National Baking Week: What will you be creating?

Last week, we had both National Cocktail Week and National Chocolate week. If you didn't get a chance to celebrate, you've still got a chance of winning a box of our Cocktail Collection over on Penny Golightly's rather brilliant money-saving blog.

October continues with the food theme with National Baking Week kicking off today. We're big fans of baking here at Chocoholics. In fact, the idea for our popular Cupcake Collection came after certain members of the team became addicted to baking the delicious mini-cakes.

If you fancy dusting off your oven mitts, we've got just the thing. The Wallace and Gromit flipcover cookbook comes with wipeable pages, a non-permanent pen and nut free sweeties to decorate your creation.

What's your favourite thing to bake?

National Cocktail Week and National Chocolate Week

We love October here at Chocolates for Chocoholics.

As the chilly evenings draw in, we like to indulge in a hot chocolate (using our chocolate stirrer), while we curl up on the sofa in front of some of the best TV shows of the year. X Factor, Strictly Come Dancing and the Inbetweeners all feature on our must-watch list.

But the best thing about October, is that we get an entire week dedicate to chocolate and cocktails! The 11th-17th October is National Chocolate Week and National Cocktail Week. Which we think is ideal for a pampering night in with the girls.

We've got the perfect product for the week: our Cocktail Collection. The collection includes ten delicious luxury chocolates with cocktail flavours including Singapore Sling, Mojito, Peach Bellini, Tequila and Cosmopolitan, and it's only £6!

So, how will you be celebrating Chocolate and Cocktail week?

Tea vs. Coffee

What's your hot drink of choice? Like to start the day off with a relaxing cup of tea? Or perhaps you prefer the caffeine-heavy kick of coffee to wake you up for the day?

Here at Chocoholics, there's a pretty even split of tea and coffee drinkers. Which is why we've got a selection of products suited for both tastes (including our brand new product for tea lovers!)

For the Coffee Lovers

Our Coffee Creams (only £2!) are delicious little discs filled with a coffee fondant cream.

They go nicely with the Cappuccino Sticks (£2.50) for an after dinner treat. They're very addictive though, one Cappuccino usually to several more!

For the Tea Lovers

Tea Lovers can enjoy their favourite cuppa in this Tea For One set.

The £9 set includes a cupcake-decorated teapot (enough for two cups of tea) a cup and saucer with matching cupcake design, and four milk chocolate truffles. Once you've finished with the set, it all stacks up together, making it easy to store.

Luxury Hot Chocolate

Prefer a hot chocolate to tea and coffee? We've got something for you too!

Our Chocolate Stirrer (£1.25)can be dipped into hot milk to give you a creamy and rich hot chocolate.

It tastes pretty amazing stirred into a cup of coffee too.

What could be better on a cold winter evening then curling up with a mug of molten chocolate, eh?

So, are you a tea, coffee or hot chocolate fan? Let us know in the comments!
 

Corporate gifts made easy with personalised chocolate boxes and bars

We've talked about our brand new Winter 2010 range quite a bit recently, but we'd like to tell you a little more about our new Corporate Range.

We noticed a few years ago that a lot of companies wanted to give their employees a personalised Christmas gift. Finding something that suits everyone can be tricky, which is why we launched our Corporate range of products to suit every need. After all, who doesn't love chocolate??

Personalised Gift Boxes 

Our range includes some beautiful personalised gift boxes that can be printed with your brand name or your own personal message. We can also organise personalised ribbons and personalised menu cards.

If your budget is limited, our Personalised Chocolate Bars start at just £1.15+VAT each. For a luxurious purchase, check out our Picnic Hamper for Four.

Fans of our cupcake, dessert cup and continental ranges will be pleased to hear they'll also be available for personalisation.

Corporate Gifts for any occasion

It's all in the Corporate catalogue, which you can view on our website.

Our Corporate range is available all year round, so we'll be able to find something to suit your requirements for corporate chocolate gifts regardless of the time of year.

P.S A recent investigation we conducted suggests we're also one of the most competitively priced providers of personalised gifts in the UK!

Chocoholics Competition: National Cupcake Week

This week is National Cupcake Week, created to celebrate all that is good and tasty about these miniature cakes.

So, what better way to celebrate then to give you a chance to win a box of our delicious cupcake chocolates, exclusive to Chocolates for Chocoholics! We have one box to give away to a lucky winner.

Our cupcakes come in an assortment of flavours, including cherry tart, chocolate brownie, lemon cheesecake and coffee & walnut.

To enter, just head to the comments on this post and finish this sentence

I love cupcakes because....

 For an extra entry, simply tweet the following:

I want to win a box of cupcake chocolates from @Chocoholicsltd for National Cupcake Week!

Please note, only one retweet per person will be counted.

The winner will be announced on Friday 17th September.

Good Luck!

Chocoholics competition: Win a Facebook Selection!

Our Facebook followers might have noticed we've recently been uploading some sneak peeks of our favourite new chocolates from the Winter range. We're really excited about the new ranges (Seasonal and Corporate), which launches next weekend, and we can't wait to hear what you all think about it!

In the meantime, we've got another special treat for you (do we spoil you or what?). Today we're launching our brand new competition, to win a box of the eight most popular chocolates from our Facebook page (check out the gallery here). There are five Facebook Selection boxes up for grabs, and entry is really simply! All you need to do is sign up for our newsletter on the right hand side.

Our newsletter will be sent out every few weeks with updates, offers and news of our latest range. We promise never to spam you or pass your email on to anyone else!

We'll pick five winners at random from the subscribers, and announce them next Monday morning after we launch our complete range.

Which chocolates are your favourites?

The Chocoholics guide to self-employment: How does childcare work if you're self-employed?

In the fourth of our series of guidelines for self-employment, we look at how you can juggle a new job with childcare.

A lot of our fabulous distributors across the UK are mothers, as the role fits in beautifully with looking after the kids. Our main work seasons are for the 10-11 weeks running up to Christmas and the 7 weeks running up to Easter, which means you get the whole summer off to spend with the children!

During the busy seasons, you'll need to get a bit of childcare in when you're out at the parties. Here are a few options you might want to consider.

• Asking a family member to help out: If you're lucky enough to have a partner who can look after the children whilst you're out, great! If not, consider whether there are any grandparents, siblings or other family members who might be able to look after for you. It's usually free too!

• Childminder: A flexible childminder can look after your kids for a couple of hours each night, particularly great if they look after children of the same age.

• Friends: Got a friend who works part-time hours? You could arrange a schedule where you take it in turns to look after each other's kids, which helps you both out!

You'll still be able to collect certain benefits, like:

• Child Benefit: £20.30 for your oldest child (under 16) and £13.40 for each child after

• Tax Credits: Check out this useful guide on tax credits for the self-employed.

Got the childcare sorted and want to apply to become a Chocoholics distributor? Then either leave us a message in the comments or give us a call on 0118 9321043.

Next post: The Chocoholics guide to self-employment: How do you promote yourself?