The Chocolate Garden of Ireland Blog

Neven Maguire comes to Town

admin — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 12:26:43 +0000

Yum, this is the best part of my trip!!

Neven Maguire recently visited Murphys Master Craft Butchers in Tullow, Co. Carlow and addressed an enthusiastic gathering of local foodies. Mary nabbed him on his way in and presented him with a delicious selection of chocolates. Neven recently used our Wicklow Fine Foods Luxury Chocolate & Hazelnut spread in a decadent cooked cheesecake on his cookery programme. We are eternally grateful for yet another idea of how we can enjoy it!

Bar-ak Obama… a new concept in chocolate!!

admin — Thu, 19 May 2011 14:39:57 +0000

You saw it here first!! Bar ak Obama

admin — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:28:29 +0000

A ‘MUST-DO’

FUN THINGS TO DO THIS EASTER

Concentration!! Chocolatier Trainee at work!

With lots of dates to choose from over the Easter holidays, we recommend you join us for a chocolate workshop - great fun for all ages, not to mention delicious and also educational. Workshops should be pre-booked to avoid disappointment. Please ring 059-6481999 for more information.

Paddy’s Day Looming… Easter Bunny Run

admin — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 11:54:44 +0000

A nicer type of shamrock…

This St. Patrick’s Day our Easter Bunny will be at large, racing the length of the town of Tullow during the parade. Watch this space….

The Mother of All Easter Eggs

admin — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 22:59:10 +0000

Imagine 130 eight-square bars of chocolate, 130 x 50g… do the maths, that’s 6.5kg of Easter Egg! Given that the ‘average’ consumption of chocolate per year in Ireland is 12 kg… that’s more than half your ‘average’ year’s supply. Then again, maybe you’re above average!! All in all, it’ll keep you chewing for a while, not to mention make you very popular with friends and family. There’s a technique for eating such an egg… you’ve got to start from the back end so that it looks impressive for the longest time; as you progress, you’ll have to prop is up to take the bad look off it (pretend you haven’t actually got through the half of it … already! Suffice it to say, if you’re lucky enough to find youself the proud owner of one of these babies, you’ll certainly be in the ‘above average consumption’ category for this year.

Ideal as gift Easter Baskets - blissful surprise for families, nirvana for chocoholics, redemption for dog-house dudes, perfect raffle prizes (mega powerful for fundraising) and the stuff that dreams are made of!

Hi Guys, did ya know bunnies laid eggs?!!

Pavlova…mmmm

admin — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 11:05:19 +0000

Couldn’t leave out the lemon cheese cake now, could I? Pavlova and carrot cake to the rear! Go and get yourself a snack and stop dribbling! A few chocolate decorations on top make a huge difference.. visit our chocolate shop close to Tullow and stock up on some ‘wow factor’.

Deliciously tempting

Cake of the Month

admin — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 10:52:53 +0000

Check out this fab cake which was made of chocolate biscuit cake for the lower layer, and chocolate fudge cake for the top layer…mmmmm…!!!!! It was for my parents Golden Wedding anniversary… 50 years of loving wedded bliss… and tonnes of patience and tolerance, deserves a really nice cake. Made cheese cakes, banoffee, pavlova, carrot cake and more chocolate fudge cake for the night… we all rolled happily home!! Are ya hungry yet… drool, drool…

More cakes can be viewed on our website, but if you’ve a special occasion, please do call in and we can custom-design something especially for you. We can put images of musical notes / instruments, bees, ladybirds, autumn leaves, golden speckles, and lots more, all on thin slabs of chocolate and decorate the sides of the cake in this way… loads of possibilities!

Golden Anniversary Choc Biscuit & Choc Fudge

Yummmmmmm...

Bird Hunt Complete

admin — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:52:22 +0000

Oh, but it’s great to have interesting neighbours…. Meet Harry the hawk… he took off from the exhibiting arena next door - Woodlands Falconry - and spent the last couple of days here on holidays in the Chocolate Garden of Ireland, in our trees… just loves all things chocolate!

Oh Harry Hawk, where are you?

There's a good boy, Harry, come on down

Alas, 27 hot chocolates, 6 cappucinos, 49 slices of chocolate fudge cake (very partial to these, he is), 11 ice cream sundaes, and 5 chocolate fondues and 2 days later, he has been reunited with Tommy and Carol and is gone back to Woodlands Falconry and regular bird food. Maybe, he’ll become a regular…

Check out Woodlands Falconry for yourself, and do take a tip from Harry the Hawk and drop into us for a Cappu and chocolate cake while your at it.

Happy Birthday to us!

admin — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 22:15:54 +0000

Well, hello again, it’s been a busy and rapidly-passing summer! Kids nearly back to school already. Being our first summer with the shop open in our new location, we didn’t know what to expect. The chocolate workshops were really busy in May and June with school groups.. and active retirement groups too (oldest candidate to date was 95, closely seconded by a 92 year old - they had a blast!) ; anyway we really didn’t know what to expect but the phone just kept ringing and we kept adding in extra dates and times for workshops. We had our first birthday for the shop on the 18th of August - no celebrations yet as a couple of staff are still on holidays but we will, don’t worry!

We had a very unusual request recently… to make a chocolate sliotar, don’t have the photo just yet as it’s caught between mismatched software, laptops and iphone… but will let you have a look soon… picture this.. a football sized sliotar (hope I’m spelling that right, I’ve never actually written it before) white chocolate with brown with the red logo of a notable PLC hand crafted onto it - quite a project; it tooke about 4 prototypes to get the technique right since we don’t have a mould for a sliotar but happily the end product was great.

Congrats to anyone who has just got their leaving cert results after all that hard slog! If you’re going to a debs soon and want the very best brownie points, well you’ll need the very best chocolates - see our website or if you want something special, give us a ring on 059-6481999.

Exotic Flavours

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 20:27:58 +0000

Please be our guest and challenge us… we have recently added chilli and ginger as new flavours to our range of chocolate bars and hand made chocolates, but hey, the sky is the limit… what’s your flavour idea?