The Chocolate Festival logo, remedy on a fairtrade bag, approved get in.
I do so love to discover something by accident. This evening I went to meet my boyfriend at the SouthBank Centre for some dinner after a long day grafting over a sewing machine at a quilting class at the Papered Parlour (blog to follow) and chanced upon The Chocolate Festival. Logo: a chocolate dipped strawberry. Times are tough my friend, especially when the weather is delightful and there are free tasters at hand.
Oreo Cupcakes by My Sweet Tooth Factory
Naturally I had to do the rounds whilst I waited for the boyf to turn up, and I had to sample a taster… or two. With Easter just around the corner I thought it would be nice to do a round up in case you fancy splashing out on something rather more special than your common chain store egg… all of these artisanal chocolatiers make wonderful Easter gifts.
Chocolate Festival Cocouture marshmallows.
First up I sampled a marshmallow with a difference for 50p courtesy of CoCouture (geddit?) Clever indeed.
Dunno who these are by, but aren’t they cute? Potentially Lick the Spoon?
Artisan du Chocolat egg.
Then I was woo-ed by the amazing salted caramel and passion fruit chocolates over at Artisan du Chocolat. Some £13 for a box of 24, they were generously giving away samples… which were utterly divine.
Rococo Chocolates
I have been given a box of drinking chocolate from Rococo Chocolates in the past, but I had no idea just how far their beautiful packaging extends. A selection of unusually flavoured chocolate bars feature packaging inspired by the Moroccan tiles in a garden behind one of their shops. And for Easter they are doing real hen’s eggs filled with praline. Very special.
Chocolution cocoa beans
Chocolution was busy proving that raw chocolate is every bit as desirable as the cooked stuff, with a bowl of stunningly beautiful (and edible, I tried one) cocoa beans, a terracotta orange colour with an interior a beautiful shade of deep purple.
Chocolution raw chocolate
Prettiest chocolates came courtesy of Italian chocolatiers Baruzzo, who like many others use a fine cocoa transfer designs to top them off with colourful designs. In the end I opted to buy some chocolates for my brother’s 30th birthday from William Curley, even though I got immediately sugar high off the muscavado caramel that I tried. I liked the sound of their other flavours, so I’m sure he won’t be disappointed.
Charmaine Mok macaroons
I’ve written about Charmaine Mok before, when I sampled her outstanding sesame macaroons at Cakes for Japan, and here she was represented I got rather confused (see below) thinking that here she was represented by the Asian/French fusion Cafe On. In fact it was chef Loretta Liu and her team who were responsible for all sorts of intriguing flavours ranging from blueberry to pink champagne and everything in between. Do check them out online!
Cocoapod goodies
Kent based Cocoapod had an extremely colourful stall full of orange and lemon and caramel naturally flavoured chocolate lollies and drops and fun transfer bookmarks… which tasted as good as they looked.
Chocolate pretzels from The Big Yum
Last but very much not least I bought a big bag of chocolate pretzels from The Big Yum – I was disappointed when Nestle discontinued theirs, so this was a real find (and a bargain at £4 a big bag)
The Chocolate Festival continues tomorrow, and there’s a packed line up of speakers to listen to as well. What the hell are you waiting for?! There is this and so much more… More info for chocolate lovers here.
Tags:
Artisan du Chocolat, Baruzzo, Cafe On, Charmaine Mok, chocolate, Chocolution, Cocoapod, CoCouture, Easter, Lick the Spoon, Loretta Liu, Moroccan, My Sweet Tooth Factory, Papered Parlour, Raw Chocolate, Southbank centre, The Big Yum, The Chocolate Festival, William Curley
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Nice entry with some nice shots, I too overdosed!
Wow! Thanks for the little mention… I didn’t know how the black sesame macs went down at the event and so it’s really nice to hear they were enjoyed!
I’m not quite sure what you meant above by me ‘being represented’ though – I have no connection to Café On apart from having sampled their macarons and then writing about them
Hi Charmaine, they were selling your macaroons at the Cafe On stall… I bought five but I haven’t sampled them yet!
Oh they wouldn’t be mine (theirs are GORGEOUS) – they just happen to also make black sesame macarons too
Oh they wouldn’t be mine (theirs are GORGEOUS) – they just happen to also make black sesame macarons too
Great write up and piccies. Perfects what was certainly my experience! Just wish we could have had 2 weekends instead of one!!
Thankyou Velvetmouse I am glad you liked the write up. And I love your name!
Great review Amelia ! I went to the chocolate festival yesterday, and took pictures of some of the same things. Will be putting them up on my blog later today. The blueberry macaroons & the chocolate pretzels were my favourites..I think I must’ve had more chocolate yesterday than all of last week !
caught-in-a-tale.blogspot.com
I look forward to reading your review too! x
The Easter Chicks in globes are by Lick the Spoon of course! Not only cute but they taste good too non-deodorised Venezuelan 39% cocoa white chocolate and Ecuadorian origin milk chocolate
just a guess, but the mini easter chicks from your photo that you weren’t sure the origin of were by http://www.lickthespoon.co.uk/ based on the label saying lickthespoon..
Haha you caught me out! I posted this blog in a hurry so that it would encourage people to go along on the Sunday. Ammended!
Hi Amelia, i have just read your blog. As lovely Charmaine has mentioned, Cafe On’s macarons are not connected to her. Charmaine has written a lovely article on Timeout about our macarons. But I have not met nor do I know how she looks like but I would love to. As for our Black sesame macarons, it is a journey with 3 different flavours. The combination and the journey to eating the black sesame macaron is not straight forward. The freshly Roasted Black Sesame from Japan in the macaron shell, the infused glaced young ginger from Asian placed just in the middle of the macaron and the dark Chocolate filling just fencing the ginger yet not mixing the 2 ingredients is a carefully designed product. There s a journey to eating our macarons and it is a lot of our customer understand and love.
It will be great if you can make the necessary changes in your blog. As I think do not want to disappoint my team who has worked very hard with me to create our lovely macarons. Thank you very much.
Chef Loretta Liu.
Oh dear, I have got in a right old muddle haven’t I?! I shall amend pronto… so sorry about that
A lovely surprise to see our products on your blog
Thanks for giving us a mention
Loved your stuff! So different.