Magnum Collection - Ruby Ice Creams (Asda) By @cinabar

The weekend has been stormy near us, in fact with the weather being bad last weekend too it has all been a bit miserable trying to go out. We have been ok, but not far away there has been localised flooding. Naturally the solution is to stay in, turn the heating up, and eat ice cream. Interestingly the new ice creams and lollies do seem to be launching already, presumably in time for spring. The first new product in the freezer section to catch my eye are these Magnum Collection Ruby Chocolate Edition Ice Creams. As Ruby chocolate is very much on trend I can see why Magnum went with this for their latest edition.
The ice lollies are pretty and pink, which did look rather fab. Inside is a vanilla ice cream which is ripple with Ruby Cocoa layers. The chocolate shell is pure ruby chocolate and has that lovely tang of an almost berry like flavour, sweeter like a white chocolate but with a hint of acidic fruitiness. The ice cream inside is creamy and sweet, and just has a mild taste of the ruby cocoa, but I think this brings balance.
This Magnum Collection Ruby Chocolate Edition Ice Cream is a well designed lolly, it is very much full of the flavour of Ruby Cocoa, but still has the lovely creamy ice cream inside. This may well be Magnum getting on the bandwagon of this new pink chocolate, but they turned it into a really nice creation.

The Ruby Cocoa Hot Chocolate (Costa) By @Cinabar

I have written about a few Ruby Cocoa products, mainly chocolate bars, and I have enjoyed them all. The flavour from the ruby cocoa beans is a little more fruity and generally there is a hint of yoghurt to the taste too. I was excited to see that Costa had released a new Ruby Cocoa Hot Chocolate on their New Year menu which meant I had something to look forward to after all the Christmas drinks have disappeared.
This drink is stunning to look at, the colour of the drink is a bright pink and it brought a smile to my face after a morning spent sale shopping. It is topped with cream and flakes of pink chocolate too. Even as I took the drinks over to the table people were saying how pretty they looked. This is hot chocolate made for Instagram, it is such a visual product. Hopefully the taste will also be impressive.
I started with the cream on top then worked my way to the drink itself. The drink does have a very distinctive flavour. It is not a rich drink, but it is creamy and soothing. The flavour has aspects of a berry taste, but the sharpness isn’t fully there, just a light acidic taste. This is ruby cocoa so the flavour is more like a white chocolate with yoghurt, but this particular hot chocolate was smoother than expected. It is easy to drink and lovely to look at.
Black Forest Gateaux hot chocolate may not be on the menu at the minute but this will happily keep me going for a while.

Deluxe Ruby Chocolate (Lidl) By @Cinabar

I had a recent visit with work to an office I don’t usually go to. Opposite the building was a large branch of Lidl so at lunchtime I had a little exploration. I ended up buying more than intended and even got teased on my return to the office. I had said I was just looking and I didn’t need anything but I ended up returning with a huge bag full of things. Seriously though who doesn’t need Christmas patterned kitchen paper in their life?
In amongst the bag of random items I didn’t know I needed was this bar of Deluxe Ruby Chocolate. This bar is made using Ruby Cocoa Beans which is a luxury cocoa, although Kit Kat have already made a bar with it, of course.

Inside the pack the bar is a lovely shade of pink, not too bright, but the bar looks very smart. The pink is from the cocoa beans there aren’t any colourings in the recipe. Ruby Cocoa beans are naturally pink and as a base for chocolate make something different from the usual white, milk or dark chocolate offerings. The flavour is different too. This chocolate bar has a fruity background flavour that is sharp and berry like. The taste feels like it almost is going to be a raspberry yoghurt, and then the chocolate tones kick in just before that develops. It makes is a sweet but sour mix that works rather well. It is a mature flavour, but the chocolate has a thick melt and still feels really soothing.
If you want to try out the current trend of Ruby Cocoa chocolate this bar is an excellent example, it has a zingy flavour that is very palatable but also very different. Definitely one to hand out as a taster to Christmas visitors if you want to impress.

New Springtime in Japan Chocolatory KitKat (John Lewis) By @Cinabar

I am not one to usually go on about price. Mostly I can afford to treat myself to the snacks that are mentioned on this blog and mostly we purchase everything ourselves. I bought this new Chocolatory KitKat too, but I should state I chose not to buy any of the other flavour packets because of the cost, I thought they were very much over priced posh KitKats, but still felt the need to buy one pack to try. Darn my commitment to the Foodstuff Finds cause. These new Chocolatory Kit Kats are hand made, and pretty much exclusive to John Lewis (although I believe they are also available from York’s Chocolate Story). I chose the most exotic box as I was getting only one pack. The two Chocolatory KitKats inside are Springtime In Japan and Jewels Of The East.

Today I’m trying the Springtime In Japan KitKat. This bar is handmade (which contributes to the price) and consists of a ruby chocolate KitKat with a cherry and apple filling, dusted with an edible gold lustre. The back of the bar is beautiful too, decorated with milk chocolate and fruit jellies in a pattern similar to a Japanese blossom tree. It is an elegant looking bar. The KitKat has six fingers, but they are not big pieces, and form quite a narrow bar. Ruby chocolate is a type of cocoa that is made with “botanical cocoa” known as Ruby Cocoa Beans, and is a different type of chocolate. Plain Ruby KitKats are available in Tesco, if you want tot try the chocolate at a more reasonable price.

This Springtime in Japan Chocolatory KitKat bar itself is a taste sensation, it is a beautiful collection of flavours. The apple and cherry filling is really quite stunning, sweet fruity and set off perfectly by the slightly acidic ruby chocolate. There is the usual wafer and crunch from KitKat, but the texture is enhanced when you find some of the jellied fruits that were decorating the base. This is really special, I have to admit despite my preconceptions based on the price this is an utter delight to eat.
So what are you paying for here, well the very unique variety, the fact that the bar is hand crafted and the lovely presentation box. It is a pricey bar, but if you were looking for a stocking filler for someone who loves different chocolate it is worth it. It is just not an every day bar to snack, this is taking KitKat to the luxury end of the market. I can’t wait to try the other variety in the box, but more on that later in the week.

Ruby Cocoa Hot Chocolate (Fortnum and Mason) By @cinabar

We are adding to our selection of reviews on this new Ruby Cocoa chocolate that it quickly becoming the trend for 2018. It is billed as being a whole new type of chocolate, and is being used by expensive chocolatiers like Fortnum and Mason to more readily available brands like Kit Kat.
As a bit of a change I thought I would try my first ever Ruby Cocoa Hot Chocolate. I found this while googling Ruby Cocoa and bought myself a bag from Fortnum and Mason, it was quite pricey, but I couldn't resist.
When it arrived I found the bag looking very pretty and tied with ribbon. The hot chocolate granules inside this bag are very pink, but didn't have much aroma. I heated up some milk and added the recommended three heaped teaspoons and stirred them in. They dissolved very quickly and easily and the milky drink was very pale in colour. The instructions suggest that the ruby hot chocolate should go a pale shade of lilac, mine hadn’t so I added another heaped teaspoon and the colour improved.

I gave the drink a sip and the flavour was still very mild, it is a milky slightly sweet drink with a hint of berry like tangy hint. It was a pleasant drink but didn't have the wow factor I was hoping for. I like the flavour of the Ruby Cocoa but Im not sure this hot chocolate showed it off to me to its full extent. Heating the chocolate seemed to mellow it out. I’ll happy drink up the rest of the bag, but It isn't something I would rush to buy again. I also bough Ruby Cocoa Salted Caramels on the same Fortnum and Mason order, but Spectre managed to make those disappear....

Ruby Salted Caramel Truffles (Fortnum & Mason) By @SpectreUK

I had to prize these Ruby Salted Caramel Truffles, by Fortnum & Mason, out of Cinabar's cold dead fingers! Not really, but be assured that she wasn't looking when I nabbed the packet. She'd already vaunted how luxurious they were and how they melted in her mouth and blah, blah… serves her right for getting distracted for a few minutes I say. Though we all have to go to loo at some point, it just becomes a battle of attrition. That and feeding her endless cups of tea…

The 155g bag of pink chocolate balls were tied up with a fetching gold Fortum & Mason bow, with the smart printed cardboard label tied on. Posh or what? And what's this; Ruby Chocolate? I thought it was food colouring, but it's a new found naturally occurring cocoa, which is supposed to be a fruity mixture of milk, white and dark chocolate. No wonder these pink truffles were so well guarded. And they really are lush. On first bite these sweet slightly fruity tasting pink chocolate balls burst runny salted caramel into my mouth overloading it with flavours. The salted sweet caramel mixing with the sweet fruitiness of the Ruby chocolate and then a touch of sourness washing around my tastebuds into the aftertaste. Absolutely luxurious pink salty chocolate balls and they're all mine (hang on… that didn't sound right)! I've locked the door from prying fingers… Time to gorge!

Ruby Chocolate Bar (Prestat) By @Cinabar

This is isn’t my first try at the new Ruby Chocolate that has been hitting the confectionary market. I have tried the very high street version which coats the latest Kit Kat from Nestle. If you haven’t heard about the chocolate it is being marketed as the new kind of chocolate in amongst, white, milk and dark. It is made with Ruby Cocoa beans, and is naturally red.
This Prestat Ruby Chocolate bar is from the different end of the market, and is aimed at more of the chocolate connoisseur. Prestat very kindly sent the small 25g bar to try. I can’t yet see it listed on their website, but I’m sure it will be available soon. I assume it came from a multipack, some of their other bars of this size come from packets of four.

Anyway the ruby chocolate is smartly packaged and has a very pleasant spring scene on the front with birds and butterflies. I opened up the bar and was impressed with the vibrant colour of the chocolate, it a very nice shade of pink. Each piece of chocolate is stamped with the Prestat logo.
I gave the chocolate a taste and found the texture to be similar to white chocolate. The flavour was different again compared to the Nestle version. It was similar, but the bar had a sharper taste. The flavour is initially sweet, then there is a berry like flavour, but on this bar this sharpness lingers a little before turning slowly smokey. It is a pleasant bar, and a nice taste experience, I’m not sure this one wins me over from a creamy milk chocolate though. Still it is nice to taste something new, and I look forward to seeing what they will develop with this new ruby chocolate experience.

Kit Kat Made With Ruby Cocoa Beans (Tesco) #mybreak By @Cinabar

The whole Foodstuff Finds blog is dedicated to new taste experiences, we love to write about things we have never tried before, that was sort of the idea for the whole blog. This new Kit Kat really does meet that condition, it isn’t a new flavour of Kit Kat it is a whole new chocolate experience. This bar is made with “botanical cocoa” aka Ruby Cocoa Beans, and is said to be a new addition to the usual milk, white and dark options, we now have Ruby chocolate.
Now I have obviously tried to do a bit of research on this this, but it is quite difficult to find exactly what this means. The chocolate is made with Ruby Cocoa beans, it is naturally red and has no colouring added to it. The methodology for production seems to have a patent pending, but there are rumours it is to do with the fermentation process too. Whatever the method I was very keen to try the bar.
At the minute at least this Kit Kat Ruby Cocoa Beans is an exclusive to Tesco, and living in Wolverhampton this makes things a little difficult. I think it might be the only city without a large branch of Tescos, so I was very much hoping that the Tesco Express near us might just have them. I went in and looked around but couldn’t see any, so I asked. I spoke to a very excitable lady who was totally hooked on them, a little hyper, and kept going on about how it tasted like nothing she had ever tasted before. This very much got my hopes up, she must see tons of new chocolate bars working there, but this had clearly impressed her!

So I bought my bars, got home and unwrapped one. They really are bright pink, but this isn’t from any food colourings. The aroma from the chocolate isn’t that different, it smelt a little like white chocolate with hint of raspberry, bizarrely enough.
I took a bite, the first thing to note is that there isn’t anything really new in the texture. The chocolate feels a little glossy, but melts with body temperature in the mouth the same as other chocolates. The taste however is very new. It is both sweet and sour, creamy yet acidic. I suppose the best way to describe would be to say that it pretends to be a white chocolate infused with a sharp berry taste, but that that this berry flavour never quite develops into a distinct fruit flavour, it teases you then mellow and becomes closer to a white chocolate flavour. It is moreish and different, and does add something truly new to the chocolate world. I can’t wait to see how this new chocolate develops, and what other goodies will be coming our way with it. In the meantime, I agree with the lady in Tescos, and I’m off to buy more.