As you may remember my wife and I visited Swanage in November for my birthday. And no visit to Swanage is complete without a trip to Chococo, the Purbeck Chocolate Company. If you like to keep score of such things, Chococo basically make some of the best chocolates I’ve ever tasted. I’ve mentioned their work before, when I shared a number of images I’d taken of food; Chococo’s contribution was a box of chocolates itself made out of chocolate. Indescribably brilliant. This year we forwent the chocolate box to instead get a larger and above all evenly numbered selection of chocolates (the small box, and the chocolate box, contain nice chocolates, which don’t split so well between two people not known for sharing chocolate).
Fortunately for the photographer side of me these chocolates look as good as they taste. Before we delved in I set them up in the kitchen, and using a similar setup to the one I used when shooting some failed breakfast I set up my 100mm macro lens to get some closeups.
As you can see, even in extreme closeup they look great.
Chococo follow usual chocolatier protocols and have different patterns and colours to help differentiate what’s inside.
I also moved the camera a bit further away to get some wider shots of the chocolates.
The chocolate that’s in focus is a lovely cider number, which I went in close on for a slightly closer look.
There were some great chocolates in our selection: one made from Black Cow Vodka (a vodka made from cow’s milk) and one made from Old Thumper (a local ale), which are respectively the black swirly and the white-topped chocolates in the image below.
But the most unusual – and one of the tastiest – chocolates we picked for our selection box is the Dorset Blue, which can be seen in the image below as the one with a bit of cranberry on top.
And inside? If the name isn’t enough of a clue, it contains Dorset Blue Vinny, a soft blue cheese. It might sound a bit odd, but quite frankly it is absolutely delicious – sweet, bitter and creamy.
I’m not sure when we’ll be back in Swanage again – but it will be sooner rather than later, and you can be sure I’ll bring a neutral density filter and we’ll stock up on chocolates.
Of course, you can also buy them online if for some reason you can’t visit in person.
Creative Splurges 