Hotel Chocolat Heaven

I don't really have a sweet tooth as such but at Christmas I do like to indulge in the odd chocolate or ten. It's funny because recently a few people have been recommending that I try Hotel Chocolat chocolate, so when I got asked if I would like to review something from their Christmas range, I was eager to find out exactly what this chocolate tasted like.

I chose the mingles and jingles bag because I thought it would be perfect for sharing with my whole family. It says on the description that it contains 35 chocolates but if I'm honest I wasn't expecting the bag to be very big, I'm pleased to say I was wrong.

The chocolates come in a beautifully decorated sack, just like what Santa would carry, the packaging with the Hotel Chocolat label printed on it immediately has you excited for what it contains inside, it seems to ooze quality.

Each chocolate comes individually wrapped and on the packaging it tells you what the packet contains. There are a mix of milk chocolates, caramel chocolates and white chocolates.

The sack contains a variety of Christmas characters, angels, penguins and bells. I personally loved the bells. I can't believe how much detail is on each individual chocolate. My 5 year old happened to notice that it looked like the bell had glitter sprinkled over it, it almost seemed a shame to eat them.

We chose the chocolates in a lucky dip style, shaking the bag up and then popping our hand in to pick our prize, I think everyone ended up winning although it did get a bit competitive because someone kept picking out the penguins!!

Now to the best part, the taste. I can now see what my friends were talking about, these chocolates taste divine. Each chocolate is smooth and creamy, it just melts in your mouth. The flavours are mouth watering and definitely leave you wanting more. I would say they aren't too sweet either so perfect for all the family.

I would be one happy lady if I received more of these for Christmas, hint hint Daddy Hazelden ;) I really wished I had tried Hotel Chocolat sooner, seems I've been missing out!!

xxxx

Disclaimer : I was sent these chocolates free of charge for reviewing purposes however all thoughts and opinions are my own.

White Chocolate and Golden Syrup Cookies Recipe

You may have noticed that I have got really into my baking recently. I love trying out different recipes and adapting them to make them my own.

The great thing, is that they make a perfect addition to the girls lunch boxes too and the cakes and cookies don't cost a lot to make!!

This week I found some white chocolate for baking at the back of my cupboard, luckily for me it was still in date. So after looking at what other ingredients I had in the cupboard, I decided to make some cookies.

Ingredients

* 150g Self Raising Flour
* 100g Castor Sugar
* 110g Butter
* 100g White Chocolate cut into small chunks
* 30g golden syrup
* 1 Egg
* 1 Tbsp Strawberry Jam

Preparation

* Preheat the oven to 170 degrees and grease two baking trays.
* Mix the butter and sugar together.
* When softened, pour in the golden syrup.
* Beat in the egg.
* Add the flour and fold it into the mixture.
* Finally mix in the white chocolate and strawberry jam.
* Spoon balls of the mixture onto the trays, making sure to leave space inbetween each one.
* Pop into the oven for 15-20 minutes until golden brown and place on a wire rack to cool.

These cookies are quite sweet but you could always leave out the golden syrup if you don't have as much of a sweet tooth as we do :)

xxxx

What to do with strawberries??

A couple of weeks back I picked up a couple of punnets of strawberries for one whole pound, got to love a bargain!! The only problem, was that they needed to be used up quite quickly as they were going out of date.

The first punnet was easy, the girls had the strawberries cut up and put with vanilla ice cream, simple yet delicious and perfect because it was another hot day.

However I was stumped on what to do with the second punnet. That's where the trusty internet came in handy, so off to google I went.

I found the almost perfect recipe on one of my favourite sites, the Magic Belles, now their recipe was for raspberry and white chocolate muffins, so I just had to adapt it slightly because a) I had strawberries and not raspberries and b) I didn't have muffin cases, I only had normal cake cases.

Ingredients

300g plain flour
2tsp baking powder
150g caster sugar
50g butter
215ml milk
1tsp vanilla extract
100g strawberries
75g white chocolate buttons
20 cake cases

How to make

* Preheat your oven to gas mark 6/ 200 degrees

* Sift the flour, baking powder and sugar into a large bowl and mix

* Melt the butter in the microwave

* Whisk the egg, milk, vanilla extract in a bowl and then add the melted butter and mix

* Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir them together making sure the mixture stays lumpy rather than smooth

* Fold in the strawberries and white chocolate buttons

* Spoon he mixture into the cases

* Bake them in the oven for roughly 20-25 minutes until golden brown

The only thing left to do is eat them, nom nom nom.

xxxx