Chocolat Chocolat review

Last Updated on 26 June 2023 by Colette

This post features product gifted for review

I recently came across Chocolat Chocolat – a 15 year old Cambridge based company offering artisan chocolate by post.  Oh yes!  I was pretty excited to be offered the opportunity to try out the “Create Your Own Bar” service.

I had a few issues with the website which seemed a little slow, pages were taking a while to load whilst I worked through my order and unbeknown to me all the details of one of my bars hadn’t actually been saved submitted properly.  Thankfully I had a lovely email from the company shortly after checking if I had indeed meant to order a completely plain bar of chocolate (which I obviously hadn’t) so that problem was easily solved.

So basically you have the option to choose recommended combinations of toppings or just go wild and create your own!  The toppings are separated into sections – fruit, confectionery, decoration, wording etc.  There’s also the option to add a gift message in with your parcel.

So my three choices were:

* Milk with apple, raspberry and gold decoration (all my own choice)

* Caramel with praline and sea salt (this was a recommended combination)

* Milk with pistachio, praline and fudge (again a recommended combination)

As the bars are all handmade to order they are not going to arrive immediately – I was told they would take around 3 to 5 days to be made and delivered.  It was actually considerably longer than this to the point that I had thought perhaps they weren’t coming at all but this might have been Christmas related!

Each bar is individually packaged and labelled with it’s ingredients, there is also a handwritten card in there to say who has made your chocolate for you.

Chocolat Chocolat delivery

So onto the chocolate itself . . .

The first bar I opened to try was the milk with pistachio, praline and fudge.  As you can see from the picture this has badly bloomed – whilst this doesn’t affect the taste of the chocolate at all it doesn’t look very appealing.  Whether the chocolate bloom has occurred before it was sent or in transit I don’t know but it was disappointing all the same.  I was surprised to discover that the bar itself has a really odd bubbly texture – I asked my sister about this (she’s a veritable chocolate expert) and she said it was likely caused by a high sugar content or too much air which perhaps hadn’t been tapped out of the mould.  Either way I wasn’t keen at all.  Aside from this the toppings themselves were lovely and I really liked the combination!!

Milk with pistachio, praline & fudge

The second bar I tried was the caramel with praline and sea salt.  Again you can see from the picture the surface of the chocolate looks a little sweaty, it doesn’t look smooth & silky.  Again this bares no reflection on the taste but doesn’t look like a luxury, high end chocolate to me.  This bar also had that same strange bubbly texture, in fact even more so than the first.  In terms of the toppings this was definitely my favourite – just the right amount of salt for a good flavour, it was really enjoyable.

Caramel with praline & sea salt

And finally the milk with raspberry and apple – this was the bar I was most excited about trying.  I do love a good fruity chocolate so the toppings were really appealing to me.  Visually this bar looks really nice (aside from a touch of bloom) – the raspberry and apple combination works well aesthetically, especially with the extra gold decoration.  Pleasingly this bar had a much smoother texture.  I can’t say I didn’t enjoy eating it!

Milk with raspberry, apple & gold flakes

What I liked:
* The packaging adds a really lovely handmade feel to the product

* The handwritten message to say who has made and sent your chocolate adds to the artisan feel

* The wide range of toppings and chocolate types means there really is something for everyone!

* The toppings looked nice and were evenly spread

What I wasn’t so keen on: 

* All three bars had bloomed to varying degrees

* The uneven, bubbly texture of the chocolate is a little bizarre

* Delivery was slow – you need to leave plenty of time for your order to arrive, particularly if you’re ordering around peak times like Christmas or Valentines

So overall I can’t say it was the best chocolate I’ve ever tried but I do really like the idea of being able to pick and choose the toppings to really tailor the bar to your own tastes and I do think it could make for a nice gift.