Treat of the Week

Mr Kipling – Great British Fancies

You can’t beat a classic French Fancie can you? And nobody does it better than the King of the cakes, Mr Kipling. To celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee and the great British Summer time, Mr Kipling has created these Royal themed French Fancies, and we have to say they are exceedingly good cakes.

These patriotic bites combine a mouthwatering moist sponge, vanilla fondant filling, (which is our favourite part), but with a new twist – blue, white and red icing. The individual stripes pays homage to our great nation and is perfect for all those street parties.

So whether you are off on a picnic, trip to the seaside or arranging your own Jubilee festivities, make sure you have some of these limited edition fancies – you and your guests will NOT be disappointed!

Cost: £1.89. Available at all major supermarkets for a pack of eight.

If there’s one thing we like more than sweets it is a variety of sweets. It’s all very well getting a sharing pack of Maltesers or M&Ms but we find it gets boring after a few bites. However, this sweet shaker sold in Harvey Nichols and Selfridges never gets boring. Start with a jelly bean and add some fizz with some Swizzle sticks – it’s like being 10 years old all over again. There’s even sticky rock – the seaside favourite – cut into small, bitesized chunks.

Cost: £4.95 Visit the Harvey Nichols website to get your chops around these juicy sweeties. And when you’ve finished munching you could use it as a pen pot afterwards – it’s useful as well as beautiful!

There’s nothing like a well cooked prime cut of beef to boost your morale and put a bit of magic in your day. Saddlers of Mayfair serve up steak VIP style as  they can tell you where exactly where your meat comes from – the O’Connor farm in Limerick, South West Ireland. The meat is aged and cured on site so we can be guaranteed of what happens to it from farm to fork and it really does improve the taste.

Head chef Matt Bishop has worked with celebrity chefs Marco Pierre White, Gary Rhodes and Gordon Ramsay with best friend Jason Atherton before becoming head chef at Maze so he knows how to appeal to a celebrity’s palate. And with comfy Chesterfield banquettes and a quintessentially British feel to the decor, we could happily spend the full evening at Saddlers. Oh, and the non red meat eaters among you will be pleased to hear the menu features fish dishes like scampi and smoked salmon and mushroom ravioli.

COST: It ranges from £19 for a sirloin (10 oz) to £28 for a T-bone or £60 for a Chateaubriand for two to share. Visit the Saddlers website for more details and booking information.

Do you look forward to a refreshing glass of wine at the end of a hard day but get put off by the calories? We have news to brighten up your life (if you’re over 18 obviously)  as Stowells light wine is just 60 calories per glass – that’s right we said 60 CALORIES!!   Each bottle is made with the finest Chardonay and Sauvignon Blanc grapes and the tipple leaves you with a refreshing taste in your mouth. This wine should come with a warning though, as it tastes so good you may end up drinking the whole bottle!

Stowells gives us a taste sensation by combining crisp flavours, fruity aromas and a touch of sweetness. The wine Gods use only the best grapes, and the innovative alcohol reduction process means the it tastes lighter and is half the calories of an average glass of vino. If you want more reasons to gulp down a glass or two, we worked out that one average glass contains over 120 less calories than a packet of Malteasers…that’s a good enough reason for us!

So what are the varieties? There are two options of wine to choose from:

(1) Stowells Light Wine

A rather crisp wine, with a sweet aftertaste is perfect alongside a Mediterranean fish dish. The wine is a blend of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, and has notes of melon, pear and apricot – almost like a fruit salad in a wine!

(2) Stowells Light Rosé

This light pink Shiraz Rosé is bursting with strawberry, raspberry and cherry flavours. The acidity of the wine is balanced by the sweetness – almost like a dessert in itself. Yummy!

COST: £5.49 available at all ASDA stores nationwide.

Humpty Dumpty may be a children’s nursery rhyme but the new Lucky’s Of London Humpty Dumpty eggs are not for kids. With each chocolate masterpiece made from top quality Valhrona chocolate and lined with a smooth, silky filling inside the shell, these should come with a warning: they taste so good that you won’t be able to stomach a bland supermarket-bought Easter egg after sampling one of these.

Lucky’s Of London make life magical by combining all of our favourite things. During the rest of the year, they take a succulent, moist fudge brownie, add a decadent filling and coat it all in 70% Valhrona chocolate so you get three treats at once. For Easter they take high quality chocolate and add filling to the inside of the shell so each bite is chocolatey. And anyone who has ever been disappointed when the chocolate of a creme egg runs out and you’re left with the sticky filling will appreciate how important it is to get the right ratio of chocolate to filling. If you don’t, then look at the photo below and we dare you not to dribble.

So what are the fillings? This year, there are four options: (1) Monsieur Coco Noir: 60% cocoa dark chocolate with delectable coconut ganache filled shells

(2) Sir Namon Chai: 40% cocoa milk chocolate with delicious spiced ganache filled shells

(3) Duke Of Nutting Hazel (see below): 40% cocoa milk chocolate with luscious praline & hazelnuts filled shells

(4) Lord Dark Toffius (see below): 60% cocoa dark chocolate with intense dulce de leche filled shells. OUR FAVOURITE! This one fell off the wall and into our mouths….yum!

COST: From £5.50 at Lucky’s Online. Selfridges and Harrods now stock the entire range if you want to try the wonderful brownies.

This week the Easter Bunny delivered some special treats to the VIP offices. We received some ‘eggs,’ from the Italian pasta company Carluccio’s, just in time to satisfy our afternoon chocolate fix. The Italian coffee shop and restaurant is the creator of these fancy treats, and they almost look too good to eat. Well, we said almost!

The egg consists of white and milk chocolate, and a sugary ‘yolk’ centre, with a sugary shell. The creamy Italian chocolate melts in the mouth, and satisfies even the sweetest of tooth. This milk and white chocolate egg box is the perfect gift for Easter; perfect for hunting in the garden. Buona Pasqua!

Celebrities like Tulisa, The Saturdays and Jennifer Ellison all love Carluccio’s and we’re sure they would adore these sugared eggs. This is the ultimate naughty, Good Friday treat!

Cost: Carluccio’s sugared eggs are £7.95 a box. Find these sweet treats at all Carluccio restaurants.

Sometimes good things do come in small packages! We got a package of Tasty Little Numbers snacks through the post recently (because we asked for them) and we liked them so much that we’re now going to tell you why we recommend them.

The LiveLikeaVIP.com party squad are too busy to be counting calories but we love fashion more than anything in the world and hate it when our leather trousers feel too tight and the bodycon dress is feeling a little too constricted.

Enter Tasty Little Numbers, which we found out about through a press release telling us that there were white, milk and dark chocolate bars available that had exactly 100 calories. A Dairy Milk bar has 255, a Yorkie bar has 345 and our other afternoon guilty pleasure, the Krispy Kreme Chocolate Dreamcake has 360 (you could eat 3 and a half tasty little numbers for this)

So how do they taste? After posing above, we unwrapped them and were truly impressed!  Many other diet foods use chocolate flavouring instead of real stuff, but there is real choclate in these bars which envelope a crunchy wafer. This means when you crave chocolate it really does hit the spot and if you want something crunchy you get the creaminess of the chocolate mixed with the satisfying crunch when you bite the wafer. We could go on and on…

Another reason they’re better than other diet foods is they are portioned to exactly 100 calories. We’re way too busy remembering the names of all Brad Pitt’s kids or the name of Rihanna’s latest song to think about how many calories we’ve eaten that day but if you eat two bars of chocolate, which would fill you up then you’ve only consumed 200 calories. With crisps and savoury snacks at 100 calories and ready-made meals at a genius 200 calories, you can eat lots and not even get near the 2000 / 2500 recommended daily calorie intake for men and women.

American Idol star Jennifer Hudson’s the Weightwatcher’s Ambassador, Mel B’s fronting Jenny Craig dieting products and with this post we’ve possibly become the Tasty Little Numbers spokespeople. And we’re proud of that!

COST: Crisps, ready meals and the delicious chocolate is available at Amazon.co.uk The chocolate bars are £11 for a case of 20 – excellent value!

These French delicacies created over a hundred years ago are still eaten today. Ladurée, the Parisian bakery and tea salon is the creator of these exquisite treats that are almost too pretty to eat!

The macaron consists of two crisp macaron shells with a smooth and soft flavoured ganache filling. They are made every morning in Ladurée’s laboratory and then left for two days to reach the perfect balance between flavour and texture. Every season, Ladurée creates a new flavour to join the vast array of those already available from Lily of the valley to chocolate and passion fruit and each flavour comes in a gorgeous pastel colour.

You may have seen Ladurée macarons being enjoyed by the actors in the stylish film Marie Antoinette. This is the ultimate light and dainty summer treat.

COST: Ladurée macarons are £1.40 each and a beautifully packaged box of 6 costs £9.80. Find Ladurée macarons in Harrods, Covent Garden and the Burlington Arcade.

Forget diamonds, a girl’s real two best friends are called Ben and Jerry. And, praise the lord, they have done it again. Think coconut, think creamy, think caramel, and you have Coconutterly Fair, the newest addition to everyone’s favourite ice-cream family.

This is the ultimate exotic flavour, perfect for ignoring the rain outside, and fantasising of sunshine and sand. It has the smoothness of a chocolate ice-cream – always a winner – with a satisfying crunch of the coconut.

Just when you thought that was it, this new flavour has an exciting bonus. As the name suggests, the ingredients are fairtrade so you’re being kind to other people as well as your own tastebuds.

COST:  £4.45 per tub. Most supermarkets stock Ben &Jerry’s – yay! Or do your weekly shop online and put it in your basket at tesco.com

Get stuck in to new sticky toffee dodgers, the most recent addition the the jammy dodgers family.  These tasty treats are full of mischief but no artificial additives.

These biscuits are perfect to dunk with your morning tea or coffee.  The chewy toffee is splodged at the heart of two toffee flavoured shortcake biscuits, full of crispy bits.  The rich flavour of the toffee blends so well with the creamy biscuit base that it’s hard not to love them.

We’ve been going crazy over these in the Zoe Griffin office, but at only 3g of fat per biscuit, we are not been feeling too naughty.

Cost: £1: 15 for a whole bag.  This is great treat value for money.  Find them at your local supermarket, we’ve been hunting them down in Sainsburys and Tesco.

Vitamin Water kept us hydrated and ready to party in Cannes as the drink of choice at several A’list parties during the film festival.

Check out High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens with bottles of the healthy stuff above. She’s got good taste!

The drink brand sponsored the Art of Elyssium charity party at the prestigious Eden Roc (where we spotted Kirsten Dunst), the premiere of I Don’t Know How She Does It (where we partied with the film’s star Sarah Jessica Parker) and The Hollywood Reporter lunch (attended by Jodie Foster and Rob Lowe).

Picking the best party is almost as hard as picking the best flavour water out of the 8 tastes available. We recommend you visit the Vitamin Water UK website to saliavte over the flavours.

WHERE TO BUY: Your local supermarket or newsagent. Cost: approx £1.40 for 500ml

Cult beauty brand Kiehl’s has teamed up with Artisan chocolatier Paul A Young to create a bespoke chocolate. We love it when a treat for your lips is a treat for your whole body, due to the special ingredients in this gorgeous bite-sized delicacy.

Called the Kiehl’s Acai Chocolate, it’s created using key ingredients found in Kiehl’s age-defying acai range; this means acai berries, lavender and orange are encased in intense red and real  white chocolate.

It looks slightly like a sheep’s eye but it tastes delicious!

WHERE TO BUY: Paul A Young’s shop in London’s Royal Exchange

Strawberries served with cream are delicious but what happens if you swap cream for white chocolate? The answer is Divine - in taste as well as name.

You may already be familiar with some of Divine’s chocolate bars,  sold in Waitrose, Oxfam and many independent cafes and health food shops. It’s the only Fairtrade chocolate brand that’s 45% owned by the farmers so they get a fair deal.

But appeasing your conscience doesn’t mean you have to compromise on taste with a range including chocolate orange, milk butterscotch and dark chocolate with raspberries as well as our current favourite – white chocolate and strawberry.

The summery bar of yumminess combines the sharp taste of strawberry with a creamy vanilla chocolate that uses real vanilla pods (fairly traded) plus it looks as sophisticated as it tastes:

COST: £1.99 for  100g  from the Divine Online Shop or from supermarkets including Tesco.

If life was a box of chocolates (as Forest Gump once said) then I hope my life would be a box of Artistan du Chocolat Tasting Chocolates.

It’s luxurious with the Tahiti and South Sea Pearls tasting like exquisite gems of chocolate truffles.

It’s crisp and refreshing with an O mint consisting of a thin sheet of green mint concealed in a 50%-60% cocoa chocolate.

And it’s smooth and silky in many ways with the O caramels oozing with gooey caramel and sea salted caramels melting in the mouth and the salty taste lingering on the tongue.

The 285g bundle of tastiness has a shelf life of 2 to 3 weeks, but we can’t guarantee it will last you this long as the delights are so more-ish!

COST: £28.50 online from the Artistan du Chocolate website

Moist, chocolate-y, sweet and with a pretty rich red colour – no wonder red velvet cupcakes are a la mode.

The Hummingbird Bakery – with outlets in London’s South Kensington, Soho and Notting Hill – was where we first tasted the beautiful baked phenomenon. And while losing your virginity is not always the best first time round, we’re yet to find anywhere that does a better red velvet cupcake than the Hummingbird Bakery.

Red velvet cakes are essentially chocolate cakes with a lesser amount of cocoa than traditional chocolate cupcakes so they taste smoother. Extra creaminess comes from the fact they’re made with buttermilk but the Hummingbird’s speciality is the cream cheese icing. There’s so much of the sweet, succulent and thick topping that it’s hard to fit it all in your mouth at the same time, which gives you an excuse to take a dollop of the sweet frosting and indulge…Just be careful you don’t eat all the icing at once!

COST: £4.50 for 2 or £27 for 12 from Hummingird online or shops in Notting Hill, South Kensington or Soho.

Life’s stressful enough without having to make decisions like whether to treat yourself with a chocolate bar or a chocolate brownie. Why not have both?

And with the Lucky’s range of luxury cakes enrobed in chocolate you don’t even have to decide between milk or white chocolate as you can get white chocolate casing a moist mocha brownie. Coffee and chocolate – two of my favourite things.

The first bite is a satisfying block of white chocolate, creamy and not too sweet like some of the cheaper white chocolates on the market. As it’s 1cm thick, the quality of the chocolate is especially important and so it is rather lucky that Lucky’s don’t disappoint.

The second bite is when you get the mixture of moist cake and chocolate with the white chocolate providing a nice complement to the heady taste from the brownie. There’s such a flavour of explosion from the rich brownie infused with espresso, which is super moist given that it’s been encased (and maturing) in it’s own chocolate box.

And then it’s time to pick off some chocolate and then dip your finger into the brownie just to check how moist it is and lick your finger and have a chocolate kick on its own and WOW! (NOTE: do this alone or people will stare at you, or even worse – they may ask you for a bite)

Inspired by the fantastical world of Alice in Wonderland, there are six flavours in all with three creations in The Honey Time range, which is Valhrona chocolate enrobed spicy honey cake with a variety of fillings.

(1) Fancy Fudge – 60% cocoa dark chocolate cover and caramel filling (2) Nutty Delay – 35% cocoa white chocolate cover and Nutella filling (3) Sour Kick – 60% cocoa milk chocolate cover with apricot and bourbon filling

OR the mad-hatter bars (the best for chocaholics) are made from and encased in 70% Valhrona chocolate!

(1) Fruity Rhapsody – 60% dark chocolate cover with cranberries (2) Chunky Nutter – 40% milk chocolate cover with white chocolate and pecans  (3) Mocha Madness – 35% white chocolate cover with a hint of espresso

COST: £10 per cake, £59 per box of six. Available at Raoul’s Deli, 10 Clifton Road, London W9 1SZ (020 7289 6649); online at luckys-online.co.uk

Both champagne and chocolate are excellent morale boosters so imagine how good it feels to combine both in one tasty morsel.  Plus these smooth, silky truffles are pink, which is additional colour therapy.

After opening the lid of the elegant round box – embellished with a gold leaf print – you’re immediately dazzled by a rich, milk chocolate aroma that makes your mouth salivate for one of the round beauties inside.

Each truffle comes in a delicate black paper case making a satisfying ruffle that lasts as long as you crunch the outer chocolate shell in between your lips and moan in pleasure as a warm liquidy mixture of champagne and chocolate is released into your mouth.

These make brilliant gifts but why not buy a box for yourself and enjoy one (or two) at the end of a long day at work?

COST: £11.75 for 135g box at Charbonnel et Walker online. The website also has details of store locations and concessions.