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Easter Gift Guide 2014

We have put together a few items from our favourite master chocolatiers and confectioners to make choosing that special Easter gift just that little bit easier. The decision wont be simple though, there’s so many mouth watering creations below!
Hotel Chocolat are well known for their luxury chocolates
and innovative flavours and they certainly have not failed to impress this Easter!
There is a huge selection of gifts suitable for Easter on the Hotel Chocolat
website, whether in the Easter range or not. We have chosen several of our
favourite items this year to suggest to you. Our favourite item from Hotel
Chocolat this year is Rocky Road to Caramel Extra Thick Easter Egg (£28) which comprises of extra thick
cookie and caramel milk chocolate egg tumbling over with a selection of 12
chocolates: pralines, soft caramels and chocolate chicks. This egg is sure to
impress in its wonderful presentation box.
The second item we choose was an egg which goes against everything an egg
should be, egg shaped and smooth being the key differences. This egg is the The Facet – Luxury Milk Chocolate Easter Egg (£20). This best word we can find
to describe this egg is geometric in design. It’s a wonderfully refreshing take
on the traditional chocolate egg and is bound to turn some heads! This
chocolate is wonderful 40% milk chocolate with a dark chocolate one available
too. We found another quirky designed egg in their Easter range too called The Splat – Caramel Chocolate Easter Egg (£12.50). This egg is made of caramel
milk chocolate with a fun splat of colourful white chocolate on top. Delicious!
The final Easter gift we choose to feature from Hotel chocolate is the
beautifully presented Goose Eggs
(£13) which is a selection of four delicious eggs in three different amazing
flavours including caramel chocolate, strawberry white chocolate and their
high-cocoa white chocolate.
Cocoaloco is one of those special chocolate companies where
you know a lot of love and passion goes into the crafting of their chocolates.
All Cocoaloco’s chocolate is organic; they even use packaging which makes
minimal impact on the environment. Sarah and Rory of Cocoaloco set out to make
their company “build a premium treat reputation around words like approachable,
affordable and genuine choice” and they have certainly done that! With a new
website this  year Cocoaloco’s range is
even easier to order and browse through. We selected just a few items from the Easter
range. The two items we spotted first are the usual Easter eggs but these have
a wonderful twist. The Funny Face Easter Egg (£11.99) is made of excellent quality milk chocolate with
milk and dark chocolate details on the face. The egg is even filled with giant
chocolate buttons! The other egg is a Dark Chocolate and Ginger Easter Egg (£11.99) which is made of high quality dark
chocolate with nuggets of crystallised ginger embedded into it. If you’re after
something a little different you should check out the Marbled Chocolate Rabbit (£9.99) which is a solid chocolate moulded rabbit made of
the highest quality milk, dark and white chocolate.  If you like something with a quirky twist you
should check out these Hot Cross Bun Truffles (£5.99), yep Hot Cross Bun! The name says it all and
they are scrumptious!  These Milk Chocolate Easter Mini Eggs (£5.99) are so cute and they even come in their
own little egg box, adorable!  This box
of Little Chicks (£3.99) is also a cute little gift for someone who wants something
small but impeccable quality.
Marks and Spencers never fail to come up with great gifts
for Easter and this year has been no exception. We have chosen this box of
chocolates to feature as it stands out from the crowd as being somewhat
different. The first item which grabbed our eye was the Fairtrade Dark
Chocolate Egg which is a hand decorated hollow chocolate egg made with amazing
high quality Fairtrade chocolate. The egg comes in a beautiful box complete
with tissue paper and ribbon, the perfect gift! We also spotted an amazing
luxury egg in their range called the Pistachio and Orange Dark Chocolate Egg
which comprises of a dark chocolate egg with pistachios, orange, white
chocolate pieces in a beautiful pyramid box including some caramel coulis
truffles. In their range they also have an elegantly simple Milk Chocolate
Decorated Egg which comprises of a wonderful milk chocolate egg with feather
design printed on it. They also have some beautiful eggs perfect for kids
including a Marbled Egg with mini truffle eggs and our favourite the Preston
Penguin egg which is a hand crafted milk chocolate and white chocolate egg in
the design  of a cute penguin, honestly
they don’t get much cuter than this!
Charbonnel et Walker is yet another long established and
reputable company with members of the Royal family counting towards some of its
loyal and illustrious clients. The original setting up of the business was
encouraged by Edward VII himself who convinced Madame Charbonnel, a highly
skilled chocolatier from Paris to form a partnership with Mrs Walker and
establish a chocolatiers in Mayfair, London. Charbonnel et Walker is one of the
few companies to be endorsed by the Royal Warrant as chocolate makers for Her
Majesty the Queen, and they are immensely proud of this. It will come as no
surprise to anyone that a company with this reputation of commendation will
produce some of the finest chocolates imaginable. This year we tried
their Sea Salt Caramel Truffle Milk Chocolate Egg (£35) which comes in the usual
beautiful Charbonnel et Walker presentation box with beautiful gold bow. The
egg itself is made of the finest chocolate perfectly crafted encapsulating a
selection of sea salt caramel truffles which will have your mouth watering at
first bite. Whether it’s for yourself or as a gift, this is the ultimate
indulgence.
Thorntons is another well-known and reputable brand known by
children and adults alike for decades, in fact Thornton’s recently celebrated
their 100th Birthday! Thorntons was set up by Joseph William Thornton in 1911
who then handed the business to his two sons who made it into what it is today.
Thorntons have released a wonderful Easter range this year and we found it
difficult to pick what we wanted to feature in our gift guide. After a lot of
deliberating we decided to feature on of their new designed eggs called
Squeggs. These are essentially flattened Easter Eggs in the form of an egg
shaped tablet of chocolate but Thorntons wouldn’t just leave it at that!
They’ve added a few different quirky toppings and flavour combinations, the one
we’ve decided to feature here is the Cinnamon and Waffle Squegg (£5.49) which combines cinnamon, toffee and two waffle
pieces to create something quite amazing! The other item from Thorntons we
decided to feature is a good old fashioned traditional White Chocolate Harry Hopalot Easter Egg (£3.99) which is a white chocolate egg
with a moulding of a bunny in milk and dark chocolate. You can even add your
own personalisation!
Butlers Chocolate is Ireland’s favourite luxury chocolatier
for over 80 years, being originally founded in Dublin in 1932 by Marion Butler
and then bought in 1959 by the Irish Sorensen family who still own 100% of the
business today. Butlers Chocolate takes pride in their heritage, even offering
the ‘Butlers Chocolate Experience’ which allows you to see behind those secret chocolate
factory doors.  We have chosen two
different items from Butlers Easter range to feature this year.  We have chosen several items to feature from
their Easter range this year. The first is a very simple yet elegant Medium Lemon Wrapped Egg (€10.95) which is a beautiful milk chocolate egg filled
with individually wrapped mini chocolate eggs. Beautifully wrapped and tied
with a bow this would make a wonderful Easter gift for anyone. We also noticed
this wonderful Butlers 5 Chocolate Eggs Box (€15) which is 5 wonderfully crafted eggs all with
different flavour combinations including butterscotch and mixed berry. Butlers
are wonderful at creating gifts which come in tins which you can keep for years
and use for various purposes, we love this and the Egg Tin (€10) is no exception. This egg is filled with 6 large and 5 small
chocolate truffle and milk chocolate praline eggs. If you’re after a small
Easter gift look no further than the Assorted Chocolate Eggs Stick (€5.50).
Rococo’s passion and drive to create the best chocolate
delights time and time again is inspiring and they have some cheeky treats in
their Easter range this year!  They have
a wonderful range this year but when we seen this item we knew we had to share
it with you. The Stroppy Teenager Easter Egg (£17.50) is a milk chocolate egg filled with 4 praline
quail eggs and 4 salted caramel superior seagull ganache eggs. These eggs have
to be seen to be believed, they are so realistic! This year in their Easter
range they also have these wonderful Salt and Pepper Eggs (£10.95) which comprises of a milk chocolate sea salt egg
and a dark chocolate egg with a mixture of chilli and pepper. Quite different
but absolutely delicious!
Easter confectionary is not all about chocolate you know,
how could you forget about Haribo! Haribo have released, what we think is their
best Easter range yet and its packed full of exciting new products to enjoy.
All products are available in all large supermarkets. Some of the fantastic
products to keep a look out for are the Twist ‘n’ Stick gift box packed with
extras including stickers, Easter Hunt packs filled with mini packs of sweets
perfect for alternative Easter hunts. Or how about some of the mini packs
including Tangtastic Chicks, Eggstras, Jelly Bunnies or Fizzy Farm Animals. You
can check out Haribo’s main website where you will find out loads of
information about new products as well as all the latest news.
Lindt always knows how to do Easter well and in our opinion
no Easter is complete without receiving some Lindt chocolate. This year Lindt
have released a wonderful gift box including a Lindt Gold Bunny and Carrot (£4.99). New this year Lindt have also released Gold Bunny Paws which are absolutely delicious. Lindt even allows you to buy a
complete box of them (£22.99) on their website. This is perfect for an Easter
hunt! They also offer boxes of Lindt Carrots (£21). Whether its something small or a large box of treats Lindt
have an amazing range this Easter so check it out.
Montezuma’s is a funky company always buzzing with fresh new
ideas and they have not failed this Christmas either. Montezuma’s love to work
with flavours to combine what they think works best in their fine chocolate.
This year we have chosen to feature the British Pudding Egg Nest (£6.99) which is a brilliant idea of combining 6 different
hen size eggs of excellent quality chocolate into one box, beautifully
presented to be given as a gift. The twist is that each of these eggs has a
different British pudding inspired flavour! Including Apple Crumble, Lemon
Meringue, Eton Mess, Treacle Tart, Spotted Dick & Summer Pudding. Just
hearing this had our mouth-watering so wait until you taste them for yourself!

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