A mahoosive thankyou to Plamil Foods, who recently sent me a box of their Dairy Free, Organic, Gluten Free and Vegan-friendly chocolate range to review recently! It was like a gift from the Gods considering I had been avoiding the dairy-filled chocolates recently.
It's tricky finding decent dairy free alternatives in shops; there's the trusty dark chocolates from Lindt and G&B of course but sometimes you want something a bit more mellow. Thankfully Plamil have catered for all with their range - from White Chocolate to Milk Chocolate alternatives, to the more darker end of the cocoa spectrum. I thought I'd start with the White Chocolate Alternative first, since it's one of the most difficult products to find a Dairy Free version of.
Billed as Organic and containing 48% cocoa this sounded rather special indeed - it consists of a blend of cocoa butter, sugar and rice in place of milk.
Do forgive the broken appearance of the bar, I think in my excitement I may have dropped it - it didn't arrive that way, it was well wrapped in the post! The slab has a wavy pattern on it as well as the Plamil logo and another logo near the bottom of the bar, which appears to be birds?
I broke off a piece and took a bite. Mmmm, very melt in the mouth! Certainly different to the white chocolate anyone might be used to - the taste is more focused on the cocoa butter and melt in the mouth texture rather than the overly sweet milkiness you get with "dairy" white chocolates. It took some getting used to, especially since I haven't really tried anything like this before (with the exception of the fab Solkiki Toasted Coconut White which I can no longer find - booo!). But as I chewed on it it really grew on me, it has a comforting sweet vanilla hinted flavor that creeps up on you. It's even better with a cup of coffee - you can dip it in and it gets all melty and lovely. Yum!
Overall, for an alternative to white chocolate this has to be one of the better quality options I've tried. It's better than the supermarket own brands and feels more premium. If you're dairy free or vegan and miss white chocolate - this one is a must-try!
For more info and to buy: https://www.plamilfoods.co.uk/
Ingredients: cocoa butter, rice powder, raw cane sugar, natural vanilla flavouring.
Nutrition Information (per 100g): 638 calories, 48g fat, 48.7g carbohydrates, 26g sugars, 0.6g protein.
8 out of 10.