Welcome to our blog....here we will share all our afternoon tea adventures with you...the good, the bad and the wonderful!

Wednesday 20 June 2018

Time for.....some afternoon tea chocolates!

Hello there!

Welcome back to Tea With me and Friends - we hope you're well today.

Recently I spotted a box of chocolates in Marks and Spencers that caught my attention.....


Yes, it's a box of chocolates inspired by classic British desserts and afternoon tea! As you can imagine I decided quite quickly that I needed to sample a box.....purely for research purposes!
 
The selection includes eight different chocolates, covering white, milk and dark chocolate. With inspiration for the fillings coming from both traditional puddings such as jam roly poly pudding and banoffee pie, and afternoon tea treats like bakewell tart and strawberries and cream.

Take a look at the menu....


When I first opened the box the smell of chocolate was so strong it made my mouth water - always a good sign! But would it be all style and no substance for these chocolates?

As I have a really sweet tooth and usually like most chocolates I thought I would recruit someone else (with a slightly less sweet tooth) to help give a more balanced view. My partner in crime for this review is my boyfriend Joe - he loves a cup of tea and his favourite cake is plain vanilla.....he puts jam on his scones before cream, but I suppose I'll let that slide for now. 

Joe declared that the chocolates looked posh when he first saw them (he's not usually a fan of fancy chocolates), but when he looked at the menu he seemed a bit more excited. 

He decided to try the banoffee pie chocolate first....


As you can see the chocolate has a thick milk chocolate shell, with a soft caramel and banana filling. Joe enjoyed the chocolate and described it as liquid banoffee pie. Not so good was the sticky toffee pudding, which featured a toffee mousse in a milk chocolate case. Although there was a toffee flavour, it wasn't particularly reminiscent of a real sticky toffee pud which was a bit disappointing. The mousse was also more like a heavy ganache.

However, overall Joe thought that if you like chocolates and you like puddings, you're probably going to like these chocolates!

I was tempted by the strawberries and cream chocolate and the bakewell tart....


I'm not normally a white chocolate fan, but in this chocolate it complemented the strawberry and cream ganache filling. Again, there is a good shell of chocolate encasing the filling. It was quite a rich chocolate....but I could imagine myself enjoying a couple of these with a glass of prosecco!


The bakewell tart chocolate had a weird texture which I couldn't quite put my finger on. However the flavour of almonds and cherries was very delicate and well balanced with the milk chocolate.

Overall this was a good box of chocolates, with a variety of different fillings. They would probably make a nice end to a meal at home with friends if you didn't fancy making pudding.....or you could keep them to yourself and just gobble them down with a cup of tea (I won't tell anyone I promise!).


Have you tried any afternoon tea inspired chocolate that we should try? 
We'd love to hear your recommendations!

Thank you for popping by today,
Rachel & Joe

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