Hotel Chocolat’s Dizzy Praline

A brutally honest and light-hearted review of Wood’s Black Forest cake.

What makes a chocolate dizzy?

That's not the beginning of a complicated joke, it's a serious question. Literally, what does make a chocolate dizzy?

Despite Hotel Chocolat describing one of their many chocolate pralines as "dizzy", detail on what this actually means is non-existent.


Perhaps it's the wild experience of sinking a bite feeling like one of those theme park boats that spins upside down; or maybe it's what your stomach suffers after you've ate a pack of them. Cynically, (but probably truthfully) the answer more than likely is the light-coloured swirl atop each chocolate.

As well as the whirlwind twist, Hotel Chocolat's packaging boasted "outrageously smooth, meltingly soft hazelnut praline."

This transpired - rather predictably - to be another exaggeration.


I do sympathise with Hotel Chocolat to some extent because how exactly do you make hazelnuts interesting? Although the nuttiness was noticeable, it was hardly a face-planting impact. Being shot by Dirty Harry it was not.

The chocolate was nice and milky, but perhaps mixed with the hazelnuts made the whole concoction a little too creamy which over-rided the sweetness of the chocolate. The praline was the finest display of softness, but didn't appear to behave outrageously (no torrents of abuse or sexual improprieties).

The only thing dizzying about Hotel Chocolat's Dizzy Praline is the effect it had on my brain thinking about why "dizzy" could possibly be a good description of a chocolate. Ultimately, it was a bang average serving puffed up to grandiose that it didn't deserve.

Final review rating: going round in circles all the time - 2* out of 5.


Review by JAMES LEWIS
Wanderer, wonderer and editor of the Chocolate Dissection blog (which will ideally melt hearts rather than brains). Reliable with sarcasm, less so with a scalpel. Twitter: @IdeasJimbound


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