Ah Cornwall and Cornish cream – or more specifically – Cornish clotted cream.  I cannot count the number of times clotted cream from Cornwall has been a proud incredient in fudge or chocolate or toffee or whatever.  It seems those contented cows in Cornwall are turning out some top notch product!

I’ve been to Cornwall.  It is both beautiful and dire.  The landscape is beautiful inthe summer and bleak inthe winter.  The howling wind can be super scary.

This bar has a slight grittiness to it as it melts.  While I am ready for the typical toffee/caramel flavour, I don’t quite understand why there is this sandiness to the chocolate.  The rich milk is a smooth melt so I assume this is from the addition of the Cornish Cream Caramel.

Instead of being a bar filled with Cornish cream caramel, it is mixed through in a rather fine almost powdery state I assume which is what I’m getting in the melt.  Don’t get me wrong – for those who like sweet milk chocolate with a caramel hit this is absolutely lovely.  You’ll likely chew it and it will explode in your mouth with sugar and chocolate and hints of caramel that come distinctly through in the after taste.  For me, who likes to let her chocolate melt in the mouth and grow and develop it has a distracting grittiness which I noticed straight off.

Don’t let that put you off.  With hard-core organic credentials, this chocolate is the perfect flavoured bar to grab instead of something less planet-friendly.

I am a milk chocolate fan.  I love the really high quality milk chocolate.  In fact, Hotel Chocolat has a delightful slightly darker milk chocolate.  Cocoa solids (37% here) don’t determine a good dark or milk chocolate but it is an interesting element to consider.  The reason someone chooses a milk chocolate are many and varied but the reason for choosing to try this one should be its organic credentials.

Making positive changes in our lives is difficult.  I keep trying to reduce the simple carbs in my life (crisps freely available at the office, rice cakes, soups full of hidden nasties, etc) to make a positive change in my thyroid problem (which needs a low carb diet to balance itself).  I also try and choose recycled, reused or something with reduced packaging.  I try and buy fair trade and organic where I can afford to.  The whole range of Seed & Bean is organic and so I have at least 10 bars to choose from – YUM!

I chose to try the milk chocolate in the evening – well, late afternoon I suppose.  I have 2 times of the day when my palette is sensitive and both are annoyingly during office hours.  I’ll find I can suddenly taste the tea I’m drinking – not always pleasant for sure.  So I chose a late slot for the milk chocolate for the next peak but with a different mouth activation.  Ya…my sense of taste changes through the day depending on what I eat and the time of day.  It is well freaky!

So I opened the paper and foil packaging and woah… wafting up from the wrapper was the most delicious, delightful, yummy-chocolaty smell that I’d had the pleasure of trying for awhile.  Oh goodness was that delightful.  I could see from the chocolate that it was light and the lack of snap of course in milk chocolate said this was going to be sticky.  That’s fine – it’s milk chocolate.  I put the piece in my mouth and it started to melt and washed through my mouth on a chocolaty tide…

Not my favourite of the range.  The lovely flavour of the chocolate and the sugar mix together here to create the usual sweet sticky mess of milk chocolate/.  On a cold harsh analysis though this isn’t quite as good as some other organic, fair trade milk chocolate I have had however this milk chocolate bar likely does not usually have to stand alone and naked as I have had it here.  It seems the perfect base into which other things may be added but on its own it is slightly too sweet for me, slightly too sticky in the mouth as it melts and just not quite right for me.

This is probably a great milk chocolate for someone looking to make a positive change in their life and move away from mass market to smaller producer.  While Seed & Bean don’t go from bean to bar, they are trying to ensure organic products at every step of the way and so by choosing them you can make a positive change too.

Mid-afternoon I always find myself needing a pick-up and having been sent these Mooch Chocolate Milk cans and having placed them immediately in the fridge, I decided to give them a shot. The mid-afternoon is always kind of a lull – it isn’t the morning so I’m not trying to power through to lunch and it isn’t the home stretch where I am looking forward to going home (I spend 3h commuting every day). It’s just in the middle there and it’s kind of a dull, depressing part of the day. 3pm… what ever happened at 3pm that was fun and exciting on a weekday at work (well, maybe some shaving foam in the face on national TV…)

So I thought, what better way to spend a short break at 3pm than to try some Mooch. Now, I’m a Canuck and to us Canadians to mooch something off someone is to beg to borrow it. In the case of this can of chocolate milk, it would be to beg if off someone so you could drink it yourself. “Can I mooch that off ya?” is a phrase any kid (or adult) has come to fear and loathe so imagine my surprise that a can of chocolate milk was seeming to directly aim itself at being begged or borrowed off someone else. Mind you, I might find myself doing exactly that…

Original – I started with the original can because despite my many chocolate adventures I’m quite conservative when it comes to chocolate. The one thing I noticed more than anything was how rich this was. Maybe it comes from only drinking skinny lattes but it was quite rich in flavour with a pleasant chocolate flavour to it overall. Very drinkable and exceedingly delicious and I have to say I finished the can wishing there was more. Mind you, it was also giving me a massive sugar boost to help me through the afternoon so that could have also accounted for my wanting more

Hazelnut – This was a bit different and was something that I found to be less scary than I originally thought. The flavour of the hazelnut was, in fact, not that bad and not at all overpowering. The main flavour was of the main sweet chocolate milk with the hazelnut a flavour that was enhancing it. This wasn’t like drinking praline which is what I thought it would be like but more like the milk chocolate with a hint of hazelnut. Not being a huge fan I shared it of course and the consensus was sweet but drinkable.

Mint – After the success with the original and hazelnut not being as onerous as I thought it would be, I was still nervous about the mint. I had imagined it would be like drinking mint choc chip ice cream which, while amazing is a bit much. Yes, I have drunk mint choc chip ice cream and the shots of the same name. That doesn’t mean it’s healthy or good So I shook and poured myself a lovely glass of this chocolate milk (in a champagne glass since we didn’t have any other small glasses I could find quickly) and tried it. Here the mint was absolutely front and centre. Not a green fresh mint but absolutely the mint of a mint choc chip ice cream however it wasn’t as sweet or cloying as I was worried it would be.

Overall a sweet chocolate milk in a very cute can with an adorable logo I think everyone is going to dig. This is absolutely best chilled and you for sure need to shake it. As every kid knows, chocolate milk tastes better frothed – especially by using a straw and blowing bubbles into it

I received two different flavours of Jaxx chocolate crunchies. Firmly aimed at a younger audience, these chocolates are more quick snack than fine cocoa coture.

The first I tried was the blue bag of milk chocolate coated crunchies. While they were far too sweet for me, these will hit the right spot with kids I’m sure. Combining wheat-based cookie-type centre with thick chocolate coating you can see that these small chunks of sugary treats are going to be winners with kids.

The next bag I tried was the milk chocolate covered cocoa crunchies. These have a cocoa cookie centre, with a white chocolate and milk chocolate coating. While again extremely sweet I’m certain that the target demographic is going to love them for being sweet, chocolaty and cookie-based.

The website is awfully cute and it is just a lot of fun. I think kids are going to get a kick out of these but they were just a bit too sweet for me.

I originally found this chain as the Australia Ice Cream and Chocolate shops in Amsterdam.  Here in Berlin they are Bandy Brooks with ice cream and a range of chocolates.  These aren’t the best chocolates in the world and really I had to invent an extra category for them as they aren’t great but they are better than just OK.  I tried a bunch of them and these are my thoughts.

Raspberry – sweet dark chocolate with a raspberry jelly and white chocolate ganache filling. It’s OK but it is also huge and enough on its own.

Milk chocolate ganache covered in dark chocolate – the surprise here is that there are crispie bits. Very sweet which typifies this range of chocolates.

Bittersweet Ganache – this bittersweet is slightly harsh, as though they are trying to make up for all the sweetness of the rest of the line by making the bittersweet chocolate excessively bitter.

Bittersweet love – orange jelly with sweet milk chocolate ganache but the ganache is grainy and overly sweet.  It’s a bit much for me.

Green Tea – when taken in small doses, it is OK but more than s tiny bite is so extremely sweet it is a bit too much for me.

Coffee – bitter intense coffee this is probably the best of the lot.  The extreme coffee flavour overwhelms the flavour of the chocolate and isn’t as sweet as the other ones so it makes it the best chocolate of the lot.

A for effort but there is a long way to go.

I visited this shop as one of the few places advertised as having chocolates.  Language is always a difficulty and the gentleman there behind the counter did his best to help.  When asked he said that the chocolates at Icexoc were handmade by the owner.  I suspected otherwise but purchased what I was led to believe was a milk chocolate and a green tea chocolate.

The chocolate are in fact from the renamed Australia company I discovered in Amsterdam.  This chain in Berlin is called Bandy Brooks and these chocolates were from this chain.  If you are in the area and want a lovely ice cream this is for sure the place to go.  If you’d like some Bandy Brooks chocolates surrounded by steel and glass buildings reaching to the sky, this is the place to go.

The chocolates were made with a lower quality chocolate and they are excessively sweet but I’m sure they will appeal to some folk.  Sitting here with a chocolate and a milkshake watching the world move is delicious.

The chocolate is sweet and unsofisticated.  The chocolates themselves are large and with the sweet flavour of the chocolate it is difficult to finish more than one.  This is not because, as with a high quality chocolate, you feel satisfied.  It is because it is too much sugar.

These chocolates still have a way to go but they are better than candy

Dairy Milk Caramel Nibbles spilling out of bag. Whoops - I'll have to eat all of those.

There is nothing wrong with liking the occasional bit of Dairy Milk.  It’s my not-so-secret indulgence. This bag had my name on it – literally – for only a few days before I had it opened and munching.

I always find the oily and high sugar nature of Dairy Milk in general is too much for me to just let the chocolate melt in my mouth so I enjoy it in one munching mouthful at a time.

There is not much caramel in these buttons which is both good and bad.  Good in that it makes them less messy and less sweet. Bad in that sometimes you do want messy, gooey caramel oozing out of your buttons.

The button size is slightly wider than standard button size and, of course, thicker.  This size, bigger than a 20p piece but close to a 10p piece (or a quarter) is perfect.  You can grab a few without feeling like it is too much.

These are great and really moorish so be careful about leaving them somewhere you can access them!  I really enjoy just indulging in this kind of chocolate every once in awhile.  It’s messy, fatty, sweet and awful but good.

Thorntons Milk Chocolate 38% Venezuelan Cocoa Bar

This 38% Venezuelan cocoa blended into a chocolate bar from a chocolate producer more often associated with low quality chocolate is a shock – a pleasant one!

The chocolate is brilliantly balanced with a slight creaminess coming out over the chocolate itself.  The chocolate has been made silky smooth with none of the graininess found in other bars.  While quite sweet, it is not as over sugared as other bars making it an easy to enjoy treat.

The chocolate itself tastes like a blend with the whole mouth being sparked though it claims to be from a single region  It’s just fantastic that a single region could produce a non-flat bar and using the famous Criollo bean – it doesn’t have the same mouth feel as a single region bar.  It doesn’t matter though because this milk chocolate bar is pleasant with a slight hint of vanilla and a hint of honey.

No surprise this is a bronze medal winning bar. A safe bet to buy for someone special – yourself!

I am passionate about chocolate, as is clear from this blog. I seek out everywhere I can to find the novel, unique, top quality and enjoyable chocolates.  Sometimes I win and sometimes I have to scrub my tongue in order to remove the oily film left behind.

Simone Marie chocolates promises the best quality Belgian chocolates.  Upon entering you are met with the distinctive scent of imported Belgian chocolates with a longer than high quality shelf life.  It speaks to you of a higher sugar and fat content, with preservatives.  To most people, this aroma is absolute heaven, so unfamiliar are they with high quality chocolates.

I chatted with the lovely owner for awhile about her chocolate selection.  Familiar as I was with Hotel Chocolat and other suppliers, I quickly spotted the fondant mint I enjoy from Hotel Chocolat sitting among her chocolates.  We spoke about European chocolates and quality.  She recommended some chocolates, which I bought and tried at home.

This shop is quite clearly passionate about chocolates.  The person I spoke to was clearly enthusiastic about chocolate and had much to share.  The chocolates were quite typical Belgian chocolates created for export.  In order to prevent spoilage they are not the best, most pure chocolate but they are very good quality.  I’m sure a lover of Belgian chocolate would make this a regular stop for a weekly shop for a chocolate a day.

These are really good quality chocolates but not top notch.  That is by necessity because of the shipping and the manufacturing.  I am also not a huge fan of the Belgian style of chocolate, preferring what I have been told is the French style.

I would say that there is better chocolate in Toronto but it is still worth a visit and worth a shop.

Godiva chocolate is probably the first chocolate someone tries when they try a better quality of chocolate.  While stuffed full of additives, these chocolates are definitely a step up from ordinary chocolates.

The packaging here is one of the high points for the chocolates, with attention paid to the detail of everything from images on tins to charms on ribbon festooned boxes.

The chocolate itself is slightly oily, with a flavour that speaks of cocoa butter being removed and vegetable oil added.  The amount of sugar in the milk chocolate makes me cringe a bit but overall this is a better quality of chocolate from the norm.

While there are preservatives and this isn’t top notch chocolate, it is mass market and a excellent first step out of the mass-market comfort chocolate in to something else.  By accepting the higher price too, it makes it easier to transition to the truly high quality chocolates.

The staff at this shop are what makes it stand out.  While in the past I have been faced with the worst staff I have ever encountered, within the last 2 or so years the management seems to have changes and there are lovely people working there.

Happy, friendly and understanding a lot more about chocolate than you might expect, the staff really make this shop stand out for me.

When I was looking for chocolate covered pretzels and they didn’t have any, they helped me find some at a different location.  When I needed help choosing chocolates for my sister’s wedding, they helped show me options and costs.  Absolutely brilliant people there now who will help you pick the right chocolate for you.

Give this branch of Godiva a try while they still have this outstanding staff compliment.  Tell them what flavours you like and they’ll find the right chocolates for you.