New Choc on the Block – iChoc white nougat crisp

I try very hard to keep it frugal on this blog, but I’d be a hypocrite not to admit to a weakness for new types of vegan chocolate, and if not constrained by a budget I will buy anything sufficiently novel which costs less than a fiver, and maybe spend more if it’s big enough!

I’d never heard of iChoc until I saw a review of the white rice-chocolate bar they make; part of a vegan chocolate round-up. The reviewer wasn’t overly enthusiastic, but I thought I’d like to try it anyway if I saw it, as I sometimes like things other people think are too sweet. When I was visiting Currant Affairs today with the virtuous goal of buying wholemeal flour, I saw they were displaying a new bar at the end of their shelf of goodies, not the white chocolate but, even better, a white bar containing crispy hazelnut nougat. Hazelnut and chocolate is an ideal combination as far as I’m concerned so I didn’t hesitate to buy this even though it was £2.19 for 80g. Call it a payday treat.

I very much enjoyed this. It is very sweet, yes, and also very rich. I will be interested to hear what non-vegans think of this, as it’s definitely got a richness there that I’ve not experienced with most other vegan chocolates. It reminded me of a cross between the chocolate green triangle (“Noisette Pate”) and the (I’m informed by Wikipedia that this is a discontinued flavour) hazelnut cracknell chocolates from Quality Street selection tins.

This doesn’t quite replace the Vivani dark chocolate hazelnut bar at the top of my list of great chocolate worth splurging on, but I’d say it’s definitely got a place on the list in the “now and then” category.

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