffle - Whilst the Old Man was tucking into the dark variety my mother and sister went about tasting the milk chocolate truffles. These were lighter and more creamier than the above but they enjoyed them every bit as much.Very Good.

Truffle2 - I settled for best of both worlds and tried out this 'Truffle Squared'. This piece was a layered truffle of both milk and dark varieties and was possibly one of my favourite pieces in the entire box. The way the taste built up in it's cocoa strength from it's starter base of sweet creamyness, to it's richer earthier aftertaste was just luxury in every sense. Superb.

Couture Chocolates - Artisan split these chocolates into six different types and we got to try representations of most of them: Fruits, Flowers, Herbs, Spices, Nuts & Seeds and Pure Origins. In our selection box the fruit flavours were the orange and passion fruit chocolates. My fruit chocolate loving mother thought the passion fruit flavour was wonderful and was an accurate depiction of one favourite fruits. Among the 'Flower' cotoures we simply got a honey chocolate - it got a big thumbs up from me. The herb chocolates were sadly not present among the collection. I despise smoking but even I was intrigued by the prospect of a 'tobacco' flavoured coture which was displayed on the menu. The other flavours actually present in the box more than made up for the lacking herb chocolates, the ones that drew the most attention and praise were the Tonka (Spices), Black Cardamom (Spices) and Madagascar Dark (Pure Origins) pieces. The variety each of these different flavours was terrific and made for an exciting and variable experience. Very Good.


Overall it's really hard to sum up this Selection Box without wanting to name every single piece as a 'stand out'. I tried to be succinct in my summaries above but there were just so many good things to say about each variety of chocolate in this wonderful collection that I just couldn't help myself. I get to try plenty of chocolate selections running this site but I don't think there has ever been one that has been able to offer as much variety and quality than this one from Artisan. I think £28.00 is expensive if you are buying a box of chocolates so it's going to have to be something extremely special to justify such a price tag. Well if you ask me Artisan du Chocolat's Tasting Selection Box warrants that price and is one I would recommend to absolutely anybody who appreciates fine chocolates. The truffles are outstanding, the coutures and discs amazingly varied and the caramels ... well ... they are just simply sensational. Before this starts sounding too much like I'm starting up an Artisan du Chocolat fan club (Edit: too late reading this all back haha!!) I will just leave you with the JCM scoring chart - trust me, try it and you wont disagree.

9.2 out of 10