The sweetest part of India gets diabetic when it comes to festivals and celebrations! At times the refrigerator is not enough to store all the packets of sweets and chocolates you receive on such festive days! Bengalis love their mishti or sweet dish after every meal. That can be in any format, at least that works for me! Frankly speaking, when I receive some packets of sweets or chocolates from someone, that becomes my priced possession till the time it’s outside my tummy! I even dream of keeping those in a locker to keep them safe 🙂 Recently I felt something very similar when couple of beautiful boxes came to me for tasting and review purpose! I was elated because I knew there was something sweet inside 🙂 Jokes apart, these were the dollops of happiness designed by the amazing city bakery “Velvetiine” for the occasion of Raksha Bandhan or Rakhi (as we Bengalis call it). And when I opened up the boxes I realized these were probably the best mix of chocolates, brownies, cookies, etc that you can gift your beloved sister this Rakhi.
Let’s not go on discussing about Raksha Bandhan or about the nitty-gritty of the festival which you can easily google. Let’s discuss about this amazing hamper which I received and why you should at all spend your money to purchase this! Firstly, Velvetiine is an emerging and promising city bakery bubbling with potential, honest flavors and premium quality served in every bit of its products. They are always trying their best to serve the freshest stuff to its patrons, and till date I have only received amazing fresh products from them.
Secondly, all the products are monitored/checked here before they go out. And prepared with extra care and supervision. They are expanding slowly and still they have got the bandwidth to check each and every bit of their production process. I have been to their Tollygunge factory outlet and have visited their bakery and packaging sections. The hygiene and cleanliness maintained out there really impressed me.
Thirdly, their beautiful packaging surely is remarkable. Like in this case of Rakhi hampers, I received two boxes and both were differently built. The smaller box had chocolates in it and was packed in a hand crafted brown gift box with sparkling ribbons and all. Whereas, the larger box was pristine white in color with Velvetiine logo printed in golden.
These two boxes had items like:
Vanilla Biscotti dipped in chocolate – The box had two Vanilla Biscotti dipped in molten chocolate. These cigar shaped (well, almost!) biscotti had chocolate covering at one end and that was covered with a shower of tiny golden balls and white sprinkles. The stuff tasted nice with that hint of chocolate. And the biscotti were dry and smooth textured yet husky, pretty perfect.
Shortbread smiley – This was round shaped biscotti and was half dipped into molten chocolate and having a simple smiley decorated on it, loved the simple concept and honest flavors.
Butter Cookie – This was again a biscotti covered with molten chocolate and fondant. The overall look was pretty formal yet playful. It tasted really good as it had a complete covering which other items tasted till now didn’t have.
Fudgy Brownie – This was clearly the star item in this gift hamper. The rich, dense and fudgy brownies with crinkly tops simply amazed my taste buds. Overall it was super soft and mildly sweet with a mildly fudgy core, not overtly chocolaty. I absolutely loved it, and I must say this should be ordered every time you are ordering from this place.
Assorted Chocolates – As already said, the other box had assorted chocolates, mainly the Blueberry and cream cheese ones. They had nuts and almonds in them and were very dense, dark and something you can’t ignore. It somewhat resembles the homemade chocolates I had last tasted in Munnar, where they have abundant cocoa tree plantations.
And yes, the box had a rakhi made out of fondant, which added more meaning and sweetness to this box.
So, we have covered all the items which were there in my Rakhi hamper! All of these were nice and especially the fudgy brownie which absolutely impressed me. So I can safely go ahead and recommend this to my friends and family. Hope this review has given you an idea and has helped you to decide if these will fit into your needs and preferences.
Thanks a lot for reading this blog post and for following my blog. Happy Raksha Bandhan to each and every one of you and hope these sweet treats will make the festival even more memorable for you!
Cheers!
P.S. Thanks to Shraddha and Oendrila for the invitation.
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