December is upon us and it's time for a Christmas makeover! What better way to get into the Christmas spirit then with a review of a zany festive chocolate bar. Zotter is an unusual chocolate brand, who specialise in rather odd flavour combinations. This Christmas Crackling is part of their "hand scooped" chocolate range, which includes some weird and wonderful flavours such as the classic Bacon Bits and even a Peanuts & Ketchup bar!
The Christmas Crackling bar is described as "Cinnamon, Apple + Honey" which sounds quite tame by Zotter standards, especially since the misnomer "Crackling" made me wrongly assume that this was another bacon chocolate!
It's quite a small bar, weighing in at 70g. The chocolate is wrapped in foil with a paper slip covering. Remember when most chocolate came wrapped this way rather than in the commonplace plastic wrappers we get now? It's definitely a more luxurious experience.
The chocolate has a rippled look to it but no individual sections to break off. Immediately there is a strong scent of sweet apple and cinnamon.
The description of the filling by Zotter is enigmatic. It's described as "pieces of dried apple in honey caramel, in a layer of cinnamon and yellow chocolate". Nope, I've no idea what yellow chocolate is. There are two layers inside the bar, a creamy filling with apple pieces and lots of cinnamon flavour, then an almost jam like apple fruit layer along the bottom, which is much thinner.
The outer chocolate layer is also very thin and doesn't add much to the overall flavour, even though it is a 50% minimum cocoa solids base. Perhaps this is because the filling has such a powerful flavour. There is so much going on between the chocolate covers! The apple and cinnamon are by far the dominant flavours. There are dried apples, apple juice and apple brandy in the thick filling which all combine to produce a full bodied apple taste. Combined with the spicy cinnamon it equals a boozy and completely festive treat. The jam like layer at the bottom of all this then adds lots of sugary sweetness.
I enjoyed this chocolate just because it was so different to anything I have ever had before. However I won't be buying this particular variety again purely because it is way too boozy for my liking, but it has undoubtedly whetted my appetite to try more from the Zotter range. There's no way I would be able to resist the Banana Coconut if I ever saw it!
Wow this looks awesome, I think I would really like this. Not too sure about the Peanuts and Ketchup bar though, I think I might be too scared to try that one!
ReplyDeleteI wanted to mention the craziest Zotter chocolate flavour and the Peanuts & Ketchup won! Although it was hard to choose from all their bizarre combinations :)
DeleteI love the Christmas makeover! Your blog looks brilliant! I will be putting my Christmas decorations up this coming weekend.
ReplyDeleteNot too sure about this chocolate. I know its boring but I love a box of Quality Streets every year! X
Thank you! Christmas is my favourite time of year and there is nearly always a tin of Quality Street involved!
DeleteGood luck with the decorations :)
Love the festive theme :)
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like an intriguing bar, but I'm not a fan of boozy chocolates either so that would put me off. I'm hoping to try the Zotter butter caramel soon.
Thanks Kev!
DeleteI would give it a miss if you don't like boozy chocs but there is so much choice in their range. Butter caramel sounds ace!
This was one of the first Zotter bars I tried (if not the very first) and I absolutely loved it. But I usually love boozy chocolates. And this happens to be one of the mildly boozy Zotter bars. The Marc de Champagne or Plum Brandy or some of the ChocoShot range are boozier :)
ReplyDeleteI should probably have mentioned that I don't really drink alcohol so I'm obviously a complete lightweight when it comes to this chocolate! The rest of the flavours in this bar were fantastic though and I love the packaging.
DeleteThose other Zotter flavours you mention must be very strong! Are there any non-boozy Zotter that you've tried and would recommend? :)
I think that as far as hanscooped bars go, I always went for the boozy ones :))
DeleteBut I also love all their plain single origin bars (the Labooko range) that I've tried so far. It's actually my favourite range, because with the handscooped bars, I sometimes feel sorry for the chocolate which is lovely, but the fillings steal the spotlight every time.
They also have some chocolate lollies (Lollytop). I've only tried two and really liked the Strawberry one.