OK, so who wants to win chocolate?

I thought that would grab your attention. One of the self-imposed rules I have for this blog is never turn down  offers of chocolate. Not usually for me, although I quite like chocolate, but husband loves his chocolate and obviously, Monkey and Missy Woo do too.

Luckily, a very nice lady regularly offers me the chance to try Hotel Chocolat products and we love their products. Obviously, with Christmas around the corner, this time we are looking at gifts for the festive season.

And boy, this one would make a special gift!

This is a chocolate wreath, known as the Purist wreath. A whole chocolate wreath, studded with almonds, hazelnuts, and jumbo golden raisins. The chocolate itself is 70% dark chocolate - my favourite sort - which is made from cocoa from a single estate in Ecuador. And it's solid; boy is it solid! Total weight is 450g and you need a knife (or a clean hammer!) to cut or chop it. This made it very chunky and crunchy to eat.

The chocolate is as rich as you would expect dark chocolate to be. Being quite chunky, we found it quite satisfying and rich to eat so we didn't gorge on chocolate. A box of chocolates would have lasted much less - we actually made it last several days without even trying. The children didn't really like the almonds but I loved all the nuts.

This would be a special gift for a lover of real good quality chocolate. It's quite expensive at £25 but if you can't afford that, there's a smaller one available for £9.

However, I'm giving you a chance to win one of your very own wreaths, worth £25 if you enter my little competition. It's been so long since I last ran a competition on here, I've almost forgotten what to do! To enter, just follow the instructions in the Rafflecopter widget below. The competition closes at midnight on Thursday 29th November, so get entering.

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Easter eggs will never be the same again

I've mentioned this before on many occasion, but I am not a huge chocolate fan. Yes, I eat it but I don't have to have it. That said, if someone is going to offer me free chocolate, I am not going to turn them down, because the rest of the household would frankly lynch me.

Hotel Chocolat offered to send me one of their Easter eggs and I wasn't about to say no. We've tried their products before and they are always welcome. We picked out one of their Extra Thick Easter eggs to try - the Rocky Road to Caramel one to be precise. Now, Easter Eggs usually leave me cold - they promise so much but deliver so little - thin chocolate eggs and a few extra sweets with a lot of packaging. It was going to have to be amazing to change my opinion and at £26, it is not cheap.

It's November so let's talk about the two C words - Christmas, and chocolate.

When someone offers to send chocolate, you don't say no. Even if you are not a chocolate addict, which I'm not - I eat chocolate but I don't have to have it every day. When Hotel Chocolat offer to send you chocolate, you say yes very quickly. We got sent some a few months ago and it really didn't last long.

This time, they offered to send me a product of my choice from their Christmas gift range. Oh yes, the other C word. I've been holding off mentioning it on here but yes, I've started getting ready - my aim is always to have everything bought by the start of December as I don't generally do shops in December (barring the supermarket, you can't avoid those.) But still, I don't like mentioning Christmas too early because I get all bah humbug about it.

So, it was fairly odd picking out a Christmas product to try in October, but we managed, as you do - although we had to hide them from the children. I'd settled on the Luxury Truffles to Share Advent Calendar. This means there's not one but two truffles behind each window so there's no fighting over the chocolate. Genius. There are six different varieties of truffle - Mulled Wine, Salted Soft Caramel, Gingerbread, Cinnamon Praline, Milk Praline and Simple Dark Truffle. I was a bit dubious about the mulled wine variety but it was really nicely spiced and not too strong tasting of alcohol (I am not a huge fan of liqueur chocolates). I also loved the salted caramel - it was the first time I had tried it but it was a lovely combination and I'll definitely have it again. They are a nice range of different flavours and the truffles are small enough that if you are on your Christmas diet to squeeze into your LBD or whatever colour party dress you like to wear, they'll be a little treat which won't send you off the rails. The nutritional information on the back suggest that a truffle averages out at 41 calories each.

It is a little bit on the expensive side at £25 but Hotel Chocolat do have other Advent calendars available, although those don't have two chocolates for every day. And it's really nice, good quality chocolate so in that respect, it's worth the money.

And the best bit? (For you, anyway). You have the chance to win one for yourself! Yes, Hotel Chocolat are giving away one Luxury Truffles to Share Advent Calendar for one lucky reader of The Five Fs. To take part, you first must be a follower of this blog - either by RSS (click the orange jellybean to set up) or email (red jellybean). Then, all you need to do is leave a comment below and tell me what you would do to win chocolate. Just one thing - and don't say "anything"; that doesn't show imagination!

Optionally, you can gain a second entry by tweeting the following:

Win a lovely Hotel Chocolat Luxury Advent Calendar on @kateab's blog. http://bit.ly/tld7xy I've entered, have you?

and leave me a separate comment to let me know that you've tweeted. Please ensure you leave me a valid form of contact as I've had to redraw prizes before now as winners haven't responded to contact from me. I tend to announce winners on Twitter, so why not follow me there to get the latest news?

By the way, you can also follow Hotel Chocolat on Twitter or like them on Facebook for the latest chocolatey news from them.

Get entering, and good luck!

Terms and conditions

To enter, leave a comment below, saying what you would do to win chocolate, along with a valid contact email address or Twitter ID, which will be used to contact you if you win.
An additional entry can be gained by tweeting as stated above.
Please ensure you follow this blog via RSS or email.
Maximum two entries per person - multiple entries will be discarded.
The prize is a Hotel Chocolat Luxury Truffles to Share Chocolate Advent Calendar.
The competition closes on Thursday 10th November 2011 at 8pm.
The winner will be drawn at random from all valid entries.
The winner will be contacted that evening and asked to provide a postal address and contact telephone number within 48 hours or the winner will be re-drawn. The prize will be despatched by Hotel Chocolat. UK entrants only.
There is no cash alternative.

Review: Hotel Chocolat Everything Selection

There are some things you should just not turn down when offered them. When you're offered the chance to try some of the best chocolates around, you just don't say no. Now, I will be honest and say I am not a chocolate addict at all. In my childhood, I had to avoid it because chocolate was one of the things that could trigger the migraines I had back then. Luckily, I grew out of them but it meant I never really crave chocolate. That's not to say I don't like it because I do; it's just I am not one of those people who HAVE to have chocolate daily.

So when Hotel Chocolat offered me the chance to try something from their birthday range, I didn't hesitate to say yes. I've always wanted to try their chocolate. Hey, it's not my birthday but we can pretend, can't we? It's nearly my half birthday anyway. I deserve a treat.

I say I, but once Monkey and Missy Woo got a sniff of chocolate, they wanted in. I chose the Sleekster Everything Selection to try so, well, we could try a bit of everything! The chocolates turned up well packed and can include a gift card with message if you wish.

This is what we got - 30 chocolates in a smart gold box; the Sleekster bit refers to the shape, rather than the chocolates in the box. There were caramels, truffles, pralines and a few liqueury type chocolates. My absolute favourite was the Brownie - the square one with the little square of white chocolate on top. Unfortunately, Monkey had the other one and there were only two in the pack! The pralines were my favourite sort but the children were game for all types although we tried to keep them off the liqueur ones! Needless to say, the chocolates disappeared quite quickly over a couple of days. Although these are rather grown up chocolates, they are sweet enough for children to enjoy on the whole. They're not fussy anyway but they would reject things they don't like (yes, even chocolate!) but these all got wolfed down.

These would be a lovely present for a real chocolate fan, but if you have kids, you may struggle to keep them to yourself. At £20, they are rather pricey to be sharing with your offspring, however much you love them, but these are special treats, so if you want to keep them for yourself,  I'd recommend keeping them under lock and key. Or fitted with an intruder alarm.