Birthday Party Activity / Goodies

How's this for a kid's birthday party idea? 

By a batch of plain mugs and let the children paint them during the party. While they tuck into jelly and ice cream, pop a BakedIn mug brownie pot and instructions into each mug, wrap them in cellophane, maybe add a few sweets, tie a pretty bow and voilà, take home gift taken care of!

Photo is for illustration only. I did not paint the mug and didn't really spend very long colour coordinating the ribbon etc!  

A gluten/wheat/dairy-free version of the mug brownie kit is also available.

Chocolate Tasting

On Saturday 30th March Ildiko, of the delicious Ildiko's Chocolates, will be coming here, to Tastes Delicatessen in Eton. She'll bring samples of her wonderful chocolate slabs for you to try (free of charge). Ildiko's chocolates (and her chocolate bunnies) make an ideal Easter treat! Hope to see you!

Irresistible Ildiko

A week ago @IldikosChocolat started following me (@TastesDeli) on twitter.

Ildiko had started her own chocolate company (Ildiko's Chocolate) in Walton-on-Thames just before Christmas and was looking for local outlets. This week, I met Ildiko and her husband Tamas. I saw, and sampled, their chocolates and was well and truly hooked.

Ildiko makes slabs of the finest Belgium Chocolate, beautifully decorated with fruits, nuts and flowers. These really are stunning. No topping has been thrown or dolloped here. Each item is delicately positioned and the result is chocolate art! But not only do they look too pretty to eat, but the tastes are fantastic. Unusual flavour combinations which work really well; milk chocolate with coconut chips and crystallised violet petals; dark chocolate with raspberries, pistachios and pink peppercorns; white chocolate with freeze dried cherries and rose petals....

It's two weeks before Easter, so the shop is not exactly short of chocolate, but these really were impossible to resist. I hope my customers feel the same! These mini bars are in stock now: £1.99 each.

The list goes on

Still plenty of Great Taste Awards to mention....

Our new supplier Bim's Kitchen received a Gold Star for each of their African Bean & Nut Curry Sauce, Baobab Chilli Jam and Spicy African Ketchup. Mike's smokehouse's brand new smoked tomatoes were also awarded a gold star.

Bessant and Drury were given gold awards for both their lemon and strawberry frozen desserts, when blind tasted with dairy ice creams. An amazing achievement for a dairy free ice-cream.

Susie's Preserves' Raspberry Jam, Henshelwoods' Raspberry and Orange Jam, and seville marmalade with whiskey won gold stars.

Teapigs were awarded a collection of stars, including one each for Darjeeling Earl Grey, Jasmine Pearl Green Tea, Mao Feng Green Tea and Chamomile Flowers. Yogi Tea's Choco Tea also won an award. As did a number of teas from Pukka Herbs, and Campbell's Perfect Tea, again! The coffee award winners included another coffee from Grumpy Mule (who also won a three star award and about half a dozen two stars!).

Gold star were also give to Oliflix Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Anila's Hot Mango Pickle, Stokes Real Tomato Ketchup, Tracklements apricot & ginger chutney, and their fabulous onion marmalade.

Pipers Crisps were awarded a gold star for both their sea salt crisps and sweet chilli crisps. Olives Et Al also won awards for lots of their olives and their Dukkah.

A collection of awards went to local chocolateir L' Auberge du Chocolat and local flour mill Wessex Mill.

Our roast ham from Dorset Farms Ham received a gold star. As did Midfields Granola and Chocolate Peppermint Creams from Summerdown.

Lewis & Cooper's Handmade Luxury Fruit Cake again won a gold star, and again will be stocked by us at Christmas. As will the Copas Sage and Onion stuffing which also won an award (to accompany their 3 star winning turkeys)

I think that is everyone, if I've missed you out, do let me know. This year's list of winners didn't include the product names, so its been a lengthy process checking producer names and product descriptions to try to work out what has won. Please forgive any errors or omissions.

Tastes Delicatessen ABC

I rather like the advertising on the back of the Wilkinson's lorries at the moment. From Aftersun to Batteries C.... Zinc capsules.

It reminds me of a book my grandparents gave me when I was a child. In the book, Big Bird and I were on a scavenger hunt (my name was actually in the story - a bigger deal in the 1980s than today!). We had to find something for every letter of the alphabet. So in homage to my Sesame Street Scavenger Hunt, here is Tastes Delicatessen A-Z:

Apples, Biscuits, Cheese, Dulce de Leche, Eggs, Fluff, Gingerbread, Honey, Ice cream, Jam, Kaffir lime leaves, Lemons, Mustard, Nougat, Olives, Pate, Quiche, Root beer, Scotch eggs, Tea, Uncle Joe's mint balls, Vinegar, Wedding cakes, Xacuti curry powder, Yoghurt, Zahtar.

It was actually easier than I expected and I didn't have to resort to using adjectives like Wilkinson's "yellow duster", although maybe the mint balls was a bit of a cheat (it was that or unsalted butter).

I'm also amazed by the prevalence of the letter C. I could have managed 26 items starting with the letter C alone; chutney, cheese, chocolate, crackers, conserves, cured meats, crisps, condiments, cookies, cassoulet, curry sauce, capers, crispbread, chorizo, cous cous, chilli sauce, clementines, consomme, chickpeas, coffee, cake, cranberry juice, cheese wedding cakes, chopped tomatoes, coconut milk, cream, confit de Canard.

Chocolate Week

This week is chocolate week and what better time for us to start stocking "probably the best Chocolate in the world".

Ben Tre chocolate took an amazing 3 gold stars (the highest accolade) at the Great Taste Awards this year. The cocoa is grown by a co-operative in southern Vietnam, the unrefined sugar is grown on a family-owned plantation in Peru and the transformation from bean to chocolate takes place at an old-style third generation chocolatier in Avignon, France, using a recipe created by artisan chocolatier Marc Demarquette. It is pretty special chocolate!

To celebrate the success of this 2010 vintage bean, two limited edition bars have been produced. A dark chocolate bar (70%, and dairy free) and a milk chocolate bar (40%). The bars have a wonderful aroma, are richly flavoured and slightly spicy, melt slowly and leave a smooth after taste. And not only that, but they are raising money for Action Against Hunger as well! Action Against Hunger is an international organisation that specialises in feeding starving children. £1 from every bar sold goes to help Action Against Hunger continue their valuable work.

“This chocolate bar benefits everyone from the sustainable, small-scale producers in Vietnam to the five million people Action Against Hunger supports each year. We encourage all food lovers to make a difference by purchasing this very special product,” said Heidi Drummond from Action Against Hunger.

Happy Easter Everyone

Hope everyone has an enjoyable long weekend. I’ve been meaning to post a blog entry about this year's Easter Eggs. But I didn’t order anywhere near as many as I needed and the delicious Italian chocolate eggs have all sold out. I didn’t even get a chance to photograph them, let alone put them on our web site. Oh well, in 11 months time I’ll do it all again (but order 3 times as many).

Valentine's Day

Its not too late to pick up a Valentine's gift from tastes Delicatessen, we've all sorts of suitable presents from traditional boxed chocolates, to pampering "Love" tea and quirky red popcorn. From "little gesture" pink sugar mice at 75p to "big romantic statement" boxes of chocolates at £35, and plenty in between.