Who can say no to Chocolates? or for that matter Ice Creams, especially with Summer waiting to sneak up on us? Right! That is exactly what went through my mind when I saw the email invite to the Launch of Magnum Ice Cream event.
On 27th March’13, evening I landed at The Hyatt Regency,Teynampet,Chennai along with few other Foodies and bloggers.
The session began late, instead of 7.30 pm, it started at 8 pm and then went on for a good hour. We had a blast during the one hour session, tasting different kinds of chocolates, ice creams, making our own Sundae and having a few minutes with the Chef. Oh, and we noticed the place was packed with quite a few Page 3 celebs, including Actor Prashanth [who just stood in the background] and I did spot Arya as we were leaving the Hotel.
The evening began with an introduction to Chef Abhiru Biswas of Barry-Callebaut. After giving us a sneak peek into what to expect, he asked us to turn out attention to the 3 bowls in front of us. They were labelled 1, 2 and 3. We tasted the chocolate chips in the 1st one, and then had to describe the taste; the same followed on 2 and 3. Finally, we were quizzed on which one we thought was the Belgian, Swiss and the French. Not many got it right, but it was fun guessing.
So, if you are a chocoholic but have no idea what is different between the different kinds, here goes,
No.1 The Belgian Chocolate has the perfect blend of all that makes us go ga ga goo goo over chocolate- sweet, dark, bitter, smooth and chocolate flavours.
No.2 The Swiss Chocolate was smoother, creamier and milkier in taste
And finally No.3 was the French chocolate was very dark and very bitter.
Now, moving on the highlight of the evening, the unveiling of the Magnum Ice cream. From the renowned brand of Kwality Walls, Magnum is a new line of ice creams made with Belgian Chocolate. It comes in 3 varieties- Classic[ good ol plain vanilla], Almond [ the outer chocolate had a lovely almond crunch in it] and the last one was Chocolate Truffle [ chocolate all the way through]
Just like the taste differs in the 3 kinds of chocolates, the ice creams too were different. The Classic was smoother, creamier and quite good. The Almond was less sweet but filled with bags of flavour and finally, the Truffle was rich chocolate in and out.
So, after we dug into the Classic choco bar, the Chef announced there was a fun activity up for us in the audience. There was a sheet of paper with about 20 ingredients on it. We had to pick 5+ a sauce and create our own Sundae. Whoopie, what fun! The sheet was passed around and we finally had our ingredients –
Orange Cake
Rosemary
Black Pepper
Chocolate Sauce
Crushed Hazelnut
and Kiwi slices.
Since Rosemary was not available, we substituted it with Mint and for the ice cream, we chose the Almond bar.
Took us about 5 mins, a whole bunch of us all pepped up, shouting out orders to those who were layering the ice cream, and finally it was done. We named our creation “Harry’s Citrus Burst”. Why Harry? well, the connection to Magnum gun from the movie Dirty Harry.
The Emcee and Chef went around tasting the sundaes, but after about 2 tables, they left it to us to taste and pass judgement. Ours was quite good, I just felt we should have done away with the Orange cake [it was dry]. I loved how the Black pepper worked beautifully with the ice cream. Am definitely going to sprinkle some next time I bring home an ice cream.
Soon, the event was nearing its end and we noticed most of the crowd disappear. The bunch of us piled onto a table, and started shooting questions to the Chef, satiating our thirst.
Priced at Rs75, these yummy desserts will be available at the nearest Walls outlets soon. Get ready to beat the heat~!!
Wow…. That differentiation between belgian, swiss and french chocolate was enlightening. The magnum chocolate bar really looks yummy!!!!
i want this now