Chocolate in the Time of Recession: The Most Orgasmic Toast

Hear ye, hear ye.

I have discovered the food of the gods. Or at least what they would eat if they only had bananas, Nutella, and bread.

What you need:

• bananas
• bread
• Nutella

1. Toast the bread. Pardon the gross appearance of my bread -- it's been living in the freezer because when it says it'll go bad on 25 FEB, it means business. Oh yea, my flat's toaster is retarded on one side and doesn't spring the bread up when it's done.
2. Select a banana. One banana is enough for two sandwiches.
3. Start spreading Nutella on one slice of bread. It is better to do it when the slice is still warm since it allows the Nutella to spread more easily.
4. Peel a banana and cut off slices about 5mm (0.25in) thick. Deposit onto Nutella'd toast evenly. This may require rearrangement periodically to maximize slice coverage.
5. Once the surface of the toast is covered, feel free to do what you please to the rest of the banana (should have about half of it left). Or take a break. I like to draw faces in my food. :)
6. Place the other slice of toast on top to create the sandwich.
7. Enjoy!
   

Chocolate in the Time of Recession: The Impromptu Fondue

I'm not eating as much chocolate this week (although I do have a few NEW bars I still need to try), so I decided to do something different and explore chocolate options in case the recession worsens and damages my chocolate budget.

I make it a point to eat fruit everyday. Occasionally I accompany it with Nutella. Thus far, I have only tried spreading Nutella on apple slices and making banana slices + Nutella toast (the latter being the most orgasmic toast I've ever consumed. More about this another time.).

Last night I had grapes.

And I decided to dip them into the jar of nutella. Thus, creating an impromptu fondue party for one.

Verdict: Nutella (at room temperature) isn't as great as melted chocolate as far as covering things go. The consistency is too thick so dipping was difficult (I had to fish a few runaway grapes out of the jar) and getting an even coat on the grape was impossible. Also, the nutella would separate from the grape in the mouth after a very little chewing. The grape+nutella taste combination was alright, though their individual flavors remained intact instead of integrating to become fruity chocolate deliciousness. In short, decent taste, but suboptimal texture.

Jameson's Ruffle, Thorntons Moments, Chocolate Coma

alright.

these are belated updates.

i had this (Jameson's Ruffle) on sunday:



not particularly impressed - it was interesting; the raspberry + coconut was definitely not a mix i'd tasted before - and since i'm not a huge fan of coconut at all, i probably won't try it again. i'm just confused about this. the wrapper was bright and really pretty, and i had expected something... well, ribbon or ruffle like. i suppose maybe the inside was a tad ruffle-y, but... meh. anyway.

it just seemed kind of crumbly to me (and i am fast learning that i like smooth and/or crisp... crumbly/dry doesn't do it for me at all). i give it a huge, apathetic meh.

alright, now onto the thorntons moments:


these took me about 3 days to polish off (disturbing, i know.). the reason being that i started off with the orange chocolates, figuring that since i have never found a combination of orange and chocolate that i've enjoyed, that this would probably be no different (or it would be the worst), and then i'd be able to slow down from there.

however, the orange crisp was surprisingly well done. not too overwhelming with the citrus flavour, and just the right amount of crispy inside. so then i had to try everything else - and they were, for the most part, quite in order. here are the descriptions, and my opinions:

soft caramel: rich, smooth flowing caramel cloaked in chunky milk chocolate dome. i was not impressed by this. it seemed pretty average to me - the caramel wasn't too sweet, but the entire thing was just so run of the mill. also, the caramel wasn't quite as flowing as i would have liked.

creamy fudge: luxurious, velvety butter fudge made with demerara sugar and coated in milk chocolate. i think this was my least favourite. i'm not sure how demerara sugar is supposed to affect taste/texture, but this was more like a slightly weathered sandpaper, not velvet. but i suppose i'm also not the hugest fan of butter fudge...

double chocolate croquant: crunchy chocolate dome made from layers of milk and white chocolate with croquant pieces. this was delicious. i think maybe they ought to have used something a little more sharp to contrast with the sweetness of the white chocolate, but since i love crunchy (croquant pieces were definitely nice and crispy), this ended up disappearing rather quickly.

crunchy praline: exquisite golden roasted hazelnut praline wrapped in milk chocolate. i have a weakness for hazelnuts and chocolate in just about any combination/contortion. this was my favourite of the lot.

orange crisp: indulgent chocolate truffle laced with real orange zest and crispy pieces. like i said, i expected to be grossed out by this, but it was done very well.

chocolate truffle: silky chocolate truffle smothered in thorntons delicious milk chocolate. less enthusiastic about this. the chocolate truffle didn't taste quite right - it was very sweet, and not even remotely silky. i've tasted high qual. truffles before, and this was... not even average... almost bad.


i suppose the speed with which the moments disappeared attests to how tasty they were (or my insatiable appetite for chocolate), and don't get me wrong, i enjoyed them - but then there was the whole 3.99 pound price tag.

if i'm going to pay an exorbitant fee for chocolate, i would like to know where the pennies are going. this was slightly above average at best. if you want something really interesting, don't buy this. this is more like... expensive comfort chocolate.

also, i quite feel like i've eaten myself into a chocolate coma.

time to ease up a little; i'll perhaps try to slow down to just one update a week and, along those lines, have a chocolate budget (all of these involve a self-control that i do not have in large quantity and that i need to develop asap).

i have a feeling that keeping up the whole 80% chocolate diet will probably make me an interesting cadaver to autopsy at the age of 25.

Chocolate Gut

So I was taking a shower this evening and I noticed that I have a gut. I will not post a picture of my chocolate gut, despite one of the hallmarks of this blog is to provide pictures to support our claims, so you'll just have to take my word on it.

I knew there was potential to develop a gut in England, but I thought it'd be because of beer or something!

This is interesting. I totally feel like Morgan Spurlock in that scene from Supersize Me when he goes in for his physical and the doctor tells him he's gained like 15 pounds and that his other vital stats are at not-so-great levels.

Maybe I should start getting physicals.

the Cadbury Crunchie and then some.

o, me and my whims. my whims and i.

i went out today, just about dying from my lack of any real chocolate sustenance yesterday, hellbent on buying myself some sweet (sorry, nutella. i love you, but you haven't quite made it to the status of sustenance yet. still only a condiment - albeit, an extremely, extremely tasty one.).

i had to do grocery shopping, which brought me to lidl, where they (gasp!) not only STILL had the 1 pound for a brand-spankin'-new jar of nutella (which of course i purchased... since it isn't much sustenance, a large portion of it disappeared yesterday during my most unfortunate chocolate fast), and.... (drumroll please) 4 buenos + 1 free bueno for the fabulous price of 1.26 pounds. or something like that.

after checking out, i was sort of feeling... (well, i think this blog has established my greediness in the realm of chocolate...) energized/empowered by my chocolate acquisition (oh, how unbearably bougie i am sometimes), so i went over to mccoll's, per john's advice, to buy myself some of the greatly coveted Thornton's.

so i did that.

and then i spied with my little eye this little fella here:


and didn't even bother attempting to resist its lure, because let's be honest here, what's the point? i'd probably eventually buy it anyway; this way i'm just saving myself a trip...

(self-control? oh yeah, what about it?)

so a crunchie looks like this on the inside:


it says honeycomb, but i think a more accurate description would be dehydrated honey (sort of like dehydrated ice cream) except it has a nicer, crispy crunchiness to it, which, i think, makes its name quite appropriate.

i haven't been too keen on a lot of the more recent choc bars, but i was quite pleased with this. it also errs on the sweet side, but it's not a sickly sweet - it's honey sweet, which i really enjoy.

i won't post on it today, but you've probably already surmised, quite accurately, that i broke into the thornton's.

oh. my. sweet. heavens.

let's just say that, between the buenos, the thornton's, and the crunchie, my trashcan is currently the site of what looks like an intense chocolate wrapper orgy.

Nestle Aeros - how to "feel the bubbles melt"

This is just an addendum to Ivy's post regarding the Nestle Aeros. I also tried them recently and I agree with most of the things she said about them in terms of low chocolate density and whatnot. However, I would like to note...

I CAN MAKE THE BUBBLES MELT

Ok, to make the Nestle Aero bubbles melt, you need to let the chocolate sit in your mouth instead of doing the normal routine of chewing and swallowing. Yes, this requires patience. If you want to fully feel the bubbles melt, try playing with the chocolate with your tongue, running it along the porous surfaces. And now, you know how to feel the Nestle Aero bubbles melt!

munchies

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Cadbury Double Chocolate Fingers

To make Ivy feel better, I shall update! :)

So the last 2 days, I ate a box of Cadbury Double Chocolate Fingers. This is the last of the three £1 Cadbury bars/boxes that I bought from Sainsbury's two weeks ago (I've been exercising self-restraint).

I opened the box on Monday and was appalled.


DUDE! This is the love I get for £1?! Seriously, Cadbury, you dropped the ball on this one.

Ok, maybe they taste ridiculously good...

I tried my first finger. Firstly, I was not expecting a chocolate-covered biscuit (why yes, I am illiterate and I did not read the small print on the back suggesting me to "enjoy these chocolate-covered biscuits with tea"). Instead, I was expecting a solid chocolate finger. Secondly,... chocolate-covered biscuit?! The biscuit itself resembles a vanilla wafer in terms of texture and lightness. However it is chocolate-flavored. And of course, it is dipped in the classic Cadbury milk chocolate with which I have familiarized on too familiar terms. I feel like I've had these so-called Cadbury Double Chocolate Fingers before in the States but I couldn't put my finger on it. Food déjà vu (déjà mangé?), seriously.* Arghh. Perhaps some variety of cereal.

Since I received such a paltry quantity, I finished the box in 2 days (only because I controlled myself). Tasty, don't get me wrong. But dude, I did not come to Britain for this.

*Oh yea, Ivy told me that these are sold in the US. I guess I wasted £1, although I am 99% sure I never purchased these before. It was a somewhat new experience for me, but folks, please accept my apologies for misfiring, if you knew all along.

disturbingly, Twirl and Kinder Bueno (white choc)

Right, another update.

So, the cadbury twirl:


Twirl, because the inside the milk chocolate shell, you'll find... not really twirls of chocolate, but layers and layers of ribbons, like so:


you're probably thinking (well, that does presume a readership that i don't particularly expect but theoretically/ideally), hmm, it looks like there are some holes in that there choc bar...

and you would be spot on.

which really irritates me. again, with the stale-ish chocolate. maybe it will taste better if it is chilled, as some other blog recommended - i don't know. what i do know is, i have got to stop eating these air-chocolate bars, pronto.

thankfully, i moved onto something far more safe and almost guaranteed to satisfy my disturbing sweet-tooth:


Yup, back to the bueno. except this time, it's white choc instead of milk. I was just curious to see whether or not it would make a difference; essentially it's the exact same filling (delicious hazelnut/milk creme filling) but white chocolate outside with these little cocoa "decorations" as the package says:


the cocoa bits got all over the place when i unwrapped the thing, and seemed to really only contribute significantly to the texture of the bar. I suppose it does make the bar more slightly interesting, and perhaps less sweet than it would originally have been.

anyway.

it is a bit sweeter than the milk chocolate, more sweet than i would have liked, but i am more partial to milk chocolate anyway, so that's probably why.

still the tasty goodness that is on par with nutella, though.

Maltesers and Toffee Crisp

i think if i weren't me, i'd be disturbed by the amount of chocolate i have the capacity to consume on a daily basis. i was doing fine in the morning (no chocolate whatsoever - in fact, i was being quite healthy), but then i went to some academic meeting thing and ended up having an appetizer of maltesers with a brownie and hot chocolate as my main lunch dish.

so, :


... which are essentially british milk duds - i never really got into milk duds, so i can't really say how they compare... i did eat them pretty quickly, but i think that was mostly a matter of hunger and not of tastiness. this particular type of candy (the whole malted milk centers) isn't really my style.

and i also ate this (later, of course, with dinner but not for dinner):


this disappeared quickly enough as well, but again, not sure if that's because it was actually that delicious. Toffee Crisp, made by Nestle, is rice crispies in soft toffee and covered in milk chocolate, marketed only in the united kingdom.

not bad, but also not extraordinary - not a candy bar i'd want with me on a desert island (or, excuse the awful unpunniness of this, a dessert island).

i should probably cut back on this chocolate-eating thing. i can't imagine daily updates being terribly beneficial for my body...

Cadbury Wispa

I was grocery shopping today and saw one just sitting there. Being the chocolate junkie that I am, I didn't even think twice before throwing one into my basket:


Apparently, the Wispa first debuted in 1981 and carried on until Cadbury discontinued this particular line of chocolate bar in 2003 (apparently they resold it as "dairy milk bubbly"... which is sort of an awkward name for a candybar, imo). Due to popular retro appeal, its original name, Wispa, was brought back (apparently it reminds people of the good ol' '80s...).

"Aerated Milk Chocolate Bar". Indeed:



It's definitely different from the Aero - bubbles are a lot smaller, creating a rather interesting effect on the taste of the chocolate. Which is to say, it tastes stale and (sort of like aeros) light... and it tastes less disturbingly sweet than Aeros do. I'm honestly not sure which I prefer - Wispas or Aeros - but in general, I think I'm going to stay away from this type of chocolate...

I think this is another case of lower chocolate:penny ratio, aka lower chocolate density per square centimetre.

I need to go back to higher density chocolate.

Cadbury Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut

I had been consuming this bar for the past week (and marathon-ing it in the last 2 days because I just couldn't control myself anymore!). Here's why:

• Almonds! Solid choice of nut, if you ask me. Definitely made things crunchy. Another plus: the almonds were whole.
• Dried fruits! If you're not a fan of raisins or the like, I advise you steer clear of this bar. However, since I love raisins (you have no idea), I was in heaven.
• The trademark Cadbury milk chocolate

I loved it a lot, more than the Turkish Delight bar. The Turkish Delight bar was too strange for me. This Fruit & Nut bar was nice and familiar -- Cadbury did a great job mixing chocolate, dried fruits, and almonds together without being boring about it. However, I do have one gripe -- more almonds, please! Sometimes I'd eat 1/6 of the bar without tasting an almond. Perhaps this is how I finished the bar so quickly...

In short, this has been my favorite Cadbury bar this far (out of 2, I know). I loved it so much that it might be in the running for "Chocolate I will buy again once I've tried it all," but for now, I must continue the chocolate study.

Looking Ahead (Chocolates currently in possession): Cadbury Double Chocolate Fingers, Aero Mint, Aero Chocolate

nestle aeros

Hm. Chocolate with bubbles. Pretty interesting idea, which was what conned me into taking a bite out of both bars (how do they get those bubbles in the chocolate? does it affect the taste?).

verdict: hm. well, it's chocolate, so i can't say i didn't enjoy it, but i didn't like that the pieces don't actually break cleanly (which is why i ended just picking up the gigantic slab and stuffing a corner into my mouth).

the bubbles do actually make it taste... lighter, whatever that means (like it's whipped i suppose), but i dunno, i thought they were a tad large/coarse (crappy carbonation).

also, how does one "feel the bubbles melt"?

i don't think i felt the bubbles melt.

also, now that i think about it, doesn't that just mean that nestle is selling us a candybar with a lower density of chocolate, a larger air to chocolate ratio? how could that possibly be good?

i, for one, am all about maximizing the effect of my british pounds/pennies.

well, whatever. an interesting and apparently only european (possibly only british? i dunno) candybar. now i want to try a wispa, cadbury-ean counterpart to the aero...

in other unrelated news, for those of you who haven't tried ferrero's kinder line of choc, you totally should. the bueno esp. it's sort of like kit kat, with the whole milk-chocolate covering a thin, crispy wafer concept, except (and get this) that within each wafer is the most heavenly milk/hazelnut filling, a la nutella, as previously mentioned.

i think in the race towards best lay chocolate bar/snack ever, these are definitely winning.

I am most certainly looking forward to 15 Feb.

Like any cynical maniac,

I love 15th February more than 14th February. Why? Because that's when all the V-Day chocolates get discounted!

Sainsbury's currently has a wine+Thornton's deal for £10. Yea, I'm banking on that dropping to £8 ish after V-day. And then I shall celebrate V-day in my typical fashion.

Chocolate Week 3

Before starting this blog, I've actually already had varying types of chocolate for three weeks, hence chocolate week 3.

In that time, I've sampled chocolate by Marks & Spencer (the swiss dark chocolate mountain bar or something ridiculous like that), Kinder, some bear-shaped milk filled chocolates by Mister Choc, some random German brand of a milk chocolate and hazelnut bar, and a cadbury dark chocolate creme filled milk chocolate bar.

Marks & Spencer was a decent, if somewhat generic Toblerone-ish ripoff.

I loved Kinder, but that doesn't surprise me too much, since Kinder is actually a subdivision of Ferrero - and they, the Italian geniuses that they are, make the Ferrero Rocher gold ball chocolates as well as the one and only spread you will ever need for bread:


Yes, nutella.

This past Saturday (7/02), I purchased the following:


the above is effectively a tastier form of snickers - the nougat is legitimately nougat and not some pathetic fluffy substitute. granted, mister choc in general isn't exactly the highest quality stuff (I will not be buying this again)... Mister choc is apparently owned by Lidl, which explains the not-so-high quality of both of the chocolates that I bought.


I think this might actually be a dietary supplement/snack thing for children, but it is pretty delicious. It's a sort of cookie/chocolate creme/cookie sandwich covered in a layer of chocolate, and apparently, it's a good source of calcium. McVitie's, the brand that makes the above snacks, also seems to make other healthy-ish snacks called digestives... I guess for people who don't get enough fiber...



These (the Schogetten squares) are both pretty sweet. When it said Nougat on the purple package, I thought they actually meant Nougat. But actually, it's just a sweet, almond-buttery filling (sort of like reeses except it's almond based). Yes, I was quite disappointed. The other one, the milk chocolate and hazelnut, was pretty run of the mill, but, of course, not worse than Hershey's.

Inaugural post

There really isn't much of a point to this blog, except to record all incidences of chocolate consumption whilst studying abroad, and to continually remind you all that Hershey's is abjectly disgusting and unworthy of ingestion.