Did you know that this Sunday 20th May, is World Baking Day?

Well no, either did I. But apparently it is, and they got in touch a couple of days ago to tell us about it. And they also sent this big box of ingredients to bake with along with some recipe cards.

So now I guess I really have no choice but to bake something now!

If you’re interested in taking part yourself, then follow World Baking Day on Twitter and don’t forget to tweet photos of your creations. Assuming my efforts don’t go disastrously wrong, I’ll be doing a follow up post to let you know how I got on.

But what to bake? I could of course just go for something on the recipe cards they sent. But it’s also my birthday weekend and I have a lot of leftover chocolate to use up. Suggestions gratefully received!

I hadn’t heard of the Lallapolosa Baking Company before, but I’m never one to refuse brownies, so when they offered to send some of their pecan & salted caramel brownies, I bit their hand off – figuratively speaking.

Lallapolosa make an extensive range of brownies, cakes, cookies & confections, but if I had to pick any one item, this would probably be it. For one thing, they come in huge boxes of 12 (1kg) or 18 (1.5kg) that look beautiful. Tied with a ribbon and wrapped in tissue paper, they just feel like a quality, handmade gift.

But the wow factor doesn’t really hit you until you lift the lid and peel back the paper inside. Rather than individually packaged brownies, you’re presented with a large slab of brownie which has been cut into slices before being shoehorned into the box. It’s quite an impressive sight.

The surface of the brownie is loaded with pecans and smothered in caramel. It’s crunchy and gooey and delightfully difficult to pick up a single slice without making a complete mess.

After I’d finally managed to free a single slice, I managed to get some onto a plate for closer examination. The bulk of the top layer is made up of nuts, chocolate and caramel, with more of the actual brownie towards the bottom.

When I bit into it, one word came to mind: Snickers.

It has that same nutty, caramel flavour and chewy texture, but of course is much richer, fresher and tastier. To be honest, the actual brownie is really just a carrying mechanism for all these other delicious ingredients. It’s there, but it’s not the star of the show.

After a single slice I had to have a sit down and a bit of a rest. While these aren’t as purely rich as a brownie like Paul A Young makes, they’re still very dense and sweet. They’re quite a different take on the concept of what a brownie should be, but I still love them.

I love the fact that they’re so beautifully presented and come in a box so big that you just have to share it. They’re a bit different from other brownies I’ve tried lately and while they might appeal less to brownie purists (if there is such a thing!), they’re a delicious and indulgent snack.

And now I just have the other 11 slices to get through…

Club Chocolat Français is, as you might have guessed, a French chocolate club. It operates along the same lines as Hotel Chocolat’s Chocolate Tasting Club. They’ve recently launched in the UK and they sent us a box to try.

The club offers 3 month, 6 month and annual subscriptions at £19.95 per month. At least I assume that’s the “per month” price, as the website lists all subscription options for the same price, rather than giving the total cost of the subscription. For your money, you get a 320g box of assorted chocolates delivered every month.

The first thing I noticed about my box was that it didn’t look very French. I usually associate French chocolates with style and sophistication, but these are presented in a very ordinary looking purple and blue box. Inside, the purple plastic insert that holds the chocolates is made from a very cheap, thin plastic.

Of course, packaging isn’t everything, but first impressions do count and frankly these look cheap. There’s also some scuffing and a hint of blooming on some of the chocolates, which doesn’t help with the appearance.

The label on the bottom of the box tells me that the dark chocolates are 70% cocoa solids and the milk chocolates are 36%, which is pretty good. There’s a few solid chocolate pieces to try, so I started off trying to get a feel for the chocolate. The milk chocolate is passable, but the 70% dark has no real flavour at all. It’s bitter and dry and has very little going for it.

Many of the chocolates have praline fillings, which do at least add some texture and flavour to the chocolate, but they’re not really my thing.

I picked up a white chocolate heart, and noticed it had leaked red goo into the plastic tray below, but I took a bite anyway. Inside the thin white chocolate shell was a rather cheap strawberry that immediately flowed out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a chocolate simply filled with jam before. And now I know why.

I had higher hopes for the dark chocolate framboise, but again, this turned out simply to be filled with jam. It was a little better though, not being quite as sweet and working better with the dark chocolate.

The square chocolate pralines decorated with sugar coated candies in the centre of the box did turn out to be quite pleasant, but they were the highlight of a selection that is at best uninteresting.

Unfortunately then, I can’t recommend these. If you have £20 a month to spend on chocolates, there are much, much better options available, and unless Club Chocolat Français seriously up their game, I can’t see it catching on over here.

Shockingly, I’m back on the Lindt. This bar was one of a small selection given to us at the end of Lindt’s recent event at The Pearl restuarant, and the main reason I’m reviewing it is because it says “New” on it, and I want to see how it compares to that other new bar, the Lindt Wasabi which Simon reviewed last week.

As you can see, the format of the bar is exactly the same as the rest of the Excellence range. It’s a simple, thin, 100g bar divided into ten squares.

A quick glance at the back reveals that this bar uses the same, rather disappointing 47% cocoa solids chocolate as the Wasabi bar, so I was expecting it to be sweet – especially when combined with caramel.

The caramel comes in the form of hard, crunchy pieces scattered throughout the chocolate. Also scattered through the bar is a small amount of sea salt, but for me it’s not really enough to lift the flavour.

As you’d expect, the chocolate is very sweet, but the surprise is the caramel, which has a very burnt flavour, reminiscent of a crème brûlée. It’s a very distinctive flavour and probably won’t be to everyone’s taste, but for this particular bar, I think it’s a fairly good counterpart to the sweetness of the chocolate.

I wasn’t entirely sure the sea salt added much to the flavour. A small piece often contains no salt at all, but a second piece might contain a couple of large crystals of salt. I would rather have had smaller, more regular crystals, as I think they would have had a bigger impact on the overall flavour, without the slightly strange sensation of going from very sweet to very salty.

This is clearly confectionery rather than fine chocolate, and that’s something that’s reflected in the very reasonable £1.25 price tag. I managed to make my way through the bar (something I can rarely do with sweet confectionery chocolate these days), but I would still rather see the cocoa content bumped up to at least 60%. As it is, it’s too sweet for my tastes, but it’s an interesting take on the caramel & chocolate combination that’s worth trying if you have a sweeter tooth.

Kopali Organics fits well in stores like Whole Foods based on all the eco-empowerment type phrases on the package. They have both Fair Trade and USDA Organic certification and heavily emphasize working with farmers and the environment, ultimately to produce a nutritious and conscious produce. The name Kopali comes from the Nahuatl word for incense, usually associated specifically with tree resins; the tree, of course, takes on all of its symbolic meaning. All good and admirable so far.

You’ll notice that these individual pieces don’t have a shiny finish. For the banana element, both dried banana and rice flour are added in. So a medium thickness of chocolate surrounds small pieces of chewy banana. No crunch, but it isn’t gummy, either. As far as the chocolate I praised, its sweetener is evaporated cane juice and its flavor earthy. It isn’t too dark, does have a light sweet effect, and has enough flavor complexity to keep me interested. Of course, the banana infuses itself into even the solid chocolate, causing part of that complexity.

Kopali Organics has scored on many important levels with this product. They have given me the elusive banana pairing in a way that is neither false nor sticky-sweet nor overly pretentious. It’s a product that tastes good apart from its healthy, eco-friendly tenets. And I think the world is growing more and more appreciative of such tenets. Kopali also makes chocolate covered espresso beans, goji berries, mulberries and cacao nibs if you need more variety. The banana’s worthiness, at least, as a chocolate snack I can vouch for.

This region is less than an hour’s drive south of Adelaide. Not only is it very close to the southern coastal beaches, but it is also an award-winning winemaking region and to cap it off, there is plenty of excellent food around. A 4-day weekend, therefore, includes visits to far too many wineries, the farmers market in nearby Willunga, and of course Bracegirdles House of Fine Chocolate.

Willunga Farmers Market – Lavender Chocolate Brownie

The Willunga Farmers Market (Saturday mornings, about 8:00 am – 12:30 pm) is, mercifully, not full of tat. A farmers market means fruit, vegetables, bread, wine, olive oil, lamb, beef, and some venison. Not to mention plants, and the occasional farm / plant products. There is a huge emphasis on fresh, and organic produce seems to be the biggest thing in town. My biggest surprise though, was the chap from the Fleurieu Lavender selling chocolate brownies and chocolate fudge – with lavender in. What’s with that?

The brownies are not cheap, at about $2 for one of those squares you see, and he must have thought I was very strange to buy one, as well as photograph his platter. But the taste and texture? Good, in fact: sublime.

These brownies are crunchy on top, and sticky / slightly soft / gooey on the bottom. The texture was so varied that I asked if they had nuts in – the answer is no, there are no nuts. The secret is in how they are cooked to get the crunch on top. He would not reveal the secret either. (I’m going to take a guess at using a water bath in the oven, but it’s only a wild guess.)

And the $64 question: Can we tell there is lavender in the brownies? Answer: No. But there is a slightly unusual rich fruitiness. Maybe this is the lavender, maybe not. It is, however, very very good – one of the best chocolate brownies ever.

Bracegirdles House of Fine Chocolate

I’ve been meaning to visit Bracegirdles for about the last 2 years. The McLaren Vale outlet has recently moved to share with Market 190 – so not only can you buy delicious chocolates but you can get breakfast, full meals, and such like.

We dropped in at about 11 am on a sunny Saturday morning – there were families eating outside, kids playing and running around, people lazing over plates of bacon and eggs, with dogs sleeping at their feet.

The Lady of the House selected a milk hot chocolate and from the large selection of hand-made chocolates, we eventually chose four to try. Our selections took so long that we must have annoyed many others coming in and queuing behind us. Eventually we pushed to the back of the throng while we futzed about.

As you can see from the picture, the hot chocolate looks excellent. This is everything a hot chocolate should be: hot, milky, very rich and luscious. I thought I could pick a tiny hint of mint in there as well – maybe deliberate, maybe just from the chocolate used. Either way, good.

Our final chocolate selections were a Jaffa (dark with orange lines), a Dark Swiss Rock (knobbly dark with nuts peeking out), an Opal Finger Lime (green with blue speckles), and a Raspberry Dreamer (orange / red).

We also requested a knife, so that sharing could be done in a vaguely civilised manner. This, and again taking photographs must have meant the staff wondered about the weirdos who had come in to photograph and dissect their chocolates. Let them wonder! We were not going to let on.

The carnage:

Tasting notes from the chocolate selection:

Jaffa: The chocolate is dark and very pleasant. Inside is a vibrant orange flavoured ganache which jumps out and sings, and then just melts gracefully away. The chocolate and the ganache are not excessively sweet. This is a delightful modern take on the classic Australian Jaffa confectionery.

Dark Swiss Rock: The label in the shop gave the game away, but we didn’t go back and read it until after. This is a mix of caramelised slivered almonds mixed with dark Belgian chocolate. Of course, we had to figure this out because of not reading the label beforehand. This has a fantastic texture: the almonds cry out with flavour, and have a wonderful crunch. We’d guessed roasting or coating the almonds in toffee, and were pretty much right. Great flavour, the best chocolate with almond I’ve ever tried.

Opal finger Lime: The hard shell, looking like a speckled bird egg, is mainly for appearance. The dark chocolate of the shell does grow and enhance the flavour, but the ganache inside is where the magic lies. This starts with a rich chocolaty aroma. To taste, it begins soft and richly chocolaty, then melts with a huge burst of rich intense lime flavour which goes on and on. As wine writers would say, it has great length. These contain a Finger Lime jelly. Suddenly I can see why the fuss is made of this Australian fruit. Brilliant flavour.

Raspberry Dreamer: The shell, again, looks like it is mainly for appearance. I don’t actually think this is the case, though, because the shell is a milk chocolate which melts reasonably quickly and helps change the flavour of the ganache. The ganache has an intense flavour which leaps out and grabs hold of you – then shakes you as it builds over time. It’s intense, and almost like orange in some respects. Whilst not kicking quite as hard as the finger lime, this is most impressive – many raspberry flavours have either no discernible taste, or are horrible. The label in the shop says it is a natural Raspberry puree, and the flavour proves this to be true. Just plain delicious.

My pick of the bunch: The Dark Swiss Rock.

Will I be back? You bet. In fact, been back already to buy some other chocolates which will be reviewed here soon.

Our regular readers (hello and thank you) will probably have read Dom’s article about the Lindt event he went to. It turned out to be part of the official UK Launch of this new bar from their ‘Excellence’ range, which has been flavoured with wasabi. If you don’t know what wasabi is yet, it’s a Japanese horseradish which is normally served with sushi and is quite capable of blowing your head off.

Looking back through our archives, it’s almost a year to the day since my review of Elisabeth’s wasabi truffle was posted, and that was my second taste. Since then quite a few wasabi/chocolate combinations have come our way, so it really isn’t too much of a surprise to discover that Lindt have launched their own version.

One thing that has often been said about Lindt is that you do get what’s written on the package. Their bars may not be high-end, artisan made, or exclusive but they are a cut above your average high street/supermarket fodder and we feel that they do offer the slightly more adventurous consumer an opportunity to dip a toe into slightly more upmarket (and occasionally more unusual) chocolate.

That said, I don’t think any of us here would agree that 47% cacao content is ‘dark’ chocolate, but that’s the percentage that Lindt’s dark bars have. As is often the case, a good deal of the other 53% of this bar is sugar – almost half in fact – and this is readily apparent when you waft a piece of the bar under your nose. It’s a familiar smell to me – light cacao notes and a lot of sweetness.

When you pop a piece of the bar into your mouth the wasabi is apparent from the off. The chocolate begins to melt and that slightly earthy, mustardy flavour creeps in to mingle with the dark cacao notes. I found that the sweetness of this bar tended to detract from the wasabi somewhat – it never really gets to shine, and perhaps some of this has to do with the fact that wasabi ‘flavouring’ was used.

My previous wasabi/chocolate experiences were somewhat spicier (and darker) than this bar, and much more to my own personal preferences (i.e. much more cacao, much less sugar and real wasabi) but saying that, I appreciate that Lindt’s bars are not aimed at the connoisseur. These are the bars that the UK supermarket’s top end ‘Best of’ and ‘Finest’ ranges seek to emulate (and occasionally surpass in terms of content) and as such I can see this being something regular Lindt lovers would have a go at – probably for the novelty value at first, but perhaps as a regular treat once tried.

Speaking from my own personal experience I prefer more cacao, much less sugar and a little more wasabi, but that’s just me. If you fancy something a bit out the ordinary & don’t happen to live near a chocolatier, then this might just tick that box for you.

I’ve written about the chocolate afternoon teas at The Podium restaurant at The Hilton on Park Lane before, but when they got in touch to say they’d revamped their offering and asking if I’d like to come back and try it, I jumped at the chance. I grabbed a friend and we headed down to Park Lane on a shockingly sunny Sunday for a relaxed afternoon of indulgence.

The Podium Restaurant hasn’t changed since my last visit. I like it because it has a nice balance of style and comfort. It’s smart and sophisticated but also family friendly. That’s a contrast to the ultra-stylish afternoon tea I enjoyed at The Chancery Court Hotel, which is a stunning venue, but very formal and probably isn’t the kind of place you would take a young family.

When we arrived, we were offered water and a complementary glass of champagne. The champagne is not normally included in the price, but the restaurant have been kind enough to include a free glass for Chocablog readers (details on how to claim that at the end of this post).

Once we’d settled in with our drinks, a nice man came around with two wooden boxes containing jars of tea for us to choose from. One box contained caffeine-free herbal options if that’s your thing, but we both opted for a fully caffeinated option. The tea arrives in pots with a choice of milk or lemon, and some cute little egg timers. The waiter helpfully let us know how long we needed to let our teas steep, and before we knew it, the food started to arrive.

The sandwiches at The Podium are the same as on my previous visit. You’re presented with a long plate with five amazing looking open sandwiches; smoked salmon & horseradish, honey rost ham & Pommery mustard, prawn mayonnaise and baby gem lettuce, cucumber with cream cheese and egg and cress. They looked good before, but if anything I would say they were even more refined than my last visit. They were all beautifully presented, fresh and delicious.

If you have special dietary requirements, there are plenty of vegetarian and gluten-free sandwich options available if you ask the waiter beforehand.

Of course, it was the sweet stuff we were really interested in, and as soon as we’d finished, the waiter arrived with a tower of delicious treats. On the bottom layer were the scones – a choice of plain, raisin or chocolate-chip, while the top two layers contained a range of chocolate cakes and patisserie.

The scones were wonderful. Still warm and incredibly light and fluffy, they were perfect with the clotted cream and fresh strawberry jam. There was also a chocolate spread for them if that’s your thing, but when it comes to scones, I’m a traditionalist.

The first thing you notice about the cakes is just how colourful they are. There are lots of candy pinks and yellows going on, and the whole thing looks a little like a sweet shop.

The middle tray has the freshly baked cupcakes and pastries. There’s a Battenberg cake, Sachertorte, raspberry cupcake and red velvet cupcake. There is a lot of sugar here so everything is quite sweet, but they’re tasty nonetheless. I particularly enjoyed enjoyed the richness of the Sachertorte, but that’s more personal preference than anything else.

The top tier is home to the miniature fancies, and the first thing you’ll notice is that they sit on a tray made from solid chocolate. The Podium’s chefs use Valrhona chocolate throughout, and this sizeable chunk of chocolate is actually very tasty. Don’t forget it – and if you find yourself unable to finish, one of the waiters will happily put it in a doggy bag for you to take home and enjoy later.

On the tray are a white chocolate & cherry cheesecake, red velvet & orange tuile, milk chocolate cremeux, pistachio macaron with Valrhona Manjari filling, iced shortbread butterfly, orange & chocolate profiterole, and finally a lemon & rasberry marshmallow cone and meringue lolly planted in a tall glass of pink and white swirled sugar.

The latter was initially a bit of a disappointment as it looked amazing and my friend and I had both thought the glass was filled with sherbet powder. If I could make one change to the whole tea, it would be to change the sugar for sherbet so the cone and lolly could be dipped in it.

That said, they were very nice, with the flavour of the cone being reminiscent of those old penny ‘fruit salad’ sweets. Lots of childhood sweetshop memories here.

The rest of the selection was pretty good, although my personal preference would be for a little more of the dark side. But my tastes probably don’t match with the average chocaholic, who probably has a sweeter tooth than me.

As with my previous experiences at The Podium, the service was excellent, with staff always on hand when needed, but never in the way. All in all, we had a very pleasant and relaxing 2 hours and left feeling full and satisfied.

I’ve now experienced several different chocolate afternoon teas around London, and I think this one has a great balance of style and fun. There may be more sophisticated venues, but The Podium is probably the most relaxed and welcoming. I always enjoy my time there and I’d happily recommend it.

‘Confessions of A Chocaholic’ Afternoon Tea is available at The Podium Restaurant at The Hilton on Park Lane. 2pm – 6pm Daily. £29.50 per person.

Quote ‘Chocablog’ when booking for two and receive a complimentary glass of champagne each.

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I had walked past this Chocolate Shop Wine a few times before deciding it had to be tasted. As someone who used to taste wine for a supermarket chain part of me wanted to know if it was possible to combine wine and chocolate in the same glass, while another part of me was just shouting “No! It’s wrong!”

This rather elegantly labelled bottle contains an ‘aromatised red wine drink’, or as the makers prefer to put it ‘”a deep ruby red wine blended with rich, velvety chocolate flavouring.” There’s a little ‘sweet-dry’ chart on the back, and the arrow is almost right at the ‘sweet’ end. Checking the ingredients I find that only 89% of what’s in the bottle is wine. Additional ingredients are sugar and chocolate flavouring, as well as some preservatives, and that had me worried. If adding 1% salt to a bar of chocolate can radically change the flavour, what would up to 10% sugar do to a bottle of wine?

According to the label, this drink has ‘inviting aromas of black cherry and dark cocoa’ with ‘notes of creamy mocha’ lingering on a ‘smooth finish’. In the glass it looks like any other wine, but even while pouring it I was immediately aware of the black cherry aromas coming from the wine. It smelled like a slightly boozy Black Forest Gateau. My first mouthful confirmed what I had suspected about the sweetness, with the cherry flavour sitting right on top of a fairly light wine. It’s certainly sweeter than any wine I have drunk in a long time, but not overpoweringly so. The finish is a combination of vanilla, cherries and wine and taken in the context of ‘a glass of wine’ it’s a little odd. Taken in the context of a glass of chocolatey booze it’s less disturbing and kind of pleasant, although I doubt I could go a second glass – it’s far too sweet for that!

As a sweet dessert wine (possibly eaten with fruit or some sort of sticky, sugary pudding) I think this would probably go down quite well with a lot of people. Drunk on it’s own the high sugar content and unusual flavour make it hard to take more than a small glass. I suppose it would make the perfect companion drink to a classic Black Forest Gateau, but you’d never get away with having this alongside a cheeseboard!

Worth trying for the novelty value, but this is never going to become a regular purchase – for me at least.

The closest comparison for Zorba’s truffles is the set of chocolates from the Momotombo Chocolate Factory I looked at a year or so ago. The key similarity is, of course, that both are raw. Further, I have now come to the conclusion that while raw chocolate bars are often quite approachable, raw truffles are more of an acquired taste.

In my third selection from Zorba’s, we have three square brown boxes, each containing two each of two truffle flavors. The truffles are in clear bags, nesting in very finely shredded paper and gold strips. I particularly like the addition of the gold, as it gives a twist of elegance to the usual eco-chic style. The truffles are all fairly basic looking dark chocolate squares topped off with things like salt, coffee beans, and shredded coconut. No complaints in appearance.

The six flavors are Espresso, Olive Oil-Sea Salt, Rose, Vanilla, Ginger Snap, and Cayenne Coconut. Their chocolate is very dark and very rich, which works better with some of the flavors than others. The Espresso truffle I find swoon-worthy: its pairing is perfection. And while it does have some coffee grains, I can’t say I mind when the truffle already has a rougher, more crumbly kind of texture. The Olive Oil-Sea Salt was a little freaky for my tastes, though still intriguing, and Rose is a flavor everyone either likes or doesn’t.

I hit a road block when I got to the Vanilla truffle. Initially, it completely confused me: in the midst of all that dark chocolate is an exceedingly feminine, old-fashioned ice cream type of vanilla flavor. On top of that is the flavor from the salt garnish. I’m feeling much better about the truffle now, but I really want the salt out of the picture: the all-consuming strength of the vanilla, probably the most potent I’ve tasted, is enough.

I had to stop imagining the Ginger Snap as a milk chocolate (which isn’t going to happen with a raw company and really isn’t even necessary for this truffle). There is a better flavor balance here, with the ginger spiced to a level like a strong cookie would have. The Cayenne Coconut truffle is like playing hide-and-seek with the cayenne, but the coconut is amazingly fresh. There’s a warm/cool effect that’s satisfactory enough, so I suppose I ended up more comfortable with this one than I had expected to.

The fact is, these truffles may be harder to get into for the regular population, not only because of their more crumbly raw texture but also because Zorba’s goes for the slightly exotic flavor combinations. Yet neither of these is a bad thing. As I said for the other raw truffles, just assess first if raw chocolates flavored this way are your style.