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Surprise the chocoholic in your life (or treat yourself) with these bundles
If you’re not sure what to buy someone this Christmas, chocolate is almost always a good bet. Perfect even for that tricky person who has everything, it’s ideal to say thank you to a child’s teacher or even to indulge an in-law who’s difficult to buy for.
A chocolate hamper has added wow factor when you’re really looking to impress. While edible gifts are always useful, food hampers can be difficult to choose, as the range of products means there are nearly always some duds included, and it’s hard to find a hamper where every product will be used and enjoyed. However, as long as your recipient likes chocolate, these sweet hampers are a much safer bet.
Ranging in price from £30 to £125, these baskets of goodies can be delivered straight to someone’s door, meaning they’re perfect for last-minute gifts or if you’re sending from afar.
Many of the ones we’ve included here feature chocolate treats designed especially for Christmas, and most come beautifully packaged to save you a job. It’s worth noting, though, that not all of them come in traditional wicker hampers, which may be preferred, as your recipient won’t need to find room to store it.
While all the hampers we tested were delicious, it’s important to think of who you’re sending it to when choosing the one best suited. Some are more family friendly, with snowmen-shaped treats and hot chocolate, while others are aimed at more refined adult palettes, with dark chocolate goodies and gourmet flavours. However, all make wonderful gifts that anyone would be delighted to receive.
We selflessly tucked into all these hampers to decide on the best. For each, we noted the packaging and presentation, the range of chocs inside and how much value for money it offered. We tasted everything (you’re welcome) to make sure the chocs were top-notch and to help us decide who the hamper would best suit. Most of all, we looked for ones we couldn’t wait to tuck into and that we’d be excited to receive any time of the year.
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While all these hampers will bring a smile to anyone’s face, this one really wowed us from the moment we opened it. The wicker hamper is choc-full (sorry) of goodies the whole family will love, with an especially good selection of festive-shaped treats in milk or white chocolate for the kids. Adults will also appreciate the full-size bottle of Bottega gold prosecco, which gives this gift an extra celebratory feel.
We liked the fact there’s a real assortment of choccies inside, from the large white chocolate bear and milk chocolate reindeer to a box of classic mints, ideal for after Christmas dinner. Other winners inside include a giant box of Thorntons’ classic Christmas collection and a box of its continental famous desserts, with chocolates based on puds, including tiramisu, crème brûlée and – our favourite – salted butterscotch panna cotta.
There’s also a handful of 90g bars in classic flavours and bags of fudge, toffee, salted caramel pearls and Viennese truffles, so you can grab a sweet snack without breaking into a whole box of chocs.
Anyone could find something they like in this hamper, making it the ideal fail-safe gift this Christmas.
Anyone who appreciates the finer things in life will be bowled over by this extremely impressive-looking hamper, which arrived in a sustainable wooden box that could easily be reused around the home afterwards. The hamper is made by Chococo, a family-run Dorset business and one of the first UK artisan chocolatiers. It makes fresh chocolate using local cream, fine origin chocolate and no additives or preservatives. We’re big fans of the brand’s brightly coloured packaging, too.
As you’d expect, the choccies in this hamper are a cut above your average bar, yet still suitable for a family, with a child-friendly tube of chunky snowmen, divine honeycomb clusters and a 43 per cent Colombian oat-milk Santa, free from dairy, gluten and soya.
The other treats are squarely aimed at gourmets, including a tin of 72 per cent Ecuador-origin single-estate hot chocolate, fizzy pudding chocolates, milk chocolate Christmas pudding slabs, and dark-chocolate-coated Colombian coffee beans.
There’s also a box of handcrafted chocolates with suitably fancy flavours, including molasses and brown-butter caramel and macchiato truffle. We particularly loved the gold chocolate goldfish made from heavenly caramelised white chocolate – which we definitely wouldn’t want to share with the kids.
Bring a bit of well-deserved bling to someone this Christmas with a sparkly silver box stuffed with Hotel Chocolat delights. All are made with 100 per cent ethical cocoa for indulgent chocolate without the guilt.
We’d be over the moon to tuck into this on long winter nights, thanks to its unexpected and well-considered range of chocs, including a pack of delicious chocolate macarons, a packet of creamy raspberry panna cotta chocs wrapped in white chocolate, and a pack of 40 per cent milk chocolate batons.
There’s also a box of Hotel Chocolat’s 14 bestselling chocolates (grab the billionaire’s shortbread before sharing), a selection of flavoured hot chocolate sachets, and a pack of the brand’s best milk chocolate bites, including pecan praline, the super-smooth dizzy praline and the cocoa-rich chocolate brownie, which we couldn’t get enough of.
Just be aware this hamper’s strictly for the adults, with a pack of salted espresso martini chocs, plus a 50ml bottle of velvetised chocolate cream – a dreamy mix of vodka, chocolate and cream that’s pure Christmas cheer in a glass.
Our junior testers nearly exploded with excitement when they clapped eyes on this extravagant package of Cadbury’s deliciousness. Full disclosure: we might have been nearly as thrilled ourselves. In fact, we don’t think there’s any better present for a family with younger children, and everything will be gobbled down in no time.
We also like the fact this gift comes in a cardboard box, so the recipient won’t need to find room for an unwanted hamper, and you know your money’s going on the chocolate itself, rather than a wicker basket.
Inside, there are full-sized tubs of Cadbury roses and Cadbury heroes for the ultimate night in watching a Christmas film, cartons of wine gums, jelly babies and éclairs, a bag of Cadbury snowballs, and two different-sized selection boxes.
However, we all agreed our outright favourite was the Cadbury Christmas family favourites gift box, which includes a bag of milk chocolate little robins, two bags of mini snowballs, two Cadbury puds, and 10 dairy milk chocolate chunks in different flavours. Pure milk chocolate heaven.
If you’re looking for a gift to make a statement, you won’t go far wrong with this super-chic, black-embossed hat box from Harvey Nichols. The most elegant chocolate hamper we found, the chocolate treats inside are almost too stylish to open and we’d happily leave them out on show until we scoffed them.
They’re too hard to resist for long, though. Inside, there’s a lilac tin of I should cocoa salty hot chocolate, a bar of white chocolate for a real blast of nostalgia, and a pack of milk chocolate toffee to really get your teeth into.
The box of really chocolatey biscuits was our highlight, and were divine dunked into a cuppa to upgrade our morning tea break.
When you’re really stumped for a present, it’s best to play it safe and avoid outlandish flavours or cocoa-rich dark chocolate that isn’t to everyone’s taste. This is a great chocolate hamper to buy when you’re not quite sure what they’ll fancy, as it comes with a good range of tasty titbits to suit everyone.
Packed in a tasteful cream gift box, the hamper includes a 100g bar of smooth Gnaw milk chocolate, a 90g bar of moreish rocky road and a 125g box of assorted chocolates from Hamlet Ivory. There’s also a box of melt-in-the-mouth Lottie Shaw triple chocolate biscuits and a pack of Joe & Sephs caramel and Belgium chocolate popcorn for added family-friendly appeal.
There’s certainly no way anyone would mind this turning up on their doorstep.
While many hampers are more shredded tissue paper than substance, this generous box of Lindt loveliness felt truly jam-packed, making it a real pleasure to open. Easily one of our favourite hampers, it’s stuffed with swoon-worthy Swiss delicacies we were desperate to sample.
There’s a good range of different-sized chocolate bars and boxes included, so you don’t need to wait for a special occasion to crack one open. There are three 38g Lindt lindor bars in milk, mint and orange flavours, and three substantial 100g bars of white chocolate, milk chocolate and salted caramel. There are also three decent-sized 200g boxes of Lindt lindor truffles in milk chocolate, double chocolate and – our new obsession – salted caramel.
We especially liked the fact the hamper includes a mountain of Lindt pick and mix, so you can select new or unusual flavours you rarely find elsewhere. Choose the ones you fancy at checkout, whether you prefer Lindt lindor strawberries and cream white chocolate truffles, Lindt Boules champagne milk chocolate truffle, Lindt cookies dark chocolate truffle or a combination of all these and more. Chocolate paradise in a box, basically.
We’re big fans of Love Cocoa’s ethos, which means you can order this chocolate hamper with an easy mind. Set up by the great-great-great grandson of the original Cadbury founder, the company makes all of its chocolate in Britain, and only sells products that are palm oil free and are made of single-origin, ethically sourced cocoa. They also come in eco-friendly (but covetable) packaging. Even better, Love Cocoa plants a tree in West Africa for every purchase (it’s already planted over a million so far) and will plant another six when this hamper’s bought.
The chocolate is as delicious as you’d expect, and this hamper brims with special festive flavours for an extra dash of Yuletide yumminess. It includes three bars of chocolate – gingerbread dark chocolate, peppermint white chocolate bark and Christmas pudding milk chocolate – and two cartons of truffles in gingerbread and champagne flavours.
The outrageously buttery salted caramel biscuits smothered in milk chocolate were our personal favourite, which we now plan to buy in bulk to see us through the winter.
If you’re keen to support small businesses this Christmas, look to Wales for a chocolate fix you won’t regret. Wickedly Welsh is a family-run company that makes sustainably sourced chocolate in compostable or recyclable packaging, and sources ingredients locally, where it can.
There are plenty of lovely things to get stuck into here, including six large bars of varying flavours, such as Eton mess, lime coconut and chilli, Welsh sea salt and caramel, and – our favourite – orange and honeycomb. Plus, there are two bags of milk and dark chocolate roses, a 60g sachet of hot chocolate and two large bags of silky-smooth chocolate disks known as chocolate puddles. Finally, there are two boxes of six petit four chocolates that would go down a treat at a dinner party, if you can bear to share them.
Just one word of warning – it all comes in a fairly plain cardboard box, so if you’re buying for someone else and not posting directly, you may want to wrap it to make it look a little more special.
Proof you don’t have to spend a fortune to send someone a stash of sweet treats, this hamper from M&S is brilliant value. The whole thing comes in a bronze gift bag tied with a ribbon, and looks far more expensive than it is, so we wouldn’t hesitate to order this for loved ones far away.
Inside, there’s a selection of products from the M&S Belgian range and each one is delicious. Contents include a box of Belgian cocoa-dusted chocolate truffles, Belgian milk, dark and white flaked chocolate truffles, and a tempting 400g tin of Belgian chocolate biscuits for when a standard digestive just won’t cut it.
When only a decadent box of chocs will do, there’s also Belgian chocolate classics to enjoy, with flavours including mocha coffee mousse in white chocolate and hazelnut praline with crunchy hazelnut pieces. It gets a thumbs up all-round, especially for the price.
Don’t let the kids have all the fun. This chocolate hamper may be aimed at adults, but it’s packed full of quirky flavours and intriguing chocs to prove grown-up gifts don’t have to be glum.
There’s no skimping on the sweet stuff either. The large ribbon-wrapped turquoise box includes four pouches of chocolates in sticky toffee, zesty orange, honeycomb and salted caramel flavours, plus a whopping four boxes of chocolates for outright indulgence. These include Lily O’Brien’s petit chocolate indulgence collection, two boxes of the ultimate chocolate collection and the chocolate desserts collection.
Don’t expect the usual predictable chocs inside either, as we feasted on a lip-smacking key lime pie, a creamy lemon posset with crunchy meringue pieces, and a banoffee pie topped with toffee pieces. Beats a plain old bar of choccie any day.
It may be pricey but if you’re really out to impress, you won’t go wrong with this smart luxury hamper from Bond Street chocolatier Charbonnel et Walker. Since launching in 1875, it has supplied chocolates to everyone from Princess Diana to Noel Coward, and its high-end treats are a seriously sophisticated delight.
Unwrapping the red silk ribbon already feels like Christmas before you dig into the festive gorgeousness inside. These chocs are made for nights snuggling up in front of the fire (or, failing that, Netflix) with a box of cocoa-dusted almonds, a packet of dark chocolate orange sticks, a tube of dark chocolate mint thins, and a generous box of enrobed stem ginger, plus a tin of Charbonnel et Walker’s drinking chocolate.
However, the caramelised biscuit truffles are the real star of this hamper that we (just) managed to avoid devouring in one go.
You’ll get serious (chocolate) brownie points if you send any of these hampers. However, if you’re looking for a bumper box of choccies that looks generous, tastes great and has something for all the family, we loved the Thorntons ultimate Christmas wicker hamper. If you want to spend less but still suit everyone, you won’t go wrong with the Lindt lindor collection hamper either, especially if you’d rather not send a wicker basket.
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