Choco Café - Skorice Cinnamon

I've got my mum and dad trained well. It used to be, whenever they went away they'd come back with a souvenir for me - fridge magnets, little decorative statues, a nice handbag or perfume from duty free. They've finally learnt though, the only way to buy my love is through good old chocolate.

Just before Christmas they went to Prague and while the Czech Republic isn't really known worldwide for its chocolate, I had heard some good things. 

This holiday's little treat comes from Choco Café (www.choco-cafe.cz), a place where - you guessed it - the menu revolves around chocolate. Take a look at the menu on their website, I especially would like to try the home made Chocolate Blob!! I've seen photographs of the breakfast, chocolate croissants, chocolate cakes and the most indulgent looking hot chocolate - my mum in particular recommends it to anyone travelling to Prague. 

They very kindly grabbed me a 72% dark chocolate with cinnamon and thankfully there is an English description: exclusive cocoa beans from central South America and Madagascar . Great character, intense taste, smooth slight acidity with fruit and spice bouquet. Home made chocolate bar. 

Theres a basic ingredients list- 

 Gluten free, made only with cocoa butter. 

Cocoa: Min 72%

Sugar: Max 27% 

Cocoa Butter: Min 44%

Emulsifier: Soy Lecithin

Aroma: Natural vanilla 

Nut/Fruit Content (according to flavour): Min 20%

Spices: Min 1%

I really like that there's no set recipe - it all depends on who is making your chocolate and how they're feeling at the time to how much you get of each.

The chocolate is quite charming in a funny way. Its in a plastic (non-sealed, no machinery here) envelope inside, which is then wrapped in foil and a paper label. All neatly tied together with a piece of straw. Its sweet and old fashioned and a real novelty in times of mass produced crap! I felt like a fraud and a pretender opening it up after clearing the reduced Christmas shelves in Tesco.. 

The scent was undeniably dark chocolate, that familiar smell I absolutely love. The chocolate had a strange feel to it, velvety smooth to the point of almost being like a plastic bar - I was a little concerned but as long as it didn't taste like plastic, I'd be happy! 

 I broke a square off and my fears were put to rest. A deep, dark, rich chocolate flavour that wasn't quite bitter but was not sweet at all. While the outside felt smooth to the touch, it had an almost gritty texture in my mouth, it was smooth enough to melt but had a very pleasing bite and chew to it too. 

I know I demand uniform and even flavouring in bars from big brands but I'd be a fool to expect it in a home made bar. That said, the first square I tried was the only without any cinnamon flavour. It was delicious, and the best way to describe it is the taste of Christmas. It isn't a very strong cinnamon which I think is a positive as both cinnamon and dark chocolate are strong, distinctive flavours. The chocolate is such a lovely quality it would be a shame to drown it out with a strong cinnamon taste. Its enough though and noticeable throughout but I do think that even non-cinnamon lovers would manage to enjoy this, rather than it being a completely separate taste it just seems to add another layer to the flavour. 

I was surprised to find it was a sweeter cinnamon though, instead of the warm almost spicy flavours it provided some needed (depending on who you ask!) sweetness, it doesn't taste like sugar though like in most chocolate bars and I doubt I'd have noticed the sweeter squares had the first one not been exclusively chocolate. 

One downside to mum and dad bringing me home foreign goodies is that when I find one as tasty as this, its near enough impossible to get anymore!

They're off to Mexico next - I've never tried Mexican chocolate..... 

The first world food Wednesday of 2016 is a solid

9/10

Butterkist Limited Edition Gingerbread Popcorn

I thought I didn't like gingerbread but I've changed my mind, my new love of gingerbread, cinnamon, spice and all things nice couldn't have come at a better time - just as every company are releasing their Halloween and Christmas products! 

Butterkist have a good track record as of late, I loved the Pulled Pork Popcorn and convinced Mr.1T to try it - he's five bags in and has another two in the cupboard! So a combination of Butterkist popcorn and gingerbread was one I couldn't turn down. 

This is popcorn coated with a cinnamon & ginger flavour toffee. 

This smelt like run of the mill sweet popcorn, I expected a stronger gingerbread or cinnamon scent as they're both quite powerful flavours but never mind. 

As you can see in the photo there wasn't really an even coating, the toffee is the sticky glaze on the popcorn and I had quite a few plain pieces. Unfortunately these were the kernels I tried first and they tasted how they smelt, just a plain sweet popcorn. I'd learnt from the Pulled Pork flavour that these aren't to be eaten in a dignified manner - the flavour is strongest with a good, full handful but my next again had pretty much no flavouring, there was a small trace of cinnamon that hinted at the good stuff to come but nothing too major. 

None of this sounds great but once I ate through the plain stragglers (these would have been at the bottom of the bag but I'd dumped it out into my popcorn holder) the rest of the bag was delicious. 

The unflavoured pieces might as well have been a completely different bag to the kernels with the glaze on, the gingerbread flavour is immense. Texture aside, I could well have been eating actual gingerbread. It's nice and strong, quite sweet, has a slight toffee flavour and a little warm kick from the cinnamon. Lovely!

The pieces that aren't gingerbread flavoured are still good - they're sweet with a slight toffee flavour and are perfectly tasty but the gingerbread kernels are amazing. 

I really want to give this a 9/10, it was so addictive and the whole bag didn't last me long at all, I'd just have liked all of the pieces to taste like that - if I wanted toffee or sweet popcorn I'd have bought a bag of that. I think I'll give Butterkist the benefit of the doubt on the plainer ones, the Gingerbread is good and I wish I hadn't eaten them all last night now! 

Ben & Jerry's Cinnamon Buns

Caramel ice cream with a Cinnamon a Swirl & Chunks of Cinnamon Bun Dough 

After I tried the previous two Ben & Jerry's flavours and read Lucy's review, I couldn't wait to try the Cinnamon Buns - even more so after the last couple of products I've reviewed have contained cinnamon and I'm getting a real taste for it. 

I'm lucky (unlucky?) enough to live in the shadow of one of Tescos flagship stores and so we tend to get new stuff a little earlier but this was nowhere to be found. I finally found it in a tiny express store but since I ate it I've seen it in lots of different shops, typical! 

I can't say anything about the ice cream that I haven't before; thick, creamy, super rich and I've only ever had one freezer burnt pint (Morrisons, I'm looking at you. You shouldn't have to pick through 5 inches of ice to get the tubs!!). The base ice cream is caramel flavoured and is one of my favourites from Ben & Jerry's. It's delicious as always, nice and sweet with a good caramel flavour that is great on its own but doesn't overpower any additional flavours or mix ins. 

I came to the Cinnamon Bun chunks before the swirl and I loved them. Apparently there's only supposed to be 11% in each pint but I had loads and they were all huge. They're firmer than the cookie dough pieces in other flavours, and have a slightly gritty feel. The cinnamon flavour is lovely, not too strong with a slight spice and goes beautifully with the caramel ice cream. 

The Cinnamon Swirl threw me at first, all the recent swirls in the new releases have been cookie swirls so I guess I was half expecting that but it's more of a syrupy sauce. I really liked the cookie swirls but this one might just become a new favourite. It's very thick and so gooey that most spoonfuls ended up leaving a cinnamon swirl trail stringing back into the tub! The cinnamon flavour is stronger in the swirl than the chunks and again has a nice, warm spiced flavour with little gritty cinnamon flecks that I could feel as well as taste. 

I bought two tubs and Mr.1T kindly 'helped' me to review by eating the other and we both agree that this is a really good new flavour (he is still undecided on Pumpkin cheesecake) and this could very well be one of my new favourites however, our one small gripe is that both of us had a lot more of the cinnamon swirl in the bottom half and it would have been nice to be a bit more evenly distributed. 

Happily the packaging also says new, no Christmas snowflakes or limited edition anywhere so I think this is here to stay! 

8/10 

Two more The Lickators ice creams

So after I was finally allowed a Lickators Marshmallow Law ice cream the ice cream thief - as he shall forever be known in my house - appeared with two other flavours (I knew there was a reason I'm marrying him!). Doughnut Disturb for himself and General Custard for me. 

General Custard is "a decadent blend of British milk and whipping cream pimped up with eggs and vanilla pods". The vanilla is the dominant flavour first off, sure enough the vanilla pods are there in abundance and clearly visible all the way through. Each mouthful began as vanilla which gave way to a rich custard taste. It really is a lovely flavour which although is quite plain compared to the others in The Lickators range and similar brands is delicious and is an interesting twist on usual vanilla. 

The custard is addictive and got better and better the more I ate, as before it was very moreish. The quality of the actual ice cream is again very nice and extremely creamy with the eggs adding a lovely richness. It's sweet as you would expect with anything like this but sugar actually comes third in the ingredients list to milk and whipping cream - this also has clotted cream in it so it's no wonder it's thick, creamy and rich! For me it was a perfect mix on all parts - not too thick, not too much vanilla, not too much custard, not too rich - you get the picture - they were all just right. 

I was all ready to write here how it's good but there are more exciting flavours at this price range (the usual price is £5 I believe) but writing this review and reading the ingredients has made me rethink that a bit. £5 isn't really too bad of a price - when Cadbury are pretty much charging the same for the frozen lump of chocolate ice cream - for an ice cream using good quality British ingredients and there aren't many you'll find for cheaper doing the same. Anyway I did enjoy it but I think I preferred Marshmallow Law as I do love a mix in, this was very enjoyable though. 

Rating 7/10 

He had the Doughnut Disturb, a "devastating mash up of cinnamon ice cream, cinnamon ripple & doughnut style pieces". Sugar is second in the ingredients list on this tub but on opening it it's the first thing you could literally see! Word for word when he opened his tub he said to me "oh bloody hell there's sugar sprinkled all over the top!" I'm guessing that would be to mimic a sugared doughnut which is a nice touch. 

He's not too interested in writing stuff down (unless it's anything to do with football) so this part of the review is more me asking him questions... 

He agrees with all my comments on the actual ice cream "oh yes very creamy!" And "it's weird it's rich but yeah not too rich" so that's that. He's never had cinnamon ice cream before (claims to have never actually had cinnamon but I know for a fact he has!!) I said it's quite a warm flavour and he said "oh, it didn't really taste warm it wasn't too strong but it was really nice my second favourite and better than any Ben and Jerry's". How dare he!!

 The doughnut pieces weren't miniature doughnuts but more like little chunks and apparently were soft but still chewy and tasted just like a doughnut, there was no mistaking them and he really enjoyed the mixture between the two. Again comparing the two brands, he does admit that the chunks are smaller in this tub than of Ben and Jerry's but, and I have to include the but, the pieces were much more flavourful than any he's had from B&J. 

His rating 8.5/10 

We both do agree on one point though, if we'd tried these two first they'd be firm favourites but the we really enjoyed Marshmallow Law!