I may have just had a long weekend in Belgium, but that didn’t stop me going on a chocolate tour of London the week before. This was purely because I wanted to treat my chocoholic of a mum and not out of my own desire to stuff my face with chocolate. Obviously 😉 My sister also wanted to come along because who can resist a day of eating chocolate?

I’d spoken to Jen, our lovely guide and the creator of Chocolate Ecstasy, beforehand so I already felt like I knew her. As soon as the group had all gathered we were all given a bottle of water to cleanse our palates throughout the day.

We started out with a deliciously thick hot chocolate and chocolate croissant in Sketch where Jen told us a bit about the history of chocolate, her chocolate filled background and the proper way to taste chocolate (you don’t look like quite as much of an idiot as you do at wine tasting!).

Aside from the hot chocolate, I was eager to go to Sketch as I’d heard so much about the randomness of the place where every room has a different theme, from the wooded afternoon tea room to the Michelin starred restaurant. I also wanted to use the toilets – not because I actually needed to go to the loo but because they look like something out of a cross between Willy Wonka’s factory and the inside of a spaceship!

We then headed off for a walk around Mayfair where we stopped at some of the best chocolate shops, confectioners and chocolatiers and sampled all sorts of yummy delights.

The great thing about this tour is that it isn’t just a simple chocolate tour where you turn up at any chocolate shop and try the tiny sample they offer you before moving on to the next place. Jen found out each of our individual preferences, what we liked and what we didn’t, and made sure we tried our favourites in the best places. She knew I was allergic to nuts so made sure I was kept away from anything nutty and even made sure I had some extra of something else instead.

There were so many different types of chocolates to try, from a range of the East India Company’s different flavoured chocolate drops to picking out anything we wanted from Carpo.

My favourites have to be the freeze dried strawberries coated in Belgian white chocolate from the East India Company (which I pretty much ate all of), and the red velvet truffle with its icing centre coated in milk chocolate and dusted with crushed raspberries at Prestat.  I’m drooling just thinking about them!

And, as gross as they may sound, the most deliciously yummy winner by a long shot was Paul A Young’s Marmite truffles.

To. Die. For.

I love Marmite but these were seriously out of this world! I’ve been craving them ever since the tour and keep hinting for Mr Ayla to get me a treat 🙂

There were the odd few tasters I wasn’t so keen on such as the ginger stem covered with dark chocolate (gross), but the yummy easily outweighed the not-so-yummy.  And I had to give them all a try didn’t I?  For the sake of the blog of course 😉

My mum, who is a proper chocoholic, was adamant she could never have too much chocolate but by the end of the tour she just couldn’t eat any more. The disappointment was written all over her face!

It was safe to say that we were all chocolate-ed out thanks to Jen and Chocolate Ecstasy!