Spicefreak

Hi guys, it’s october again, so we’re going to be looking at a box of sweets.

Or rather, chocolates. Specifically, James’.

James Chocolates’ Smokey Chipotle Chocolate Chillies. A rather less prankworthy item than what I showed you last year but hopefully one that you’ll enjoy all the same.

It is, after all, a rather tried and tested flavour combination, used in my early cupcakes, my take on Dorset Chilli Shop’s lava cake and my christmas truffles. I know it works but does it work for James?

Today, I intend to find out.

Before we do, though, I’d like to take a little look at the packaging. The half red, half natural cardboard coloured box in which it comes.

The colour-scheme denotes danger, hinting at the chilli within, and its message is only reinforced by the red segment’s flaming skull silhouette. Yet what really says “chilli” is the viewing window in the shape of one.

James isn’t subtle about the heat that his chocolate contains but he is surprisingly so about the smoke, making reference to it only in the smallest of his text. I find that pretty odd, since its what most clearly sets his chocolate apart from the chilli sorts that countless other companies put out.

If I hadn’t been looking really closely, I never would have picked this product up so, for that reason alone, I can’t call this good packaging. Even if it does do everything else well and even if it does have some rather pretty side swirls.

Inside we have eight milk chocolates shaped like, yet not actually containing, whole chillies:

A fact which I bring up because the box isn’t totally clear on it.

But not containing whole chillies doesn’t mean that they’re fake. These definitely contain chipotle powder:

Sugar, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, cocoa mass, chipotle chilli, paprika, emulsifier: soya lecithin, natural vanilla flavouring.

cocoa solids 39% minimum, milk solids 20% minimum.

They’re smoky but subtly so, with both the chilli flavour and its heat growing in as the chocolate melts in my mouth. Which it does a little slower than I’d like but satisfyingly all the same.

Their burn is not intense, either, pushing the limits of a

1.5/10

Heat

yet never exceeding that mild number and still fading pretty quickly as the creamy confection carries away the spice.

In all honesty, they’re not bad but I’d like to taste the smoke a tiny bit more, even if it meant it not all coming from the chilli, and I find both their weak snap and their overly firm initial texture rather disappointing.

They are neither the best example of the chipotle and chocolate flavour combination nor the best example of quality chocolate, in my opinion.

So, while I hate to judge a chilli product on its cost, I do feel oblidged to tell you that the same money could be much better spent on chocolate from either Grim Reaper Foods or Doctor Burnorium. Assuming that you don’t mind the higher heat.

Were this chocolate readily available at mass market prices, I would probably be all over it but, as is, I feel like I’m paying for quality and only getting a novelty shape.

Hopefully whatever sweets you get this halloween please you more than these chocolate chillies did me.