Philadelphia with Cadbury - Choccy Philly!

This week I was invited to the launch of the new Philadelphia Flavour. It was all top secret before I got there and I had no idea what to expect, honestly I thought it would be another savoury flavour. We've recently been eating and loving the Sweet Chilli one.

So Isla and I set off to London to go and meet everyone and find out what it was all about. The location for the launch was fantastic and on reflection was a slight clue to the unusual new flavour to hit the Philadelphia range. It was at Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum in the heart of Piccadilly Circus. I've not been to Piccadilly Circus in ages and I'd not heard of Ripley's, but its a brilliant museum full of exhibits, some unbelievable, some extraordinary and others unusual.

When we were shown into the room where the launch was taking place, all was revealed and you should have seen Isla's face. It was almost wall to wall chocolate! There were digestives with Choccy Philly on, Brioche with Choccy Philly, Choccy Philly with Strawberries, Choccy Philly on rice cakes, croissants etc etc. It was everywhere and I couldn't stop Isla from sticking her finger in it wherever she could (sorry everyone)!! As she was the only little one there at the time, she was in danger of stealing the limelight from the Choccy Philly, the photographer kept snapping away at her and for once she was getting really into having her photo taken, unlike when I try to take a snap of her!



Mmmm which one shall I eat next.....

What did we think? Isla loved it. Rather too much. The fact that it is a cheese/chocolate combo would never even occur to her as she's too young and I think that just shows if you have no notions about combining the two then you won't even hesitate to try it. For some people though the very idea is a turn off but let me tell you, it's only really like cheesecake. To me it tasted delicious and the idea was mentioned about using it as a cake frosting which really makes sense. It's got a great consistency and would be perfect for that. I also think that it does give a good hit of chocolate, so say when you haven't got any Dairy Milk in the house, Choccy Philly on toast would be good.
After a while I decided that Isla had lingered around the chocolate for long enough we went off to explore Ripley's except by that time she was tired and had caught sight of a moving dinosaur exhibit that scared her enough to want to go home. So we whizzed round really quickly and I caught sight of two things that really interested me:


Made with gumballs!

Piece of the Berlin wall

 Our verdict is that it was delicious! Thank you for inviting us, we had a great time!

The facts: At 86 Calories per serving, Philadelphia with Cadbury is less than half the fat and has less sugar than many other chocolate spreads. It is available from this month in the shops and is £1.62 per 160g tub. Packs of 4 mini tubs are also available. It is a refrigerated product unlike other chocolate spreads.

Philly Local Heroes - Delicious Recipes using Philadelphia

I recently got invited to a ‘Cook-Along’ with TV Chef Ed Baines in conjunction with Philadelphia. The cook along was to launch the new Advertising campaign running at the moment with the 'Philly Local Heroes' - 10 cooking enthusiasts who were lucky enough to have their delicious recipes selected to be part of the campaign for Philadelphia. All the recipes were to include Philadelphia in some way.

Ed was very charming and filled us in on his chef roots. He started his career at The Dorchester and from there went on to work at The River Café and was also head chef at Daphne’s for 3 years. He regaled us with stories ladies who lunch (some who carry washing up liquid in their handbags specifically for the purpose of ruining the remainder of their lunch so they can’t consume too much!) and how one of the restaurants he worked in their only water supply was mineral water – no London tap water was to be used in the making of any food! Ed is now fronting this campaign for Philadelphia.


Getting Stuck into the cooking

While we were chatting we also got down to the business of cooking our lunch and we started by making Philly Leek Rissotto, a recipe submitted by Natalie Kelly from London. I got chatting to Natalie before the session started and it was really interesting because she is a Doula and so a lot of her receipes are given to the mums to be/ new mums that she looks after. Everyone played a part in preparing the meal, and Ed showed us all how to finely chop an onion (leaving the root intact is the key!) and how to butterfly a chicken breast.

The Risotto was to be our starter, there were another 2 delicious recipes to make! We all then went on to make our own Philly Herb Chicken - we each had our own chicken breast that we sliced down the side and added Light Philadelphia with Spring Onion & Black Pepper to the middle, we folded it back over to seal it back up. On some foil we placed mange tout, baby corn and baby carrots and the placed the chicken on top, seasoned with some olive oil, salt, pepper and parsley and then wrapped the chicken up in a parcel.

In the time it took for the chicken to cook (200C for 25 mins) we sat down to scoff the Rissotto - it was delicious! The Philadelphia gave it such a lovely smooth and creamy flavour. Next we moved on to eating the chicken and it was again really tasty! Both recipes showed how versatile a product Philadelphia is - before trying these recipes my use of Philadelphia was limited to spreading it on toast - I'd never considered other ways it could be used. Check out all the recipes on the Philly website to see other yummy ways to use it. I agree with Ed when he says 'it can transform everyday ingredients into mouth-watering dishes the whole family will love' - I'm always looking to find quick fixes to make good tasting food and I think these recipes fit the bill!

For dessert we had Philly Meringues and they were as delicious as they looked!

On the day I got to meet some other lovely bloggers (Jo from Given to Distracting Others) and Tina from one of my favourite parenting websites Loved by Parents - we're both expecting a baby around the same time this summer, here we are with our bumps...with Ed Baines

We all had a great experience on the day and I for one learnt a few tips and tricks and hope that the recipes I've been given as part of the Philly Local Heroes campaign become family favourites in our house.

I'll be posting my attempt at the Philly recipes soon.....