Yummy Chocolate Fountain £29.99

Joints

Probably the worst idea ever. Adding vegetable oil to chocolate? Are they madd!?! I would rather eat my own throw up. When they started adding veg oil to sunny delight I thought what a bunch of f******* trying to sell kids vege oil drinks (unheard of) and giving them heart attacks and the like. I would stay away like the plague. I would rather deep fry a mars bar.

What happens if a fricken ant gets caught in the cycle hmm? Would YOU like a chocolate covered ant? I think you might. Let it cool first and become crispy mmmm yum yum!

Joints

fricken bump

stephie55

when I click on add it shows the price £49.99. Am I doing something wrong?

markj113

Joints wrote:

Probably the worst idea ever. Adding vegetable oil to chocolate? Are they madd!?! I would rather eat my own throw up. When they started adding veg oil to sunny delight I thought what a bunch of f******* trying to sell kids vege oil drinks (unheard of) and giving them heart attacks and the like. I would stay away like the plague. I would rather deep fry a mars bar.

What happens if a fricken ant gets caught in the cycle hmm? Would YOU like a chocolate covered ant? I think you might. Let it cool first and become crispy mmmm yum yum!

So you havent noticed chocolate is full of vegetable fat anyway then!!

You can also add something called "MYCRYO" instead which is a powderd form of cocoa butter or if you use a very high quality dark chocolate you wont need the oil.

Firefly

Stephie you might be looking at the wrong one. You should try to search for BELLINI BECF20 CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN as that one is half price at £29.99 whilst there is an alternative for £49.99.

This has just sorted another present out!

gromituk

Still no-one has reported on using these. Questions:

1) Will it melt the chocolate itself, or do you have to melt it in a bain-marie or the microwave first?
2) How quiet is it?
3) How well is the heat regulated - can you just leave it going for ages unattended?
4) How well does the chocolate pour - nice and evenly or does it not "curtain" well?
5) Does the base get uncomfortably hot?
6) How difficult is it to clean???

i.e. is this a real find, or an impractical gimmick you're all going to use once and then shove in the back of a cupboard for ever?

purplemoon

I was glad to see the choc pours over plastic- apparently there are some dodgy cheap ones where the coating comes off...
You can warm the chocolate in the thing- the instructions suggest this will take an hour, so I guess it can keep going for a rather long time..?
Any suggestions from where to aquire some good quality, easy melting, bargain chocolate?? Also is a kilogram of the stuff really neccesary?
(Yes cheap choc full of veg oil, cheap truffles and fondant desserts even more so. I was a bit put off by the adding oil too, but oil isn't actually all bad, and with or without oil I don't think i could eat a great deal of this).

mclaren_2

gromituk wrote:

Still no-one has reported on using these. Questions:

1) Will it melt the chocolate itself, or do you have to melt it in a bain-marie or the microwave first?
2) How quiet is it?
3) How well is the heat regulated - can you just leave it going for ages unattended?
4) How well does the chocolate pour - nice and evenly or does it not "curtain" well?
5) Does the base get uncomfortably hot?
6) How difficult is it to clean???

i.e. is this a real find, or an impractical gimmick you're all going to use once and then shove in the back of a cupboard for ever?

1) Will it melt the chocolate itself, or do you have to melt it in a bain-marie or the microwave first?

Depends, if its powdered chocolate then it will melt itsself, or buttons, then yes, if its a big bar, aslong as you chop it up in to small chunks and leave it on heat then it will be fine.

2) How quiet is it?

Very - you cant hear it over the tv, etc....

3) How well is the heat regulated - can you just leave it going for ages unattended?

Yes - it cant get any hotter than is programmed on thermostat

4) How well does the chocolate pour - nice and evenly or does it not "curtain" well?

It flows like a waterfall, depending if it is flat (the machine) and the chocolate is thin enough

5) Does the base get uncomfortably hot?

No, the bin where the chocolate goes does, thats only to be expected, its like saying is a kettle hot after making a cuppa tea. The base tho stays quite mild

6) How difficult is it to clean???

The fountain comes in to i think 6 parts and is easy to get back together again.

Hope this helps

Firefly

In answer to the question about whether or not this is just another gimmick: My guess is that it depends on what sort of entertaining you do. This isn't really the sort of thing that you bring out once a week to put on the tea table.

We like parties in our house and one of the main requests is my lovely chocolate fondue - I serve it with marshmallows, grapes, strawberries, cherries, chocolate fingers (white, dark, plain), shortbread biscuits and ice cream wafers. I see the chocolate fountain as being a similar thing. I will lend it out to friends and I am sure my daughter will have fun entertaining her friends with it too.

It will be used at Christmas but will then probably go away for a few months until the barbeque season starts! For £30 that can't be bad.

gromituk

Thanks very much for your comprehensive reply, mclaren.

The details on the website said nothing about a thermostat, so I wasn't sure if the temperature was regulated properly. Some of the expensive ones have adjustable thermostats.

I'm not sure "it comes apart into six pieces" is quite the same as "it's easy to clean" Does it have a rotating "auger" to lift the chocolate up to the top, or does it have a pump buried in the base? I could imagine a pump would be very difficult to clean.

It's difficult to know if all the warnings about the cheap devices on the eBay listings for more expensive devices have some substance to them or are just FUD. Some of my questions were based on what I read in the listings.