Chocolate Picture Maker review

I loved the sound of the Chocolate Picture Maker kit that we received to review recently, but I must admit, I had visions of a very messy activity. It was actually very clean though and incredibly effective, even for fairly young children. Inside the kit, we discovered two transparent plastic trays and six sachets of chocolate, two each of milk, dark and white.

You also get a selection of pictures to use as templates, graded from simple to hard. You just cut out the one you want to use and place it under the plastic tray to use as a guide.

You need a jug of hot water (not too hot, I just ran the hot tap for a while then filled the jug from there) to pop the unopened sachets in for a few minutes for the chocolate to melt. Once it's ready, you start with the dark chocolate, snip off a tiny corner and squeeze it out, like a piping bag, following the template.

Juliette managed all by herself but Pierre needed help.

I would suggest making a very small hole because it's hard to control if it comes out too fast !

There's no need to wait for the first colour of chocolate to set before you move on to the next one. The white chocolate is used to fill in the main part of the design.

Juliette had definitely opted for an easier design - the car was quite tricky in  places but Pierre had been adamant that that was the design he wanted !

The slightly larger milk chocolate sachet needs to be squeezed over the whole surface of the tablet, on top of the design and in all the gaps.

I would have liked for all of the sachets to have just a smidgeon more chocolate because it was barely enough to fill in all the necessary bits each time. Here was Pierre's car in the making, once all the chocolate was squeezed out of the sachet.

I had to use the edge of the sachet to gently squish it across the rest of the design and I had a moment of panic when I thought I'd messed it all up. Eek, time to put them in the fridge to set for half an hour before I do any more damage !

The kids wanted to suck any last remaining drips of chocolate out of the empty sachets before I threw them away !

Just half an hour later, they were ready to plop out of the trays (which was much easier than I predicted - they just came straight out).

Well, they're not perfect but we were all very impressed with the way they looked ... closely followed by the way they tasted. I have to admit, I was expecting this to be cheap and nasty chocolate but it's actually rather lovely Belgian chocolate - yum !

If you're looking for a fun activity in the run up to Christmas, this would be a great way of getting the kids to make personalised homemade presents that would be greatly appreciated by the recipients. Alternatively, the kits are ideal stocking fillers.

We reviewed the 2 bar pack which retails at £6.99 but they also come in 1 and 4 bar packs (£3.99 and £11.99 respectively), as well as themed kits (Wildlife, Sealife, Symbols - all also £3.99 for a 1 bar kit). I even spotted them on amazon for £1.90 which is an absolute bargain.

star rating : 4.5/5

RRP : £3.99 - £11.99

for more information : http://www.i-spyuk.com/chocolate-picture-maker.html

Disclosure : We received the product in order to write an honest review.

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