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Sunday, May 29

Chocolate Mill

We've had several Daylesford daytrips and stopped at the Chocolate Mill each time. The Chocolate Mill is a small chocolate "factory" where chocolate is imported from Belgium and moulded or made into the different products at the store, or cafe. Location: 5451 Midland Hwy, Mount Franklin, Victoria (see map)

Website: official website, reviews on urbanspoon, a blog review with many lovely pictures, an entertaining post about the establishment and a description their truffles, and more lovely photos of the chocolates by a fellow Ballarat blogger!

Price: ~$5 for a mug of hot chocolate, or an iced chocolate, or an ice cream with chocolate topping, or a large slice of carrot cake. Chocolates themselves are about $1.30 each (similar to Koko Black or Max Brenner's in the city). My friends pondered on the origins of the word "chocoholics".


Hot chocolate (milk chocolate shown below): from what I remember there were four flavours, milk, dark, white and spicy dark chocolate. The hot chocolate is essentially a large chunk of melted chocolate on the bottom with the rest of the glass filled with milk. Would have liked a thicker hot chocolate but you could really taste the chocolate, which is always a good change from powdered hot chocolate. Differences between the different flavours were that milk was a little too sweet, dark was nicer, and spicy dark wasn't spicy in the sense of having a strong taste of chilli, but spicy with... well, spices (eg. cinnamon). In summary, Koko Black would still come first on my preferences for hot chocolate but these hot chocolates were better than most. Ice cream with chocolate topping (below is chocolate ice cream with spicy dark chocolate topping): there were a choice of chocolate or vanilla ice cream topped with a generous amount of chocolate (again milk, dark, white, spicy dark) and cream. The ice cream tasted good (Streets, according to my friend), and went well with the chocolate which became hard similar to the Magic Ice topping, only tastier. Another way to sample the same Belgian chocolate! Other: Seating is either under cover or outdoors on wooden benches. There is a playground there too, and my sister enjoyed sitting on the slide and just gazing into the surrounds. Some of us bought some chocolate and truffles. Quite good to give as gifts. Daily tours run at 11am and 2pm that talk about the Chocolate Mill and give demonstrations on how they mould and decorate the chocolate. Interesting to listen to the first time, but you can see chocolate making happening throughout the day even if you miss out on the tours. Rating: 4.5/5 a fun little place to visit if you're travelling to Daylesford or Hepburn Springs. Quite unique hot chocolate that we enjoyed, similar price to similar cafes in the city. Posted by bitingtravels at 11:59 PM Labels: regional vic, snacks


