I've been seeing a lot of blogposts going through in my reading list lately with people proclaiming themselves as "food snobs" and declaring that they would never lower themselves to walking into an Aldi or Lidl store or buying supermarket "economy" range products. That to me is just plain stupidity. How can you criticise the budget brands when you've never even tried them ?! It's like my 2-year-old telling me he doesn't like his dinner when it's something he's never even tried before !
Far from being a "food snob", I love trying out the budget brands to see how they compare with the more expensive big-name brands. While a few have indeed been inferior quality, many have proved themselves to be just as good as their more expensive competitors. Lidl, for example, is a great place for bread-machine flour, toiletries and nappies.
I've reviewed many bars of top-of-the-range, big-brand chocolate here on my blog - amongst others Divine Fairtrade Chocolate, House of Dorchester Luxury Chocolates, Green & Black's Organic Chocolate - so I was keen to see how Choceur - Aldi's own brand chocolate label - Belgian Milk Chocolate would compare. I haven't tried many Aldi products before, not because I avoid them but because there isn't an Aldi store local to where I usually do my shopping, so I came to the test with a totally open mind.
The 100g bar comes as a big family-sized bar that we all sat down and shared together. You get 10 big squares to a bar - squares which are too big for kids to fit in their mouths in one go so they invariably take two bites out of each square, resulting in sticky fingers covered in melted chocolate, which was a bit of a pain !
Apart from that small criticism, it was very nice, tasty, creamy, smooth milk chocolate that went down well with the kids and the adults. If you hadn't told me it was from Aldi, I'd have believed it was from one of the big brands cited above. It's a great-tasting, high quality product.
The only thing I'm slightly confused about is the wording "Belgian chocolate". Now call me naive but I always assumed Belgian chocolate had to have started life in, or at least have some ingredients from, Begium. But as far as I can tell, the Choceur chocolate is about as Belgian as Brussels sprouts ! The packaging says : "What makes Begian chocolate unique is the quality of ingredients and higher refining of the cocoa beans delivering a fantastically smooth chocolate". The chocolate is made using "the finest cocoa beans from Ghana" and I'm pleased to see it's proudly bears the Fairtrade label.
I wasn't at all surprised to see that this chocolate is an award-winner, being awarded 1 star at the Guild of Fine Food Great Taste Awards. I was however very surprised to discover its price - a measly 99p ! There's not a lot that you can buy and still get change from a pound these days, especially when it tastes so indulgent and satisfying. At that price, you should definitely check it out !
star rating : 4.5/5
RRP : 99p for 100g
Other reviews you may be interested in :
Chocolate Craft Praline Filled Mini Eggs review
Choccy Munchy Seeds review
Jaxx 'Mouthy Chocolate' chocolate crunches review
Apart from that small criticism, it was very nice, tasty, creamy, smooth milk chocolate that went down well with the kids and the adults. If you hadn't told me it was from Aldi, I'd have believed it was from one of the big brands cited above. It's a great-tasting, high quality product.
The only thing I'm slightly confused about is the wording "Belgian chocolate". Now call me naive but I always assumed Belgian chocolate had to have started life in, or at least have some ingredients from, Begium. But as far as I can tell, the Choceur chocolate is about as Belgian as Brussels sprouts ! The packaging says : "What makes Begian chocolate unique is the quality of ingredients and higher refining of the cocoa beans delivering a fantastically smooth chocolate". The chocolate is made using "the finest cocoa beans from Ghana" and I'm pleased to see it's proudly bears the Fairtrade label.
I wasn't at all surprised to see that this chocolate is an award-winner, being awarded 1 star at the Guild of Fine Food Great Taste Awards. I was however very surprised to discover its price - a measly 99p ! There's not a lot that you can buy and still get change from a pound these days, especially when it tastes so indulgent and satisfying. At that price, you should definitely check it out !
star rating : 4.5/5
RRP : 99p for 100g
Other reviews you may be interested in :
Chocolate Craft Praline Filled Mini Eggs review
Choccy Munchy Seeds review
Jaxx 'Mouthy Chocolate' chocolate crunches review
I quite often nip to Aldi for chocolate because htye are one of the few big supermarkets that specifially state that their chocolate it gluten free. Even their specialist chocs for Easter (bunnies) and Christmas (Santa's and tree decorations) tend to be gluten free which is brilliant.
ReplyDeleteAt Easter the difference in price between a gluten free bar from Aldi and a gluten free bar from Thorntons was ridiculous.
I say 'well done aldi' for catering for odd diets.....now if only they'd do GF bread!
I often go to Lidl but never to Aldi, although I have one not too far from where I live, if I go there, will almost surely try this 99p product!
ReplyDeletenot usually to keen on aldi chocolate - i have to agree big bits of chocolate lead to very chocolaty fingers - and often clothes, furniture and everything else they manage to get their hands on before i get out the wipes!
ReplyDeleteI love belgian choc, good excuse to go to Aldi
ReplyDeleteI love Aldi. Will be going on Monday now, thanks for the review!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds lovely, Aldi do some great stuff, I don't live near one but will occasionally take a trip out to one and stock up on their stuff
ReplyDeleteOh my! This is making my mouth water - love Belgium choc so much! Oooh!!!!! I've just remembered I have a twirl in the fridge! Just excuse me whilst I go and scoff it ! Om nom nom!
ReplyDelete@hannahmdy
Mmmmm is my honest opinion of this mmmmmmy choccy!!! Just annoying there isnt a store near me?!!!
ReplyDeleteyet another fab food from aldi, it has really nice stuff in there!
ReplyDeleteI think Choceur may be more Belgian then "Brussel sprouts" as is stated in the review. We bought a 125 gm packet of "Belguim Chocolate Thins" made by Royal Chocolates NV Mol, Belgium in at well known retailer costing £3.29. Later we saw a similar box of "Choceur Belgian Chocolate Thins" in Aldi for £1.29. Apart from the picture on the box the product appeared to be identical. Either Aldi are selling good copies or Royal Chocolate NV are making chocolate under the Choceur brand for Aldi.
ReplyDeleteAldi's Choceur brand of chocolates are fantastic I think.
ReplyDeleteI personally like the dark hazelnut the best. It has roasted whole hazelnuts in a very thick bar of melt in your mouth delicious dark chocolate.
I am not sure you get this in England though. I live in the US and had never Aldi before but having spent a few years in England, Germany and Denmark I have come to appreciate Aldi a lot here in US. It is practically impossible to get a decent chocolate in US without feeling like one is eating a lump of sugar. So when I craved for a good chocolate European chocolates came to mind and so did Aldi. Now Choceur is my fav brand here especially given the price (the good European chocolates like Lindt are pretty expensive if you are addicted to them like I am)
All very interesting comments :)
ReplyDeleteI've just bought (my second) batch of Choceur Dark hazelnut chocolate from Aldi - delicious - but it is 200g, not 100g and I paid 99p each for them. No country of origin stated on the packet.
ReplyDeleteI love love love Choceur chocolate. Just bought the hazelnut chocolate bar, 100g for .99cents. the back says made in Austria. Aldi's has lots of great imports.USA
ReplyDeleteBelgian chocolate is (or should be) made in Belgium, but there are no cocoatrees in Belgium... The majority of all cocoa comes out of Africa and is processed by companies like Callebaut into a liquid chocolate, from which Belgian manufacturers make great chocolate products. Belgium uses over 100 year old recipes, hence the knowhow and the quality.
ReplyDeleteBTW: brussels sprouts were dicovered on the riverbanks in Brussels, and a couple of (mad?) belgians started to eat them and the things grew into a new daily vegetable.
ReplyDeleteThe Choceur packages I get at my local store in Wisconsin state that the chocolate was made in Germany. We just got an Aldi nearby and I bought the chocolate a few days ago. Reminded me of the lovely chocolate I ate in Austria...and the next bite of Hershey's chocolate I had tasted waxy and crude. ;)
ReplyDeleteWhy buy Hersheys when you can get something cheaper and better quality? Go Choceur!
ReplyDeleteTried my first Choceur dark chocolate with almonds from Aldi($1.69 here in Plano, Illinois) - "made in Austria" sold me.
ReplyDeleteWas good but melts fast. I'm not much of a chocolate eater, but I still think Theo organic fair trade salted toffee milk chocolate is the best - light, crunchy and doesn't get all mushy.
The secret is to refrigerate these Choceur chocolates to counter the fast melting :-)
DeleteMy favorite are the big bars of milk chocolate with chunks of hazelnuts and the milk chocolate hazelnuts in with wafers. And I believe these are indeed from Belgium as the chocolates here in the US are not as good. Aldi's chocolates are also less sweet.
ReplyDeleteYour blog got me wondering about the Belgian Chocolate mystery and I came up with a few facts that may shed some light on why it can be called Belgian chocolate without actually being made in Belgium.
ReplyDeleteIt could simply refer to the fact that the companies use recipes originating from France or Belgium along with using Old World manufacturing techniques originally used in Belgium.
One of the reasons many places may use these techniques and recipes is because Belgians where some of the (or thee) first with good access to the Cocoa plant (you know taking land and resources from natives) through colonization so they were also the first to come up with good processes for handling, refining and rating the cocoa and coacoa plants that were to be used in making the chocolate as well as the chocolate itself.
Anything Belgian may just basically just means that it is relating to Flemish or Walloon French languages (Don't ask me what Walloon French is, it's your turn dear reader to look something up for me). This could boil down to the same thing as when you go to a restaurant and get Chinese, Italian, Greek, Spanish etc... It is just the style of food (or chocolate) and does not actually come from or need to be made by any one of those countries or descendents. So just chocolate made after the style of the Belgians.
The last reason I found as to why they may be Belgian chocolates relates back to that colonization comment I made earlier. The Belgian Congo was a colonization from 1908 -1960, before becoming the Democratic Republic of Congo (don't know what it may be now if it changed again). Meaning Belgian Chocolate could just be the region the cacao is gotten from to make the chocolate.
I don't know which answer is true, if any of them are; but I personally think it was either the region the cocoa comes from to make the chocolate or the restaurant analogy, it is just made in the Belgian style. I say was because that may have been the original reason and that may have been distorted and stretched over time to whatever it means today.
Wow, you've really researched it :) That's really interesting
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