Monoprix Gourmet Noir aux éclats de fèves

Another Monoprix Gourmet bar from Paris - this time a 72% dark chocolate bar, crammed with toasted nibs of cocoa beans.

My pathetic attempts at trying to explain the blurb on the packet, is that the toasted cocoa nibs give a taste that is reminiscent of coffee beans.

Same presentation as the last Monoprix Gourmet bar I reviewed (pictures to come) and you are greeted with a lovely deep chocolate aroma as soon as you open the bar.

The chocolate is fairly reminiscent of Lindt's 70-odd% chocolate, with a deep, not too bitter smooth cocoa taste, with an undertone of vanilla.

The best bit though is the toasted cocoa nibs - they lend a lovely crunch to the bar, and add a superb intense chocolate taste as you eat the bar. And yes - a slight hint of toasted coffee beans which I have always been fond of the flavour of, but only a hint mind you. Which I suppose is correct, considering it isn't actually coffee!

Highly recommended - if you like dark chocolate and happen to come across this French offering on your travels, then please try it!


HOW NAUGHTY IS IT?
Calories: to come
Fat: to come
( per 100g)

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Monoprix Gourmet pépites de caramel

Les pépites de caramel taquinent le palais tandis que le chocolat au lait l'enrobe de sa douceur.

Translation: The nuggets of caramel tease the palate while coated with the softness of milk chocolate. You get the gist . . .

Yep - this is the first of five bars brought back to me from Paris for me to review. Oh it's hard people knowing that you write about chocolate!

The bar is kind of a Lindt presentation - it comes wrapped in foil within a box, and split into the same 10 segments. The bar consists of milk chocolate, with a liberal amount of crunchy caramel bits.

The chocolate is quite nice. It doesn't have the same smoothness and creaminess of Lindt, but it has a good chocolate hit (albeit with that slight burn you can sometimes get at the back of your throat) and contains a relatively decent 32% cocoa solids.

There are two ways of eating this really - the normal way would be to crunch straight into it I suppose, and eating it this way, it really becomes just crunchy chocolate as the caramel is a little overwhelmed by the relatively strong cocoa flavour.

However on my last square, I let all the chocolate melt away leaving me with copious amounts of caramel bits in my mouth. And much to my delight, the caramel is good - sweet, buttery and with a nice salty aftertaste as you crunch on the remnants.

Really a very nice bar - amongst my French stash, I have another one from Monoprix Gourmet, but I haven't decoded it yet to see what it is!


HOW NAUGHTY IS IT?
Calories: 526
Fat: 29.0g
( per 100g)

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Normal service will resume shortly

Apologies for the hiatus in posts - real life has been getting in the way.

Last weekend I was Maid of Honour for my best friend, and have spent much of that time recovering my energy, if not having to go on work dinners and the like.

You will be glad to know that I kept up the good chocolate work though and made their wedding cake - 3 tiers of double depth White Chocolate and Dulce de Leche cheesecake (recipe here for the normal size). I have included a picture below of the completed cake (as I am just a tad proud of it), and it went down very well :) Not bad, for my first ever wedding cake! I don't know if I'd do another one in a hurry, but it was an interesting experience.

Happily, my friend and her lovely new husband went on honeymoon to Paris, and has brought me back 5-6 French bars to review - yay!!!

So as said above - normal service will shortly resume.

Ritter Sport Whole Hazelnut

Another Ritter variety in my sights this evening - the Whole Hazelnut version. A milk chocolate with "hand selected whole hazelnuts" no less! The UK equivalent (Cadbury Whole Nut) is one of those bars I do like to indulge in every so often - a comfort food if you will, so I was curious to see how this one compared.

As you open the packet, there is a lovely hazelnutty smell, which I have never really got from the Cadbury version, with the nuts being overwhelmed by the very distinctive, strong tasting Cadbury milk chocolate. Not so here, the milk chocolate and hazelnuts are paired beautifully.

As before, the milk chocolate in this is lovely - creamy, rich and with a relatively good 30% cocoa solids (relative to the so called "dark" chocolates I have had with the same amount). It melts smoothly and compliments the crunchy, fresh-tasting hazelnuts which are copiously scattered throughout the bar. Very moreish.

HOW NAUGHTY IS IT?
No Nutritional Info available

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Côte d’Or Experiences 70% & Raspberries

I have a feeling that this was primarily called "Noir Framboise" but it appears to have been renamed for those Brits who can't speak a word of French (or be bothered to read the packet to see what it contains).

It's a while since I have had a Côte d’Or bar, and certainly the first one since starting this site. I am also a big fan of raspberries, so snapped this up when I laid my peepers on it - coming to the bar itself described as "Smooth and rich 70% cocoa solid DARK (sic) chocolate with a thin layer of raspberries enveloped in chocolate."

On opening the bar, you are hit with that lovely intense bittersweet dark chocolate smell - always one of my favourites. You also get a hint of the raspberries therein. The dark chocolate is glossy, and emblazoned with the traditional Côte d’Or elephant. Cute.
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I was a little worried about how apparent the raspberries would be, as on the ingredients they are listed as a paltry 1.1% of the ingredients. However, it can be tasted (there are other fruit ingredients in there as well, I suspect to help it along) and it compliments beautifully the chocolate. The dark chocolate is smooth and rich, and is one of those chocolates with that odd ability to stay cool in your mouth, even as it melts. And as it melts, you get the odd little bit of candied raspberry to bite on, for even more a fruity reminder of the contents. If you munch your chocolate, you may not notice these candied pieces, but if you let it melt on your tongue, they become very apparent.

I loved this bar - it tasted smooth, rich and above all, fresh tasting. Côte d’Or never seems very bitter to me anyway (lets see, I have an 86% one in the Cupboard of Love . . . ) but the raspberry flavour certainly counteracts any bitterness there may be. A really lovely combination.

HOW NAUGHTY IS IT?
Calories: 580
Fat: 46.0g
( per 100g)

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Ritter Sport Praline

I've only ever tried one of the Ritter Sport varieties in the past, and I have a feeling it was the marzipan one which I am not a big fan of. However, happy to put the past behind me, I grabbed a couple of these to try (the other one being the Hazelnut one).

Having had a very positive experience with another German brand, Milka, and having heard good things generally about Ritter, I wasn't disappointed.

This particular bar is described on the front as having "the finest praline filling". Now, that's a pretty steep claim and I don't know about it being the finest, but it was a very enjoyable bar nonetheless. The milk chocolate is very similar to the Milka range, being very creamy with a good cocoa flavour and starts melting as soon as you put it in your mouth, or even indeed on your fingertips. The filling was a very smooth, chocolatey praline with a good taste of hazelnuts - in fact, there is a beautiful praline nutty aroma as soon as you open the packet.

Delicious and highly recommended. There appears to be an increasing variety of this range becoming available in the UK - try them if you haven't already!

HOW NAUGHTY IS IT?
No nutritional info available

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Cadbury Boost

I remember the good old days when you used to be able to get Boost's in 3 different varieties - if I remember rightly it was Biscuit, Coconut and Peanut. Coconut was always my absolute favourite, but then Cadbury made the decision to narrow the Boost range down to just one. Joy of joys, it was my least favourite of the bunch and what we have today - the Biscuit Boost.

First of all - let's not be fooled here. Cadbury decided to tag it with the line "Charged with glucose". In simple terms, a massive third of your recommended sugar allowance! But that's okay - Cadbury certainly wouldn't be the first to take something like that and make it sound like the chocolate equivalent of an energy drink.

What we have is basically a caramel "tube", with a biscuity filling and a thick milk chocolate coating. Taking this bit at a time; milk chocolate coating? Well, Cadbury chocolate is as it always is - distinctive, smooth and very sweet. Caramel? Soft chewy texture (with a bit of leakage on mine) and tastes pretty much like the softer Caramel in the Cadbury Dairy Milk with Caramel, or whatever they're calling it now. I can't keep up. Anyway - sweet, sticky. Fairly average really.

The filling is where I become a bit unstuck (and not a caramelly way!). It has the biscuity bits in, yes, which give it a nice bit of crunch. I like them. However, they are suspended in some "stuff" that I can't quite place. It is soft sort of truffley texture with a rather insipid taste. A bit like instant drinking chocolate. They don't even describe it on the wrapper. And quite frankly, when I looked at the ingredients (which I don't do that often) to try and get a hint of what it might be, there was so much crap in there, I almost regretted eating the bar.

Almost. But it was okay for a one off. I won't be running out to get another one any time soon. Unless of course they bring back the coconut version, in which case I will have to build a new "cupboard of love" . . .

(what I did find interesting was that on doing a search for "Boost" on Cadbury's home page, not one result came back. Not one!!!!)

HOW NAUGHTY IS IT?
Calories: 315
Fat: 17.8g
( per bar)

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