John Adams Chocolate Lolly Maker Review
Reviewed by Alexis Randall
Another rainy day is England provided the opportunity to use the John Adams Chocolate Maker, much to the excitement of my 6-year-old son, who practically goes supersonic at the thought of anything chocolate. Armed with some clear instructions we washed our hands, wiped down the table and got started. Everything came well packed with individual bags for the different parts making it easy to see what needed to go where. All you need is provided to get you started with the exception of the chocolate. The manufacturer recommends chocolate buttons or something of a similar size and this is because of the “melting pot” they provide being particularly small. The plastic pot they provide is a screw top affair that you fill with warm water and then wait for the chocolate to melt. Sadly, this doesn’t work as well as I would wish, the water goes cold before the chocolate has melted and I found myself trying not to lose the chocolate I had partially melted whilst filling it up with warm water again. We ended up melting the chocolate in a glass bowl over a saucepan of water to speed up the process.
The moulds were of a decent size and design, they are silicone and very easy to use. We had 4 moulds which were in the shape of a rabbit, a horse, a heart and a flower. Simply insert the plastic stick through a hole in the bottom of the mould and pour/scoop in the melted chocolate. It’s worth noting that you need to leave enough of the stick poking out to go in the lolly wrapping machine later. We didn’t, learning as we went along and ended up having to partly wrap them by hand at the end.
Once filled, they go in the fridge or freezer to partially set and you are given the option to stamps some messages into the chocolate before leaving to set. The messages are simple but fun, such as “smile” or “I love you”. When they have set you remove the mould and place them into the wrapping machine. The moulds were really easy to remove and didn’t stick at all. You turn the wheel at the bottom of the wrapping machine and it wraps the plastic at the bottom of the lolly which you then secure with the provided ribbon. This would have been a simple task had we known how much stick to leave protruding from the chocolate. The whole process including the freezing took around 40 minutes, once completed all of the parts were easy to clean as well with just a little soap and hot water.
We would definitely use the product again as it’s very easy to use and the process would be even quicker now we know what to do. I love how it taught my son about the process of chocolate melting and setting and he really enjoyed the different shape moulds. My 13-year-old twin girls also got in on the action and had as much fun as he did! In conclusion though I wouldn’t recommend this product to others. I can see how it would have its uses once you’ve finished the lolly, I’m sure my kids would have hours of fun making them for their friends or for a party bag perhaps, but overall I feel it’s expensive for what it is and would be better value if it could be bought for around £10 instead of around £18.
Rating: 3/5
RRP: £21.99
For more information visit www.johnadams.co.uk. Available to buy from Amazon here.
