17 March 2014

Choc + Chocolate Mallow Drinking Chocolate (Sainsburys) [By @Cinabar]


It's not a secret that I’m easily influenced by bright and shiny packaging, and this hot chocolate with it colourful bag was hard to miss on the shelf. The product is called Choc+ the idea being that the hot chocolate is effectively chocolate plus other goodies, in this case marshmallows. I also picked up the bag with fudge, as that was also in a remarkably pretty packet. Shallow of me, I know! ;-)
Anyway according to the bag you put 21g of the mixture into a mug (4 teaspoons apparently) and add a little milk before microwaving. It was a bit weird spooning into a mug as it is essentially chocolate drops and mallows in the bag, but it looked quite generous in the bottom of the cup.



You microwave it with the drop of milk and stir, to create a paste. The marshmallows hadn’t dissolved at this point which surprised me, I thought they might become lost very quickly. I topped up the cup with the rest of the milk and microwaved it until hot. Again the marshmallows were more intact than I thought they would be, which was a pleasant surprise. They floated to the top of the drink, albeit a little smaller than when they went in.
Now I was suspicious of the drink before I took my first sip, despite having what looked like a great deal of chocolate added to the cup, the mixture was paler than expected. Although there was surface chocolate, underneath that the drink was almost milk coloured. I took my first sip and the packaging may well have been bright, but the flavour was not. It tasted muted, mildly chocolatey with a hint of sweet, but not special. If I had this in a cafe I wouldn’t complain but I’d make a mental note not to bother again. It amazed me that you could add that many good ingredients to a cup of milk and still end up with a cup of vaguely flavoured milk.
Now I know I’m a harsh critique when it comes to hot chocolate, I want an indulgent sweet treat with a full on cocoa flavour, and this just didn’t meet my expectations.
By Cinabar

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