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Homebrand Cooking Chocolate Milk Chocolate Block 375g
Melt it, bake with it, spreadable to decorated with.
Ingredients: Sugar, Hydrogenated Vegetable Fat (Palm, Canola), Whey Powder (9%), Fat Reduced Cocoa Powder (7%), Skimmed Milk Powder (4%), Emulsifier (Soy Lecithin), Natural Flavour (Vanilla)
Product reviews...
I absolutely love to bake and usually when I am baking and the recipe calls for chocolate (even if it calls for cooking chocolate) I always tend to but wither chocolate chips, or buttons from the baking isle or else blocks of Cadbury or Whittakers chocolate from down the confectionery isle. To be honest i'm actually not 100% why it is that I am so put off from buying cooking chocolate to use in my baking but it just seems to have always been the way. However when I was doing my grocery shop a few weeks back I saw this cooking chocolate on special, a fraction cheaper than what I usually buy and remembered seeing some people had reviewed it on here so decided to give it a shot, and see how I got on with it, you don't know unless you try right?
I must say that I was rather relieved knowing that cooking chocolate was actually milk chocolate rather than dark as most cooking chocolates are,and thought to myself this is probably why I never buy them as I mush prefer milk chocolate to dark! I decided to do some baking with Miss 3, searching through my go to recipes I decided to make chocolate brownie, a recipe which calls for melted chocolate in the mix. The recipe called for 200 grams of chocolate, so I went with half the block, much easier to snap the block in half than counting out the pieces! The chocolate was easy to break up which I was happy about. Into the saucepan the chocolate went along with the butter, and I was most impressed how smoothly and quickly it all melted together. The flavour of the brownie once baked was perfect nice and chocolaty, but not to dark and rich, it was just how I liked it.
With the rest of the block since I decided to do a bit of a rainy weekend boredom breaking activity with Miss 3 of making some fun shaped chocolates in our chocolate moulds that don't come out very often. To make this quick and simple we broke the chocolate up into pieces and placed it in on a microwave safe bowl, heating on high at 30 second intervals, giving a quick stir in between until all the chocolate had melted, this took about 2 minutes so nice and quick. The chocolate was well melted and a great consistency making it easy to spoon into the moulds even for Miss 3, who had a lot of fun doing so and even more fun decorating with sprinkles at the end! Miss 3 loved the end result of the chocolates once they had set in the fridge, although I didn't mind the taste of the chocolate as is, I do still have other favourites over this, but not bad for the price!
All in all a great versatile cooking chocolate that can be used in many ways and one that I would buy again.
When making muffins or cookies I usually use chocolate buttons or chocolate chips for the ease of use but I had a recipe for chocolate brownies that called for cooking chocolate and lots of it so I bought a block of this from my local countdown store. I was impressed with the price as it worked out cheaper than buying chocolate melts and it was for a big block so great value for money.
I usually go for the easy option when making chocolate brownie and use a recipe that just uses cocoa rather than actual chocolate but was feeling a little bit more adventurous and wanted to make something spectacular for afternoon tea with my friends so tried a new recipe. I nearly had to use a whole block of this chocolate in the recipe so it was a real decadent slice.
The chocolate melts easily just like the chocolate melts so is easy to use and breaks apart easily to make it melt quicker. So it is just as easy to use as chocolate melts or buttons. With the left over chocolate I grated it to put on top of the cream I served the chocolate brownie with and it was really easy to grate and looked really effective on top of the cream.
This is a great product and adds a great taste to my cooking so I will definitely buy it again, and at such a great price it won't hurt the budget either.
I usually buy the chocolate buttons for my chocolate making experiments. I have seen this product at the supermarket a few times, and have always wondered how good it is. Based on the below review I thought I would finally bit the bullet and give it a go.
For just under $3.50, this is a large block of cooking chocolate. I went with the milk chocolate as that is the flavour I prefer. I don't mind a little dark chocolate, but I'm not someone who needs a high cocoa content. The first thing I noticed was that the packet was a little hard to get into without accidently ripping the plastic in an awkward way. I did manage to rip it wrong, but it only affected the first three rows of chocolate.
I did a bit of a taste test on the raw state chocolate. I sucked on a square of cooking chocolate to see what it was like. The flavour was creamy, with hardly any chocolate taste to it. I wasn't sure how this would come out when melted down. My daughter was very excited to have a chocolate activity to do though. So I gave her a few rows to chop up. She broke the chocolate very easily into a bowl. She then taxed a square of chocolate herself. She made lots of mmmm sounds as she ate it.
I put the bowl of chocolate squares into the microwave for 1 minute. Then took the bowl out and let my daughter mix them. I gave the chocolate a further 30 seconds to melt properly. The chocolate had a nice glossy texture. It spooned easily into the chocolate moulds we had. The result was a nice selection of chocolate animals which I then used as cupcake toppers.
Despite the wrapper issues I had, I would buy this again. I can imagine using a whole block next time we make chocolates so the wrapper wouldn't be an issue at all. I do love chocolate chunks in my cakes and cookies too. The flavour of this was good once it was a finished product.
This is my cooking chocolate of choice...a little bit more expensive than using chocolate drops or buttons but it is worth the extra money I say. It is easy to melt if I am using it in baking or as an icing to top off a chocolate slice..or in a ganache!
At room temperature the chocolate bar is easily chopped up with a knife into whatever sized pieces are needed. My favourite thing at the moment is to chop up the squares of chocolate into quarter pieces and mix through a double chocolate chip cookie...I used to use chocolate buttons/melts but since using the homebrand milk chocolate block of chocolate I refuse to use anything else!!
The awesome flavour this block of cooking chocolate gives to anything it is used in or on is mindblowing!! It is like chocolate only way better!..and when used in a cookie the little squares don't melt they stay their original shape and add a nice chunk of chocolate as you bite into the biscuit. But when I need it melted to spread over a slice it melts no problem in the microwave.
I prefer the milk chocolate flavour but sometimes I do enjoy using the dark chocolate block as well if I need a more intense chocolate flavour. The milk chocolate is perfect for most cooking that I do though as everyone loves milk chocolate more. I will continue to buy because I think it is top notch, and truly a good price for a great tasting cooking chocolate.
Yes I do wish it was less of course as I do with everything but I can't complain at the cost because quality costs and it is on special every now and again so I make sure I stock up...it has an excellent shelf life if left unopened.
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