Cadbury’s Chocolate Gift Card (Tesco) By @Cinabar

Is it a card or is it a box of chocolates? Actually, this Cadbury’s Chocolate Gift Card is both. This smart gift box from Cadbury can be opened and a message written inside, while the chocolate remains sealed underneath. I bought this for myself, so no message, but I have recently got a new job, so I will roll with the ‘nice one’ on the front of the pack.

Underneath the wrapper are individual chocolates filled with a white chocolate truffle. They look like flowers and so are very gift worthy. This style of packaging reminds me of Milka selling hazelnut pralines in a very similar way many years ago, so I’m guessing it has come from the European influence on the brand.

I gave one of the chocolates a try and was very impressed. The chocolate shell is quite a thick Cadbury chocolate and underneath the truffle is super creamy and sweet, it is a flavour burst of white chocolate and was absolutely lovely. These are good quality, and ones I’d be pleased to receive. Hopefully, next time I won’t have to buy my own Cadbury’s Chocolate Gift Card.

Wellbox - Devour Care Box #Gifted By @Cinabar

The lovely people from Wellbox got in touch and asked if we wanted to try out one of their care boxes and we chose to have a look at this one called Devour. The idea is that they sell hampers and gifts at a range of prices so you can treat a friend or a whole team at work. It is good for moral, and I couldn’t help but smile when ours arrived. The box is very smart and inside were lots of lovely goodies.

I loved working my way through the box and was very impressed with the contents. We have some English Breakfast tea from a company we haven’t tried before which is impressive given how much tea we buy! We have olives which are snacking olives. There are savoury biscuits with cranberry and pumpkin seeds. Pretzels bites flavoured with cheese. Moroccan Spiced Almonds which I can’t wait to tuck into. As well as dried fruits, crisps and peanut butter chocolate. What a lovely haul and so many things I haven’t tried before even though we are foodies. Everything in the box was from an expensive brand that gave the whole thing a very premium feel.

I have made a note too for a difficult to buy for friend whose birthday is coming up in June, they will be receiving one of these boxes (I might go for the Entice box as that includes bubbles).

Luxury Cornucopia (Walnut Tree) #Gifted By @Cinabar

We were very kindly gifted this fantastic looking Luxury Cornucopia from the Walnut Tree, who sell a wonderful selection of traditional nuts, glazed fruits and marzipan sweets. This collection Luxury Cornucopia collection contains a good sample of their range for us to try.

The gift set is beautifully decorated in a posh red box adorned with ribbon. I actually felt a little guilty opening it up as it wasn’t a special occasion but in the time of UK Lockdown v2 enjoying the selection while catching up on Netflix is still an important occasion to savour. Inside the box I started on the marzipan toped with walnuts, after all the shop is called Walnut Tree and I love nuts! This sweet is sparkling with a sugar glaze too. The marzipan is not too firm, and not at all bitter. This is a smooth and mild marzipan and was delicious.

The glazed cherries were so lovely and sweet and reminded me of cocktails topped with cherries. Thankfully there were quite a few in the box to munch on.

The real star of the selection box are the four individually wrapped bars of nougat in the centre. There were two with nuts, one with strawberries and this absolutely beautiful one with chocolate and nuts. It was soft and the nuts gave texture, the dark chocolate was beautiful too.

What a wonderful selection of fruit and nut treats. Everything in it was gorgeous, Yes it would make a wonderful traditional Christmas gift but don’t over look buying a box as a treat for sharing during a night in.

Galaxy Truffles (Morrisons) By @Cinabar

As it is coming up towards Christmas there are some new chocolate products coming out. These Galaxy Truffles are clearly meant for the gifting market, but I bought them to eat while watching the Sunday episode of Strictly. A bit of an indulgence at the weekend but it was after a busy day of getting the Christmas tree and decorations set up.
These chocolates are from the Galaxy brand, and are described as the “truffly side of Galaxy”. All the chocolates in the box are the same and it felt a shame not to have a mixed box of flavours.

The packaging is smart though with a nice box and the chocolate are brightly packaged in blue and pink wrappers. These were remarkably easy to open, just untwist the top and the chocolate is inside. The chocolates inside are dome shaped and have the Galaxy G on them. The coating is Galaxy milk chocolate but the filling is a dark coloured truffle.

These chocolates are very rich, and have lots of cocoa in them. I liked the smoothness of the Galaxy milk chocolate on the outside, it complements the darker centre. The texture is smooth too, with the filling being thick but still silky. There is a lot of chocolate flavour packed into these Galaxy Truffles. They do have the taste of Galaxy, but as they are quite strong I didn’t eat as many as I thought I would. I had a couple with a hot drink and that was the perfect number, which means I can pick at these through the week which is a bonus. Is it Friday yet?

Divinely Decadent Chocolate Hamper (British Hamper Company) By @cinabar

We were very kindly asked to try out a hamper from the family business The British Hamper Company, and they sent through their Divinely Decadent Chocolate Hamper.
I have to admit I had been expecting a sort of picnic hamper as a container but it all came packed up in a fabulous box, which was very prettily decorated and wrapped in ribbon. The items inside were well packaged and there was a good selection of goodies inside too.
One of my favourite flavour combinations is mint and chocolate. I have to say one of, as there are quite a few things I like. Anyway this was a beautifully old fashioned looking box of peppermint creams from Mr Stanley’s which are covered in dark chocolate. This was the first item I was drawn too, and I can’t wait to try. The next item to catch my eye was the very posh looking Chocca Mocca drinking chocolate. I do love a hot chocolate, at any time of the year, and as this is made with Belgian milk chocolate it should make a lovely soothing drink. Also from the Chocca Mocca brand are some fruits covered in chocolate, there are two bags of these; strawberries in white chocolate and orange in dark chocolate. I think these add to the good range of flavours available in the hamper, and keep it diverse. I’ve tried Willies Cacao chocolate before and it is in the category of superb, but quite pricey. There are two bars from them in this box, a 72% Las Trincheras Gold dark and a Milk of the Gods milk chocolate bar, and they are of fantastic quality and are proper luxury items. Finally we have a bit of fun from Monty Bojangles in the form of some chocolate truffles called Choccy Scoffy, I can’t wait to taste test them.
This is a fabulous gift for a chocolate lover, the pleasure is in exploring all the interesting items that are included. I was pleased to see that the makes were all of very good quality, and that there were items for all taste buds. It really is a lot of fun receiving a hamper as a gift, and is guaranteed to put a big smile on any recipients face.

Maltesers Luxury Chocolates (Debenhams) By @Cinabar

A new branch of Debenhams opened in Wolverhampton, which is quite exciting for the city. Obviously I went for a bit of am explore, and having looked round the clothes and make-up I discovered the gift section, and within that of course there was the confectionary. Oh my, I could practically build my entire Christmas list from the choice there. I did however decide to treat myself to these new Maltesers Luxury Chocolates, for blogging research purposes of course.
Although Maltesers are synonymous with Christmas gifts, they are usually in their normal form of a malt flavours crunchy ball coated in milk chocolate. This year Maltesers have introduced these new Maltesers Luxury Chocolates and just for fun individually wrapped them too! Don’t worry though they are actually quite big chocolates inside the box, there are 16 of them individually wrapped. The box is epically bright inside too, it is very red!

Each one consists of milk chocolate, malt and wafer and tastes rather good. I didn’t think that the chocolate was quite the same flavour as that in regular Maltesers, although it was still sweet and milky. The flavour of the malt was a little subdued but the mix of textures made these. They were soft and crunchy in different places and nice to munch on. I liked the fact they took two bites and they were a bit of fun. The only improvement for me would be a touch more malt in the taste, after all they are called Maltesers so it aught to be the dominant flavour.

Qdo - Birdie Swing tea infuser with lid (@NLi10)

I like tea - like this old and dusty box of Jasmine tea.

Loose tea requires a way to drink it, and if you are just making the one cup it needs to be a bit portable.  Catching it's own drips would be a plus too.  This is why when I saw this Qdo tea infuser I was happy.  I bought it originally to give as a present.  When I discovered that person already had a 'good enough' solution to the problem it sat around in my kitchen for a bit.  It even lived at a friends house for ages - still unloved and un used.

As my own tea infuser was a little dated, and it was making the little birdie sad to be sitting unloved in the box I decided that he'd go to work with me. And the dusty tea.

The bird has a little hatch in the bottom and you put the loose tea in there (I overfilled it, then took a picture with just a few bits left).  Then he pivots and dunks into the hot water and the lid keeps it at a decent temperature.

He then pivots back round and sits on your PC looking majestically out over your tea, with the occasional drip from his underside into the handy tray.

It's a really aesthetically pleasing little gadget and it worked pretty well, I think it'd make a great gift for a tea drinker.  I'm sure that the plastic may not hold up all that long and I'll be fishing the poor bird out of the tea with a spoon, but until that day he'll happily pivot and drip and enable me to drink loose teas at work.  Hurrah!