Review: Tesco Chocolates

When the email came in asking if I wanted to review some chocolates for Tesco I think my response was something along the lines of "is the Pope a Catholic?" I am a self-confessed chocoholic, but what I hadn't counted on was a nasty dose of the flu coming along which forced even a well-practiced chocolate lover like me to completely lose my sense of taste and desire to eat anything for over a week. Apologies therefore for this review being somewhat later than planned.

Tesco have brought out a new range of festive chocolates this Christmas, created by master chocolatiers behind Hotel Chocolat and Harrods chocolates, and designed to provide affordable chocolate luxury to all this festive season.

Let's start with this lovely box of Milk Chocolate Gingerbread Stars. A very smart looking box that would make a nice gift for someone. It may seem a bit silly to say it, but it also looked much posher than I'm used to supermarket own brand chocolates looking too.

Once I opened up the box I was a bit surprised by the contents. I had been expecting more smaller stars inside, but these were actually more biscuit sized than the chocolate size I had been expecting. Each one was quite a thick milk chocolate with swirls of white chocolate on top and small crunchy gingerbread pieces. 

They were, in a word, delicious, and didn't last at all long in this house! I liked the gingerbread topping and didn't find the gingerbread flavours overpowering as I think they can be in some festive foods. My only disappointment was that there was quite a bit of difference between the chocolates in the box as to how much topping they had on them. On some there was loads, whilst others only had a very small amount. I would have expected a bit more uniformity in that, especially in a "posh chocolate" if you know what I mean.

I was very impressed by these though, to the extend that I will be popping to my local Tesco later to see if they have any to take to school as my contribution to the Christmas Hamper that they're putting together as a raffle prize. A great luxury chocolate item that I'd be very pleased to receive under the Christmas tree (hint, hint to any family members reading!) They retail at just £4 a box which in my mind is a complete bargain.

Second up I was sent a Chokablok Cherry Merry Christmas which is a Christmas tree shaped piece of  black forest gateau flavoured dark chocolate, topped with a white chocolate swirl, dried cherries and brownie pieces. Now, I have to admit that I was a little bit apprehensive about trying this as I don't actually like black forest gateau and I'm not too keen on cherries either.

Once out of the wrapper it was clear that I could avoid the cherries quite easily as their distribution seemed to be limited to a section of the topping. Good for me, but possibly not if you liked cherries. The chocolate was actually quite nice. It had that nice bitter dark chocolate edge to it without being too bitter. There was a flavour edge which I detected as black forest gateau, but to be honest if you'd not told me that was the flavour I'm not sure I would have identified it as such. The brownie pieces on the top were delicious though.

The Chokablok Christmas range also features a Chokablok Santastic Cinnamon which is toppped with cinnamon and gold dusted chocolate malt balls and caramelised biscuit and ginger crumble. I'll be looking out for that one as I think it would be much more up my street.

These Christmas Chokablok items are all available for £5 each and with the festive shape would be ideal as a Christmas gift, especially for an older child or teenager.

Disclaimer: I was sent the Tesco chocolates detailed above to review. All opinions are my own and no payment was received for writing this review.