It's that time of year, with Father's Day approaching, when Toblerone are sold with a special sleeve that reads 'To My Dad' in the same style font as the underlying Toblerone logo. A cute sales ploy, and one that surely increases their sales. Indeed with the 400g variety currently being on offer at Sainsbury's it seemed like an ideal gift for me and my girlfriend to buy for our fathers.

Bad idea to buy them before the double bank holiday weekend, though. There now lies two empty Toblerone boxes on the floor, with a total of 800g less chocolate inside them.

Toblerone (original), for anyone who doen't know, is a Swiss milk chocolate, with honey and almond nougat. The nougat is special in Toblerone because it has a kind of crunchy, sweet and sticky quality about it. It gets stuck in your teeth, and leaves you with an urge to eat more. The urge is only overcome either when the sickly sweet chocolate becomes too much for you, and you are on the verge on vomiting, or the Toblerone bar runs out.

One of the big selling factors, which has made it popular over many years, is that it is one of the few chocolate bars which is triangular in shape. It comes in a long bar of triangular pieces, joined along the base, which you break off to leave you with indiviual triangular portions.


**- History of Toblerone -**
In 1867, Jean Tobler opened his first store in Bern, Switzerland. By 1899, there was such a demand for Tobler's products that he opened his own factory with his sons, and formed the "Fabrique de Chocolat Berne, Tobler & Cie".

It wasn't until 1908 that Toblerone was born. One of Jean Tobler's sons (Theodor), and the production manager, together came up with the unique recipe and triangular shape. The word 'torrone' is Italian for honey-almond nougat, and they incorporated this word with Tobler to come up with Toblerone.

In 1909, Toblerone became the
first chocolate to be patented with honey and almonds.

Over the years, the logo on the Toblerone bar has changed from an eagle, to a bear (Bern's heraldic symbol), back to an eagle, then the Matterhorn. Today, you can see the Matterhorn with a cleverly disguised bear, on the front of the box.

1969, and the dark chocolate Toblerone in a black box becomes available for the first time. This is followed in 1973 by the white chocolate variety in a white box. It wasn't until 1996 that the first 'filled' Toblerone bar became available, in a blue and white box (which strangely I've never tried - that'll be my next purchase I think!).

For more information on Toblerone, you can go to www.toblerone.com . You will also find some great recipes on the site which incorporate Toblerone. These include Chocolate Mousse, White Mousse, Truffles and Fondue ideas. Alternatively, if you live in the UK you can freephone 0808 1000 757, or you can email toblerone@krafteurope.com . Yes, that's right 'kraft' - rather disturbingly I've just seen the Kraft logo on the box, too. I've always associated them with making cheese, not chocolate!!



It seems that it's kind of the done thing on dooyoo to list the ingredients, so here goes: sugar, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, cocoa mass, lactose, honey (3%), milk fat, almonds (1.6%), emulsifier (soya Lecithin), glusoce syrup, egg white, flavouring (vanillin). Milk chocolate contains: Cocoa Solids (28% minimum), Milk Solids (14% minimum). And now in French: sucre, beurre de cacao... just kidding!

Prices:
100g Toblerone = £0.95
200g Toblerone = £1.79
400g Toblerone = £2.38

So, why not treat your Dad (or yourself) to a tasty triangular Toblerone this Father's Day?!!