Recently, for reasons we need not go into here, I hadn’t really been out much, having been confined to rest by an imaginary matron. So when my friend, Tamsin, offered to take me to a state-of-the-art Marks & Spencer in the next county (we live in the countryside) I jumped at the chance.
It’s not as if I’ve never been to huge M&S in London – I’m a regular visitor to both of the big branches along Oxford Street. But not lately, because: matron.
There is something intoxicating about being out and about after being largely confined to the house, isn’t there? I was like an overexcited child. Look at the people! Look at all the things!
This is when I discovered that M&S has started doing new chocolate and not told me about it. It’s called, imaginatively, CHOC MARKS (ludicrous) and with its bright and brash packaging it looks, shall we say, familiar … But I couldn’t possibly comment on this. The bars come in £1.30/50g or from £3/180g. This is not craft chocolate by any stretch of the imagination. The Milk bar is 35% cocoa (34% for the inclusion bars, below), and the Dark is 55% cocoa (it reminded me of Bourneville, which I thought was dark dark chocolate growing up, but now tastes insanely sweet).
The inclusion bars (pictured, £3.50) involve: one with pretzels, caramel, almond nougat and sea salt; another with caramel, shortbread and chocolate crispies; and a surprising (if highly divisive as you might imagine) favourite – chocolate candy beans, orange jellies and popping candy. This was all shades of wrong and yet … While you’re in store, nab the Big Daddy, £6.50/300g, a massive brick of sin involving chocolate, caramel and peanuts.
