Tag: hot

Hot Chocolate with the Carolina Reaper

Carolina Reaper Dark Chocolate

When on holiday, I’m always interested in different teas and chocolates. I happen to come across urbandeli when seeking brunch and decided to go back and check it out in full. I saw a whole shelf of chocolates but one stuck out a mile away, mainly because it had a tag underneath it saying something in Swedish about danger not for Children!

To be honest I thought it was some gimmick but as I love chilli & dark chocolate I bought a bar and decided to try it out in store, as the store is part of a bar and hotel, meaning anything you bought you could consume too (they even have microwaves).

On further investigation I realised while eating my first tiny bit. This wasn’t a joke, the chilli flaked bars I had in the past were nothing like the heat this was delivering to my tongue and mouth. It was the real deal, proper heat from a small chunk of chocolate.

It wasn’t till I looked it up, I realised everything. I heard of the Scoville number but didn’t know the scale of the numbers. I had also misread the number on the packet as 1.569 not 1569300! Massive difference!

The name of the chocolate came from the chilli with the same name.
With a Scoville value of 1,569,300 which was officially the hottest chilli in the world 5-7 years ago. Gizmodo did a nice piece about the chilli which I found interesting.

I finally found it on Cocoarunners site with a review

This is not just a chilli chocolate bar, this a Carolina Reaper chilli chocolate bar.

Bred in South Carolina, the Carolina Reaper has held the Guinness World Record for the world’s hottest chilli since 2013. When tested for the record, the batch of chilies had an average heat level of 1,569,300 Scoville Heat Units. The hottest individual pepper measured 2.2 million Scovilles. For comparison a Jalapeno generally has a heat range of 1,000 – 20,000 Scoville units.

The dark chocolate is a blend oh Ghanaian and Dominican beans but honestly this serves as nothing more than a base for the chilli. Break off the smallest piece imaginable, put it on your tongue and discover what is almost certainly the world’s hottest chocolate (and certainly the hottest chocolate we’ve ever tasted).

There is no question of subtle flavours and different tasting notes. The chilli flavour starts deceptively slowly and keeps on building and building. Waves of heat pass across the palate, overwhelming anyone with a low spice tolerance. Long after the chocolate itself has melted away you are left with a tingling sensation on the tongue – a piquant reminder of the Carolina Reaper’s passage. A unique chocolate experience, this is not a bar for the faint-hearted.

Always good to find these type of things…!

What is it with the trend for small dogs in flats

My little dog

I know most of you are saying something like awwwwww…. but I see a dangerous animal with teeth and claws chasing somebody down.

I get most I’m most likely quite bias on the matter of dogs…

I’m terrified and hate dogs generally.

Having been bitten quite a few times over my life (luckily nothing which has caused a scar). Last time it happened I had it put down by the police. It was the only option for this little dog which walked calmly out of a garden while the owner was cutting the hedges, walked up behind me and took a bite out of my lower leg as I walked by.

If I had a pound for every time a owner said something like (feel I could turn this into a buzzcard bingo)…

  • He’s harmless
  • He will lick you to death
  • He’s just be friendly
  • He’s just curious of you
  • Maybe he smells something on you?
  • He’s just saying hello
  • blah blah

I don’t blame the dogs, but rather the owners for not keeping control of the dogs. Many times the things would have been much easier if they had kept the dog on the lead or in a closed door room.

But saying how much I’m terrified by them, its simply not fair… as there seems to be a trend for having small dogs in a flat. At least where I live it seems the dog ownership has shot up. Now there seems to be a dog on every single floor including mine.

I don’t really care about the bit of noise (there was a dog under my flat which barked when there was another dog out the window, which living next to a canel/path was all the time) but what I do care about is the them running around loose in public areas of the flats and frankly them being trapped in a 41c hot apartment all day.

Islington Wharf gets really hot, there is a lot of glass on the outside and in the summer its not unusual for the internal flat temperature to go up wards of 34c. We ran a small test a few years back with people recording the temperature and posting pictures. I think the hottest measurement was 46c! Of course this is getting sorted finally.

Regardless of it getting sorted, imagine a dog in the flat all day right through the midday sun. Its not on…!

Jack in Hyde Park

Its worth saying I lived with a dog for a year, yes even with my massive fear of them. But we (me and Sarah) had to send him back to America as it simply wasn’t fair with us out of the flat for sometimes 8-9 hours at a time. Jack wasn’t even subjected to the extreme heat but he would go slightly crazy anyway.

Small dogs seem to be the ultimate the fashion item this season? Some people need reminding of the old christmas message – a dog isn’t just for Christmas day or rather a dog isn’t just to increase your ego.

There is something not right about keeping dogs in a small hot flat most of the day. Maybe the RSPCA needs calling?