Bollocks to Baking: Chocri Personalised Chocolate

Although already popular in Germany and the United States, Chocri has only just launched in the UK. A company which creates customised chocolate bars from the finest organic Fairtrade chocolate they could find, when they kindly offered me a chance to sample their cocoa-based wares, I was all over it quicker than those kitsch Milky Way race cars.

The first company of its kind in the whole wide world, the Chocri concept is a simple one. Choose a base chocolate, then add up to six toppings from a choice of over a hundred from traditional options like nuts and raisins to an assortment of more unusual ingredients, from candied rose petals and real gold flakes to bacon, cornflakes, jellybeans or salt pretzels.

My beloved, who appropriately enough was as excited as a kid in a candy shop by the whole idea, insisted on overseeing the selection process. Although this meant certain unconventional ingredients which offended His Highness' sensibilities (the seemingly innocuous banana chip being one) being vetoed, it was fun and easy using the website to assemble our personalised selections.

We chose one each of the three available Belgian base chocolates; white, milk and dark. The white chocolate was combined with bourbon vanilla, rice krispies and raisins. The milk one was topped with peanut butter drops, toffee pieces and cookie crumbs, and to the dark chocolate we added a veritable fruit salad, with blueberries, sour cherries and raspberries.

Each additional topping adds to the cost, meaning our topping extravaganzas ended up working out around £5 per bar. But although the price means Chocri is unlikely to ever replace those midnight Snickers rampages at the all-night garage, they do taste divine, and would make a thoughtful surprise personalised present.

As well as Canada and America, Chocri also deliver to almost everywhere in Europe. So wherever and whoever deserves some customised chocolate-based cheer, they've got it covered. And with more than 27 billion potential combinations, you can appease even the fussiest friend and also have more excuses than you'll ever need for ordering over and over again.