Cocoa Black Gourmet Easter Egg
So whilst I was on Not On The Highstreet anyway I’d thought I’d buy this “gourmet Easter egg” from Cocoa Black for £15 – I knew it’d be more expensive than if I bought it direct, but I wanted to see how they worked. In fact it was £2.05 cheaper if I’d bought it from the makers. So that’s where the annoyance started, but it didn’t stop there. A few days after I placed my order (Valentine’s Day) I got a call from Cocoa Black saying that they’re weren’t actually making the Easter eggs then and asked if I wouldn’t mind waiting? So you might place products on your own website to take pre-orders more than two months before Easter, but it’s really taking the Mickey to do the same on third party sites.
It didn’t stop there. The internal packaging was damaged in transit and having had a lengthy chat with Pierre Marcolini about the extent they go to make sure that their customers get their orders delivered in tip-top condition and that Hotel Chocolat did have some problems with Easter eggs last year, you would have thought if you’re sending a solitary Easter egg all the way from Scotland you’d take great care of its transportation. Alas not in this case.
It continued onto the design of the egg itself. I would say it was shoddily made. I know how difficult Easter eggs are to make as I’ve tried myself. But these guys are supposed to be professionals. The “painting” on one half looked like a five-year-old had done it, the edges of the two halves didn’t really match and they were only very slightly “glued”, but more importantly, they tasted very ordinary indeed.
And that’s not to mention the very “scuffed” appearance of the chocolate too.
Easter eggs are special and should offer a different, exciting experience from the chocolate on offer the rest of the year. Companies such as Hotel Chocolat and Artisan du Chocolat try very hard to be creative and original, but a lackadaisical half painted egg using ordinary couverture? Please! If you’re going to call an Easter egg “gourmet” explain why its gourmet. Just because the couverture is from Belgium it doesn’t mean it’s good. In fact I think the couverture they use is Callebaut, which says it all.
The flavour is incredibly ordinary, and very sugary, even at the 53% level I’d expect more cacao flavour to come through. The over-riding flavour is just that of sugar which means that I can’t actually consume more than a couple of pieces as it’s just too much.
If you’re going to spend £10-£15 try the Oeuf Maisonnette instead. There’s big money to be made out of Easter, but that doesn’t mean you can sell people rubbish.
As I’m now in a bad mood, I’m going to have to give this Easter egg a quick rating of 20% because its not as bad as Nestle.
If you are looking for something nice, then you can read our guide to buying gourmet Easter eggs.
