Before my eldest daughter broke up for the recent half term, a letter came home explaining that after the holidays they would be learning all about chocolate. She is only in class 2 so I assumed they would most likely be learning about how it's made, how it melts and can be made into different shapes, so I thought during the holiday it would be good to do some activities with chocolate at home. When I offered to do this with her, she excitedly told me she had seen an advert on the TV for a chocolate coin maker and pretty please with a cherry on the top could we get it?! I set to work looking for said chocolate coin maker and soon came across the John Adams one. We have lots of experience of John Adams sets, some good, some not so good, but I decided to take the plunge and pay the £12 to buy it (RRP £14.99).

In preparation for the chocolate coin makers arrival, I stocked up on lots of chocolate buttons which were recommended to use, plus coloured buttons from the baking aisle in the supermarket, so we could experiment with orange and strawberry flavoured chocolate for something a little different.

The chocolate maker is described as a little mini factory which comes with a melting unit, moulds and lids, gold foil sheets and embossing discs. To use it is a fairly long process, you melt the chocolate in the melting unit with warm water. I can see why it recommends warm, as obviously young children and boiling water don't mix, but this process is painfully slow. You place the circular moulds into the unit and then place the chocolate buttons into the moulds to begin the melting process. Once it has melted you place a lid on top of the coin and then put in either your fridge or your freezer. If you have the time to wait I would recommend putting in your fridge but this can take 40 minutes to set, whereas it will set in around 20 minutes in the freezer. While you are waiting for the coins, you can take the opportunity to make the foils. Once the foils are on the coin you can emboss the foils to any of 20 messages or pictures including Happy Birthday, Good Luck, Best Mum, Merry Christmas, or pictures of a football or smiley face. You can also make your own design with the tools provided. It is slow to make the chocolate, etc but once the sets are in the fridge/freezer you are playing a waiting game. You are able to buy add on packs which include extra moulds but I thought this was just a rip off to be honest.

The gold foil that comes with the set, really isn't enough to make more than a handful of coins and after this you will need to buy some more, which I wasn't particularly happy about. Luckily it works well with standard kitchen foil, but I still wasn't impressed by the small amount of foil supplied.

So my thoughts on the set? We didn't particularly like it. I found it fiddly and a bit of a nuisance to be honest and after the first time we used it I went online and bought some chocolate lolly moulds and some lolly sticks. We had much more fun making chocolate moustaches on a lolly stick and sticking all kinds of colours in. I was able to heat the chocolate at much higher temperatures and help my daughter to pour the chocolate in and decorate them. If you plan on making anything chocolaty with your child, I would recommend making lolly's at home yourself as opposed to buying this machine. It will be going to the charity shop at the earliest convenience.