Let’s get one thing clear from the start. This is not the kind of thing I would normally review on Chocablog. Usually, I would go out of my way to avoid anything that says “chocolate flavour” on it, but this product is so hideously awful and utterly unnecessary that I felt the need to write about it, purely as a warning.
First some background. At the weekend, we went along to The Cake & Bake Show at Earl’s Court. This hugely successful event was in part organised by our wonderful friends at Nudge PR, who are also responsible for the greatest event in the history of mankind, Chocolate Week.
On the whole the show was great, although during my very brief tour, I noted that there was more cupcakes and sugarcraft related exhibitors than serious baking related products. I think it’s wonderful that shows like The Great British Bake Off have inspired a whole new generation of bakers, but was a little disappointed at the volume of additive-laden sugar products at the show.
On our way out, we were offered a goodie bag which contained which contained various baking related ingredients. And then there was this. A product that simply should not exist in this or any other universe.
As you know, dark chocolate contains up to 5 ingredients, all of which should be natural. Cocoa mass, cocoa butter, sugar, vanilla and emulsifier. In that order. Here’s the ingredients list for this package.
So. The top two ingredients are sugar and vegetable fat. Then there’s “fat reduced cocoa powder”. Bascially, they’ve taken all the natural cocoa butter out of this product and replaced it with cheap vegetable fat. Then they’ve added whey powder, which presumably needs a little extra help to mix with the vegetable fat, so they’ve added an emulsifier called Polyglycerol Polyricinoleate. Lovely.
After all that, they probably realised that the resulting mess didn’t taste like chocolate any more, so they had to add flavourings to it.
I decided to make it according to the instructions. Melt the sealed packet in a bowl of hot water for 7 minutes, then squeeze it out.
I didn’t want to waste it on a perfectly good cake, so I just squeezed mine out onto a plate before leaving it to cool.
The smell is… well, it’s not chocolate. I have a cold at the moment, but I still detected a sugary, fatty aroma and not much else. No hint of chocolate. After mentioning this product on twitter, people who had tried it, described it as “fishy” and “farmyard”. Perfect for cakes then!
Fresh out of the packet, it does look vaguely chocolatey. There’s a nice dark brown colour and a gloss to it. But as it sets, it develops a lacklustre, dull appearance, much like a badly tempered chocolate. It’s not very appetising, to say the least.
But of course, what you really want to know is how it tastes, right?
Well if you’ve ever licked lard from the back of a tramp’s neck, that should give you an idea of the flavour. I haven’t done that, but it was the image that came to my mind as I sampled a small piece. It is truly, truly awful. It’s fatty, oily and vaguely sweet, but there isn’t even a hint of chocolate flavour to it. It boggles my mind how this product passed any kind of testing and ended up on the shelves. It is just disgusting.
There is a moral to this story, and a reason why I chose to write about this, rather than simply ignore it.
Baking in the UK is huge at the moment; the crowds at The Cake And Bake Show are proof of this. But while The Great British Bake Off contestants that drew many of those visitors to Earls Court invariably use simple, natural ingredients, there are plenty of companies out there capitalising on the baking fad by selling things like this that supposedly make life easier for novice bakers. Products like this and ready made icing (also in our goodie bag) are entirely unnecessary, and frankly unhealthy.
If you want a nice dark chocolate topping for your cake, simply melt some quality dark chocolate over it. Or mix it with some fresh double cream and make a delicious ganache covering. It’s incredibly easy and tastes wonderful.
Do not, under any circumstances, buy this or any similar product. I genuinely think that the people making and selling this kind of junk should be ashamed. And forced to eat it themselves.