There’s no better stocking filler than chocolate, and these are our favourite gifts from chocolatiers big and small.
Giving hampers, cheese, jewellery, art prints, vases, books, beauty and fitness finds as Christmas presents is all well and good. But the one thing everyone wants over the festive season is some really good chocolate – making it the perfect way to add a little something extra to people’s gifts.
After all, when the presents have been opened, lunch has been eaten and everyone is curled up on the sofa watching Christmas Day telly, we all love a bit of chocolate to keep the festive joy going.
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And there’s no shortage of incredible chocolate to choose from this year. For go-to family boxes, try Pierre Marcolini, Farhi and Green & Black’s. Yard, Brik and Cartografie Chocolate are our favourites for artisan delights that make excellent stocking fillers. Throw in Paul’s Christmas yule logs, Exploding Bakery’s letterbox brownies and virtual tastings from Melt London and there’s something for every chocolate taste.
We’ve even found vegan hampers, CBD chocolate and bars that give back to the rainforest. So read on to find the perfect chocolate to gift this Christmas…
Läderach Barry Milk Chocolate With Santa Hat
Best chocolate for Christmas: Läderach Barry Milk Chocolate With Santa Hat With a creamy filling of the finest hazelnut gianduja, Barry the Saint Bernard is a true festive chocolate joy. Covered in the best Swiss milk and white chocolates, with a red Santa hat, made of marzipan, atop his head to give a little Christmas flair.
Russell & Atwell Golden Monty Trio
Best chocolate gifts: Russell & Atwell Golden Monty Trio Russell & Atwell are all about fresh chocolates you keep in the fridge and their wide-ranging selection is the perfect gateway to their addictive wares.
Their Golden Monty trio features salted caramel, outrageously creamy milk and ridiculously smooth dark – the perfect combination for any sweet tooth.
Montezuma’s Twinkle Twinkle Christmas Boxset
Best chocolate Christmas gifts: Montezuma’s Twinkle Twinkle Christmas Boxset Perfect as a stocking filler or a present for your Secret Santa, Montezuma’s delicious Twinkle Twinkle gift box contains milk chocolate buttons, peanut butter snowballs, milk chocolate mandarin snowmen, Christmas grand truffle carton, and a Fitzroy bar.
Elephant Gin Sloe Gin Chocolates
Best chocolates for Christmas: Elephant Sloe Gin Chocolate Set For fans of boozy treats, the new handcrafted Sloe Gin Chocolate Bundle combines Elephant Sloe Gin and creamy chocolate is a match made in heaven to create their very own artisanal sloe gin chocolates.
Each chocolate includes a double layer of meringue containing a melting heart of chocolate cream flavoured with Elephant Gin’s very own award-winning Sloe Gin and coated in the finest extra dark chocolate. Yum.
Baileys Chocolate Gift Set
Best chocolate gifts: Baileys Chocolate Gift Set What’s Christmas without Baileys? Pick between indulgent original truffles and a mix of milk, dark and white truffles, coffee, caramel, and almond flavours that are perfect for sharing with family and friends after Christmas dinner.
Simon Coll Chocolate Sardines
Best chocolate for Christmas: Chocolate sardines from Brindisa Created by Simon Coll, a chocolatier family business founded in 1840 in Catalonia, these chocolate sardines are described as excellent for children – but we’d like some ourselves please, Santa.
Exploding Bakery Letterbox Brownies
Best chocolate for Christmas: Letterbox brownies from Exploding Bakery Salted caramel, hazelnut, sour cherry… show someone just how much you miss them with a tray of incredible brownies from Exploding Bakery.
Cartografie Collection Chocolate Selection
Best chocolate for Christmas: Cartografie Collection at Cartografie Female-founded chocolatiers Cartografie create single origin couvertures filled with a bespoke ganache; this is the gift to make someone’s Christmas.
Apothem x Land CBD Chocolate Bar
Best chocolate for Christmas: CBD bar from Apothem x Land CBD Apothem Labs has collaborated with award-winning Hackney-based brand Land to create a vegan-friendly chocolate bar blended with CBD. Genius.
Shop Apothem x Land Vegan CBD 58% Chocolate Bar at Apothem Labs, £8
Doisy & Dam Chocolate Package Of Joy
Best chocolate for Christmas: Chocolate Package Of Joy from Doisy & Dam Palm oil-free, vegan and ethically sourced, this colourful package contains four delicious dark chocolate bars, two packets of nut butter cups and a snack pack of sugar-coated chocolate drops. Yum.
Lucocoa Cosy Collection Chocolate Bars
Best chocolate for Christmas: Cosy Collection at Lucocoa London’s first bean-to-bar chocolate maker has created a limited edition range of 60% Haiti dark chocolate with festive tasting notes: think fig, cinnamon, nutmeg and orange.
Positive Bakes Christmas Gift Set
Best chocolate for Christmas: Christmas gift set from Positive Bakes Sustainable, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free and eggless, make someone’s Christmas with this little box of cake, chocolates, tea and a card.
Love Cocoa Gingerbread Christmas Bar
Best chocolate for Christmas: Gingerbread Christmas Bar from Love Cocoa For every bar bought, Love Cocoa will plant a tree in North Cameroon – plus it’s a festive delight of spices.
Pierre Marcolini Box of 8 Demi-Lunes
Best chocolate for Christmas: Box of 8 Demi-Lunes from Pierre Marcolini For utterly beautiful chocolates to blow away the recipient, you can’t go wrong with this box of four praline and gianduja bitesize bits.
Chococo Chocolate Salami
Best chocolate for Christmas: Chocolate Salami from Chococo Made with 67% Madagascar origin dark chocolate, figs, dates, apricots, pecans, pistachios and brandy, this cheeky chocolate salami is a really fun present.
Brik Matcha and Raspberry Terrazzo Chocolate Tile
Best chocolate for Christmas: Matcha and Raspberry Terrazzo Chocolate Tile from Brik Creating incredible flavours and wonderful designs, Brik is a grown-up Wonka Chocolate Factory. This matcha and raspberry terrazzo chocolate tile is a stocking filler with attitude.
Shop matcha and raspberry terrazzo chocolate tile at Brik, £9.95
Islands 65% Dark Premium Chocolate Buttons
Best chocolate for Christmas: 65% Dark Premium Chocolate Buttons from Islands For grown-up chocolate buttons, Islands create sustainable brilliant chocolate. This is their favourite flavour with notes of citrus and banana.
Paul Chocolate Yule Log
Best chocolate for Christmas: Chocolate Yule Log from PAUL The perfect post-dinner pudding, Paul’s chocolate yule log is filled with 60% dark chocolate mousse and cocoa joconde biscuit.
Farhi Dark Chocolate Ginger in Bonbonnière
Best chocolate for Christmas: Dark Chocolate Ginger in Bonbonnière from Farhi Farhi’s bonbonnières are so gorgeous you don’t need to wrap them – making them the perfect present. Choose from dark chocolate ginger to coffee beans and raisins.
Melt London Virtual Chocolate Tasting
Best chocolate for Christmas: Virtual Chocolate Tasting from Melt London Gather friends and family for a chocolate tasting and Melt will send you chocolates from Madagascar, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and the Bolivian Amazon. Email office@meltchocolates.com to find the best time.
Biscuiteers Little Box of Christmas Chocolate
Best chocolate for Christmas: Little Box of Christmas Chocolate from Biscuiteers These perfectly formed chocolates arrive beautifully presented and make for the most welcome of gifts.
Shop Little Box of Christmas Chocolate at Biscuiteers, £11.95
Liberty London Heritage Salted Caramel Chocolate Bar
Best chocolate for Christmas: Heritage Salted Caramel Chocolate Bar from Liberty London The packaging is so gorgeous you won’t want to open this bar of sea salt caramel; somehow you’ll work through it though.
Shop Liberty Heritage salted caramel chocolate bar at Liberty London, £7.95
Feya Truffles Assortment
Best chocolate for Christmas: Feya Truffles Assortment Feya is all about celebrating women and this box of delicately illustrated truffles is the perfect gift for your best friend. Flavours include gooey salted caramel, rose and raspberry and caramelised orange.
Cool Earth Asháninka Chocolate
Best chocolate for Christmas: Asháninka Chocolate from Cool Earth Perfect for eco-minded friends, this fairly traded vegan chocolate is grown, harvested and fermented by Cool Earth’s Asháninka partners in Peru then made in Cornwall by Chocolarder.
Tony's Chocolonely Dark Chocolate with Candy Cane
Best chocolate for Christmas: Dark Chocolate with Candy Cane from Tony's Chocolonely 51% dark chocolate with mint candy cane equals Christmas in a (sustainable and recyclable) wrapper.
Shop Tony’s Chocolonely dark chocolate with candy cane at Vegan Drop, £4.05
Play In Choc ToyChoc Box
Best chocolate for Christmas: ToyChoc Box from Play In Choc With six organic chocolates each with a 3D puzzle toy and fact sheet, this is the perfect gift for small chocolate lovers in your life.
Simply Cake Co Mix A Mug
Best chocolate for Christmas: Mix A Mug from Simply Cake Co Customise this gift set with a special message and send two Mix A Mug brownies which people can make in just 60 seconds.
Wickedly Welsh 'Cymru am Byth' Dark Chocolate Dragon
Best chocolate for Christmas: 'Cymru am Byth' Dark Chocolate Dragon from Wickedly Welsh A hand-decorated Welsh dragon and chocolate bar – you know someone who’d love this.
Shop ‘Cymru am Byth’ dark chocolate dragon at Wickedly Welsh, £3.99
The Chocolatier Salted Peanut Butter Chocolate Truffles
Best chocolate for Christmas: Salted Peanut Butter Chocolate Truffles from The Chocolatier Roasted peanut butter marbled with smooth Ecuadorian chocolate and sea salt from fine chocolate creator The Chocolatier.
Shop salted peanut butter chocolate truffles at The Chocolatier, £10
Green & Black’s Chocolate Club Subscription
Best chocolate for Christmas: Chocolate Club subscription from Green & Black’s Two bars of chocolate for six months dropping through the letterbox. That’s essentially all we need.
Bare Bones Chocolate Salted White Chocolate
Best chocolate for Christmas: Salted White Chocolate from Bare Bones Chocolate A special Christmas edition bar made with organic cocoa butter and stoneground with the finest Maldon sea salt, this tastes of butterscotch, rum and raisin.Lily O'Brien’s Chocolate Desserts Collection
Best chocolate for Christmas: Chocolate Desserts Collection from Lily O'Brien’s The best all-round chocolate gift for family, this has a delightful mix of hazelnut torte, lemon posset, banoffee pie, crème brûlée, raspberry infusion and key lime pie.
Shop Lily O’Brien’s Chocolate Desserts Collection at Waitrose, £6
Charbonnel Et Walker Pink Champagne Truffles
Best chocolate for Christmas: Pink Champagne Truffles from Charbonnel Et Walker Buy for Christmas, eat on New Year’s Eve… The iconic Charbonnel Et Walker chocolates are always a winning gift.
Shop Charbonnel Et Walker pink champagne truffles at Amazon, £15
Images: courtesy of retailers
Francesca Brown
Francesca Brown is books editor for Stylist magazine and Stylist Loves; she also compiles the Style List on a weekly basis. She is a self-confessed HBO abuser and has a wide selection of grey sweatshirts. Honestly, you just can’t have enough. @franabouttown