Christmas Chocolates, Sweets and Food

Another vote for coffee!

hopefully we get them over in these parts

The chocolate toffee in the brown wrapper. I know we still have the skinny one but two chocolate toffees was the best!

Heading out for the weekly grocery shop in a bit, must start keeping an eye out for seasonal bits.

October usually.

If they sold it, I'd eat it!!

Though I must admit, there is something I like about it being a seasonal food and only available in the build up, I suspect was it available all year round it would lose its association with Christmas for me as anything fruit based is pretty much on my radar treat wise!!

Lidl UK had stollen by the 15th of September last year - whichever of myself and a mate in England sees it first sends a triumphant whatsapp photo of our haul.

Its been towards the end of October in my local Lidl's before Stollen has appeared. I usually start looking around Mid October but have yet to see it that early. I've noted it previously when I've spotted it each year for the first time and its been the last week in October generally. Have seen other bits appear earlier but not the Favorina Stollen.

Absolutely!

And fruit soda bread

And scones

And rock buns

And fruit slices

And hot cross buns

Yeah... I need to run alot.... otherwise I'd be the size of a sofa!😀

If you were handy in the kitchen you could easily do a side hustle copying these....a bit of black market trading at the school gates. I do think they are lovely but zero chance of me paying that price.

Agreed, they do look stunning but the price is stunning too. Wouldn’t mind if someone gifted them to me 😀.

Agree, very pretty!

The kind of tin that will store buttons or screws for the next 20 years 😆

My local Dunnes this afternoon

Is it not the same as last year?

At least its only 50g.

I'd still pick them ahead of Roses or Heroes.

They'll definitely have an 'offer' at some stage where they'll be no more than €5.

I agree its frustrating that they keep making them smaller, but it was flagged a few months back that the cost of chocolate was to increase due to crop issues so its not really a surprise they reduced the weight rather than keep them the same size & charge more. Price is the key thing I suspect. If they suddenly start charging €7 a tub and all their competitors are cheaper (& lighter) they'll probably lose market share & that to them probably isn't worth the risk. So all our tubs get smaller & smaller.

At this rate I suspect they'll start producing 2 different sized offerings before long. The c.500g tub and a larger 1kg tub or suchlike. Otherwise as you say they'll get so small to be practically useless.

I really dislike the amount of plastic being disposed of because of these tubs. Even if it's put in the recycling bin, it's still single use plastic. I know most of the wrappers are now recyclable, but surely they can come up with a cardboard type box, rather than plastic? I know some people reuse them, but I'm sure that's only a tiny fraction of what's produced each year. You can get cardboard boxes of jellies, toffees and Season's Greetings, etc. even quite a few of the biscuit 'tins' are now cardboard, so I don't understand why the tubs haven't been changed over.

Can anyone remember when they changed over to plastic tubs?

I remember them being in metal tins (biscuits too) when I was younger but genuinely cant remember when they changed now.

Agree totally re: the use of single use plastics & recycling, you'd think there's be a more sustainable cost effective solution nowadays. Is the mass production of so much plastic really the cheapest option available?

Heros and Celebrations are much newer than Roses and Quality Street so they may never have been in a tin. We used to get the large tin of Roses and large tins of USA biscuits. Lemons sweets and Scot’s clan were always in boxes I think. It’s definitely time to revert to cardboard boxes.

Sometimes I feel very old when I’m reading this thread 😂.

I’d forgotten about Afternoon Tea 🫢