Chocolates

I always look on back now before I buy chocolates at the description because there are so many changes and duplicates.

I like some soft centres but for me, it is the toffee and nut centres that I go for. Consequently, Roses and Quality Street are definitely losing their edge.
I love Cadbury's Marvellous Creation chocolate bar. The popping candy with jelly beans mixed with the chocolate makes such an enjoyable explosion on your taste buds. I love Salted Caramel but I haven't found an particularly good chocolate with it in yet. Green & Blacks used to do a caramelised nut version of their milk chocolate and that was heavenly. Of course, it was so lovely, they discontinued it.

It’s the crunchy bits added to a lot of chocolate that I don’t like.

NotSpaghetti

^soft fruity centres, strawberry, orange, raspberry, lemon^ etc are the ones I really always disliked!

Same here. I always go for the nutty caramel ones. If there’s one that’s hard, like full-blown toffee - that’s a bonus!

I only like dark chocolate , dont like milk. In the very old Black Magic there used to be lovely coffee cream, but hardly anyone seems to do a coffee cream these days. As you say Salted Caramel seems to have taken over. But as a child it was very very rare to get a box of chocolates but we would get a small box each at christmas. So even then I was an organiser!! We talked to our friends about what we might get for christmas and different people liked specific centres. I hated turkish delight , my sister loved orange cream. So I organised a meeting for after christmas - we had a sort of little club with a hiding place we went to - and we used to bring the ones we didnt like and do swaps. I did very well as none of the others were mad keen on coffee. Great fun and then we scoffed them all of course. Wonder if I should put an advert in local paper and organise a swap shop round here??!!

Yes MiniMoon, it was gorgeous! Do you remember their Milk Tray bar? It was about a ‘shilling’ and a real treat with all the yummy centres held together in a thin chocolate bar.

I'm pretty keen on Freddo chocolate frogs lately.

Growing up with my parents, if we had a box of chocolates, they were usually Milk Tray. In the lovely boxes with pretty pictures on them. The centres were delicious. Strawberry was my favourite. But they are not nearly as nice now. In part I may be looking through rose tinted glasses. Plus boxes of chocolates were such a treat. Also we didn't have the variety of continental chocolates we have now. We are spoilt for choice. But certainly the types of centres have changed, and not for the better.

Cost of raw materials probably the issue here - nuts, coconut, etc but you won't see the cost drop as quality does!

Love Lindt chocolate ...tooo much

Re Linda McCartney sausages. I’ve never liked them as they taste nothing like as good as the sausages from my local butcher. Might be higher in fat (although not the delicious venison ones perhaps) but they are so expensive you can’t AFFORD to overeat them. I often wonder about these vegetarian/vegan so called ‘taste alike’ products. They are often horrid and just how processed are they? Best stick to vegetables and pulses and overindulge in chocolate if you can find a good one! (joke!)

I’ve always loved dark chocolate. Terry’s All Gold were wonderful with chartreuse and Cointreau creams, amongst others. Black Magic used to be fine for a reasonably priced box.

I’ll go along with others concerning Aldi chocolate. I’ve just bought a box of their dark chocolate collection. It was reduced to £3.59.

My daughter discovered Friars, based in the Lake District. They sell absolutely wonderful dark chocolates and have a great selection. They also do milk and white chocolates and a few other brands that I haven’t tried. They also sell reduced price boxes that are almost out of date at greatly reduced prices. Here is the link www.friars.co.uk/

I was once told that they make chocolates with cane sugar here but in the uk it is something else- perhaps sugar beet. That is why they taste different. They do,too. Another thing is that they have to add something here to stop it melting in our hot weather. Must have different recipes. I used to prefer the uk brand but over time I changed and prefer ours now.

I chucked our milk tray in the bin, they were disgusting

I liked the terrys chocolate orange truffles, for balance

Love Montezuma’s chocolate, their dark chocolate 70% cocoa content. I think it’s perfect but it’s not everyone’s cup of team I know. I buy it on line direct, as it’s quite hard to get hold of, some supermarkets sell it. I can totally recommend for a good quality chocolate. Lindt and M&S 70% cocoa chocolate comes a close second….

Black Magic chocolates were ruined years ago when the selections / flavours were changed. My friend wrote to Rowntree or may have been Nestle, to complain and was told it was due to European tastes now preferring praline and truffle flavours.

I am another one who do not like the fruit flavoured soft centred chocolates. I love Lindt everything with salted Caramel, praline, nuts and hard centres are our favourites. We have just finished a Christmas present, a box of Hotel Chocolates which have been delightful, but we usually only buy Lindt. We feel safe with the quality of those but not with the box lasting more than a day or two.

I like to buy the Hotel Chocolat Selector packs - three packs of six cost £12 - and then treat myself to just one chocolate with my lunch each day. They are so delicious and satisfying that one is enough. I have noticed that over the last three or four years, many of the fruity options have disappeared, and the choice of liqueur creams has diminished too. It seems that most people are opting for truffles, praline, different kinds of nuts and salted caramel.

The Fry’s five centre bar used to have one lime centre that was delicious for us lime lovers. But I don’t think it exists any more.

Oldbat1

I think Cadbury chocolates are no longer worth buying. I believe it is an American company owners now and has changed the recipe. No longer buy anything made by Cadbury.

Taken over by Kraft, some years ago. I don’t buy Cadburys now. Lindt or Hotel Chocolat for me.

watermeadow

Cadbury was bought by American Mondaleez (can’t spell it) and hasn’t been worth eating since. It’s full of palm oil and tastes intensely sweet but not of chocolate. As American chocolate is notoriously awful they have wrecked our old favourites.

You are right watermeadow: "Cadbury, formerly Cadbury's and Cadbury Schweppes, is a British multinational confectionery company owned by Mondelez International (originally Kraft Foods) since 2010." My heart sank when I saw the name Kraft - their cheese was like vulcanised rubber. I used to love Guylian praline sea shell chocolates, especially the Seahorses which are MINE! (One Christmas Lidl was selling large boxes of Seahorses... Bliss!) However they have shrunk like so many brands which just makes me feel cheated. I'd rather pay more to keep them the same size.... Kind friends and relatives periodically send Hotel Chocolat which are very welcome

I know this is about chocolates and not just bars of chocolate but I used to love Caramac. Does anyone remember it? The last time I had one was about 10 years ago. However, I was in a local shop and saw that Cadbury's had a caramel chocolate bar. I bought it in the hope it was like Caramac and not caramel filled. Bought it and it was utterly disgusting. It had very little caramel flavour and tasted of fat. Either my tastebuds have changed dramatically or my memory is playing tricks on me. Ate 2 squares and binned the rest. Went home very disappointed. On another note my favourite soft centre chocolate is coffee cream and they all seem to have disappeared from chocolate boxes.

VioletSky

I'd like to know why salted caramel is in everything now

The chocolates all taste the exact same except the stupid salted caramel

I can't be the only one who hates it?

Oh how I agree. Bloody sickly salted caramel! Where are my coffee truffles, marzipan triangles and lemon or orange creams.
Also Cadburys is just too sweet nowadays. All sugar and no cocoa.

Definitely Hotel Chocolat for me - bit pricey, but head and shoulders above any other chocolates. For an everyday chocolate I like Aldi's dark chocolate with hazelnuts bars, really inexpensive but really nice.