Hopelessly devoted to Hotel Chocolat – Ideal Valentine’s Day Gifts

When it comes to gift-giving, my boyfriend and I have become increasingly hopeless. After shelling out significant chunks of our hard-earned cash last summer to settle down together in our little London flat, we sensibly decided to postpone Christmas 2011 and instead put the pennies in a jar for a special occasion in 2012. Whilst I don’t regret us putting our heads before our hearts and balancing our budget at this early stage, I am quite embarrassed that our greetings cards for the festive season still remain unwritten and stashed away by our respective bedsides!

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I was keen to redress this recent failure and show my man how much he means to me. But what could I get a technological guru who listens to the latest tunes on Spotify and downloads new books directly to his Kindle?!

Fortunately, fantastic flavours are yet to be transmitted electronically, and my beloved has a real soft spot for a sweet treat. So Hotel Chocolat’s kind offer of a complimentary box of chocolates from their vast range of romantic Valentine’s Day Gifts sounded like an irresistible early extra token of my affection before the big day itself.

We are like yin and yang in our cocoa preferences – he’s a fan of creamy milk and white confectionery, whilst my weakness is for coarse dark chocolate. The Sleekster Love Selection was ideal as we could set our tongues tingling with 12 tasters each, plus two crunchy Caramel Sweethearts for him and a Chilli variant for me. There were even milk and dark versions of the Praline Oysters, which my man fell heads over heels for, despite normally hating nuts.

We were both pleasantly surprised at how the pinch of Black Pepper boosted the flavour of the Strawberry truffle, and voted the velvety Vanilla Truffle and silky Cherry Bombe amongst our favourites. We could have easily eaten a whole bag of the Sweet Lips, and the Raspberry Rapture packed a fruity punch. We were impressed by the transition from sweetness to spice in the Soft Chilli Caramel, but the fiery kick of these hearts a bit too much heat for us to handle!

As my boyfriend is tee-total, he steered clear of the liqueur chocolates – meaning a boozy bonus for me! The smooth-textured Champagne Truffles left my head spinning slightly, but the Bucks Fizz and Bison Grass Vodka both contained very clever flavour combinations that I think most people would enjoy no matter what their alcohol tolerance.

For me this sweet selection box is the perfect present to set hearts racing on 14th February. The whole collection is delightfully detailed and elegantly displayed, and personally I can think of no better way to spend Valentine’s Day than cuddled up on the sofa sharing a laugh and a box of delicious chocolates with someone special!