I’ve found my dream Easter egg. There’s 1kg, yes KG of chocolate in the Thornton’s Marvellously Magnificent Milk Egg and it’s on sale for £15.00 when it was originally £25.00. I might have left it till the last minute to do Easter egg shopping but at least I get to take advantage of this £10 discount.

• Click here to pig out this Easter with Thorntons*

Buying an Easter egg as a gift for someone special? Thorntons don't include invoices in their orders, so you can have it delivered direct. What’s more, while I can’t find the actual deal details, when I put three Easter eggs into my basket the delivery charge of £3.95 was removed so they’ll be delivered FREE, yippee!

Thorntons also offer gift a wrapping service, with a choice of organaza or paper wrap to suit any occasion or how about adding a personalised message to make it an extra special gift? It's free, and you might just make somebody's day.

1kg worth of Thorntons delicious milk chocolate, this is a fantastic Easter gift to send to a loved one, or to indulge in yourself. The Easter Bunny is on his way!

Use this Thorntons promotional code to treat Mum to some yummy chocolates on Mother’s day. This promotional code gets you 15% off any online order from Thorntons, the delicious chocolate makers. I found this promotional code at www.promotionalcodes.org.uk.

• Click here to use your Thorntons promotional code

•     Discount: 15% off all orders
•     Promotional code: MDAY
•     Expires: Unknown

To take advantage of this promotional code for Mother’s Day, a birthday or any other occasion use the link above to take you to the awesome Thorntons site. Select a personalised chocolate from their yummy range for mum or a friend. Add it to your basket, use the promotional code MDAY at the checkout and away you go!

I used the code to get mum a box of alphabet chocolates. I found them under the Mother’s Day collection and they’re so cute. They come as three rows of square shaped chocolates in a box and you can put whatever messages you want on them, you can even put smiley faces on them. It’s a really cool gift idea.

Thanks to promotionalcodes.org.uk!

Use this Thorntons chocolate promotional discount code to get 15% off your order. Now if you're a chocolate lover that code will have you salivating.  Yum yum yum. But it also has potential for gift giving, with Valentine's Day on the horizon.

Click here to use your Thorntons chocolate promotional code*

• Discount: 20%
• Promotional code: VAEB
• Expires: 4th February 2013

To use the code, go to the checkout page and enter it in the promotional code box. It will immediately tell you if the code has been accepted and what you get.

If your other half likes chocolate, then this could be a particularly tasty present for Valentine's Day. You can pick something from their range, or from the sale section - this is divided by price. Handy if you're a bit strapped for cash.

Or, if you want to splash out there's their Gifts for Valentine's Day section. To be honest I think most of the stuff in here is a bit overpriced. I'd rather not pay a premium just for something that is heart shaped. But I thought the Alphabet Truffles, £14.99 for 22, were quite sweet. You can spell out a message on the buttery truffles.

Thanks to summumat HUKD!

When I first discovered the Thorntons British Classics range of chocolates I really wasn’t sure about the idea. Lemon Meringue chocolate? Yuck. Then I had some and it was amazing and I had to, literally, eat my words. So I wasn’t that averse to trying out the Bakewell Tart version that was given to me the other day.

These dark and tasty looking squares of chocolate look very innocent wrapped in their £1.89 box but if you’re on a diet, contemplating a diet, or ever plan to have a diet One Day, don’t open this box. If you do, you will forever dream of this utterly divine chocolate and all diets shall become immeasurably harder. It took us all by surprise.

Yes, there were three of us handed a plate of the Thorntons Bakewell Tart Chocolate and all three of us immediately took some more, and then a bit more, and then one of us distracted the Thorntons staff while the others took even more. It is that tasty. What makes this particular British Classics flavour so good is that it tastes exactly like Bakewell Tart.

Unlike some flavoured chocolates or foods that hint at the flavour of origin, this particular chocolate tastes spot on. Perfect Bakewell Tart taste with a chocolate texture. It’s odd, tasty and divine. And the price is rather awesome too, let’s face it. You get 80g for a great price and if you amble there now, at the time of writing, they have a three for £5 offer running so you save even more.

Honestly, of all the British Classics flavours from Thorntons, the Bakewell Tart is my favourite, although I wouldn’t say no to the Eton Mess.

From 14-20 May 2012, Thorntons is giving away free chocolates with no gluten containing ingredients. These free chocolates are available at all stores nationwide and are part of their celebration of Coeliac Awareness Week.

• Click here to find out more about free chocolates from Thorntons

Simply pop into your local Thorntons store, tell them you are celebrating Coeliac Awareness Week and you get your delicious free chocolate. Thorntons has partnered with leading charity Coeliac UK to generate awareness of the disease.

The free chocolates have no gluten containing ingredients and so can be enjoyed by those who need to stick to a gluten-free diet. The charity works with people who suffer from coeliac disease and helps to improve their lives through support, campaigning and research.

You can even get in there with a chance to win a box of Thortons Continental chocolates by visiting the Coeliac website here.

So there you go, you get to try out a gluten-free chocolate bar for free in support of something that, well, makes a difference.

It is hard to review chocolate because everybody is different. Some think that anything less than 70% cocoa is not chocolate, others believe that it can only be made in Belgium, and others think it is not allowed to be flavoured. I believe that if it tastes nice, then I love it.

When I decided to review the Thorntons Easter Range I got one very unusual Easter egg that has actually taken over this review. It was the Lemon Meringue Pie egg. Yes, you read that right. This chocolate egg is part of their Great British Puds range, it costs £14.99 and you can also choose Eton Mess Egg or Banoffee Pie Egg if you prefer.

The Lemon Meringue Egg had this sort of ruffled up area in the front that had us poking it nervously, sadly the post had killed it a bit and it looked nothing like the photo anymore. None of us wanted to be the first to eat it. I bravely stepped in and took a chunk and OH EM G it was GOOD. The entire egg – all 425g of it – was gone in two hours. We all hoovered it down and could not stop. The end of the night saw us all lying on sofas and groaning.

This egg was an unexpected treat. It tasted very creamy and light, and yet it still managed to throw a little lemon meringue in there without being overly sweet and icky. The chocolate was smooth and that special kind of white chocolate silky I love, and the funny bit in the front was this utterly divine chewy lemon curd style decoration that we actually fought over.

While the Lemon Meringue Pie Egg is not online at the moment, it may be sold out, you can get the other two flavours that I am willing to bet taste just as good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there is a Banoffee Pie Egg with my name on it…

Ah. Chocolate. What’s not to love? And when it’s really good chocolate too, well, it’s almost unfair to expect a balanced review, really, because there’s not too much bad in good chocolate, you know?

One of the definite perks of this job, however, is getting to test out fun and yum products like these, so here’s what I thought about the Thorntons Mother’s Day Chocolate range.

Starting at the top, price wise, is the Thorntons pretty-in-pink Mother’s Day Collection (£9.99). “Perfect for the chocoholic mum,” says Thornton’s, “the collection is filled with all her favourite centres including truffles, mousses and pralines, all smothered in milk, white and dark chocolates.”

These are delicious. The pralines are smooth, the mousses are rich and the truffles are… truffle-ish.  There are milk, dark and white chocolate options, and there’s a fantastic range of fillings, from lemon mouse to toffee truffle, strawberry crush and various coffee flavours too.

My view is that if you're going to say anything on Valentine's Day say it with chocolates. Well that might just be me, but I can't be the only person who loves nothing more than cuddling up with a chocolatey treat?

Personally I think that all chocolates are pretty much right for Valentine's Day, you don't actually need to make a special range with that as the theme. Especially if you're a chocoletier named Thorntons. But no. It would seem that not satisfied with making some of the most delicious chocolate treats known to mankind, they also have to make some stuff specially for this one particular day of the year.

I received three items from the range for review, and I have to say I gave them a thorough testing! What I found interesting is that these are not expensive sweets or chocolates. In fact, they were all priced at less than a fiver. A nice way perhaps to add that little bit extra to your day when you're on a budget.

Click here to read more...

What would you do if someone dropped a bag of chocolate on your doorstep? A seriously big bag of chocolate? And not just any chocolate but Thornton's chocolate. Oh yes, it really did feel like Christmas had come early in my house this year.

As I waddled over to the computer, I did wonder at the wisdom of eating it all by myself. But who would share their scrummy chocolate? OK so I didn't really eat it all, but oh boy, it would have been tempting.

Thorntons has a range of chocolates specially aimed at Christmas shopper. I felt obliged to get some of these in for review, so I could test them for your benefit. Honestly, the trials we go through here at PlayPennies, just for you dear reader.

Here's how the tests went, so you can work out for yourself which tasty treats are worth spending your cash on, and which you should avoid.

Click here to read more...

Oooh, now this is a very tasty deal from Thorntons. You get to choose from a nice range of delicious choccies that are part of a buy one get one free deal plus you can then shave an extra 10% off the final price using the voucher code below.

• Click here to get chocolately with Thorntons

The BOGOF collection includes things like the milk, dark & white summer collection, the continental milk collection, the classic collection, assorted toffees, fudge boxes, and classic dark collections. There are some nice options here that will do you very well for presents.

Instead of spending £22 on an enormous box of delicious chocolates you can spend £10.99 for two of the same box and then take another 10% off with the code WR10 and save a lot of lovely cash. It’s ace. I really hope that you aren’t on diet though, this deal is almost worth breaking dieting ranks for.

They also have specials on Father’s Day choccies for half price so take a peek at those while you’re on the site too.

Thanks to godofwar7 at HUKD!

Use this Thorntons promotional code to get 20% off and a reduced delivery of £1.95. Great news for all choccie lovers. And even better, I tested it out on a sale item and the code worked.

Click here to use your Thorntons promotional code

• Discount: 20% and £1.95 delivery
• Promotional code: AF48
• Expires: 30th May 2011

To use this code, go to checkout. You will need to login, or you can use the secure checkout. Enter it in the Promotional Code box, which is tucked away at the bottom of the screen.

I tested it out on an item from the gift section, on A Taste Of Thorntons, which had been reduced from £30 to £18. The code took £3.60 off this, taking it down to £14.40. Don't forget delivery is reduced with this code too, to £1.95.

Thorntons make some yummy choccies. They're one of my faves. I'd not hesitate to give some as a present either. So this code may well come in handy.

Thanks to missgem at HUKD!

Thorntons are selling selected Mother’s Day treats at half price right now so if you are still trying to think of something lovely to get mum this year, this is the place to go. The range of Mother’s Day gifts start at £5.49.

• Click here to get chocolatey with Thorntons

Half price chocolate deals at Thorntons include a treat for mum bouquet that is made up of an indulgent selection of Thorntons chocolates and stunning flowers. This is down from £50 to £25. There is also a package called Mum’s Delight that consists of a selection of chocolates to the value of £40.96 but is selling for only £20.

I am surprised they are selling Mother’s Day chocolates at half price already, considering that the day hasn’t happened yet, but who am I to look a gift horse in the eye. If those two collections are a bit pricey for you, then take a look at the chocolate heart box for £6.99, or the continental milk collection for £5.49 instead.

There are only six items in the Thorntons Mother’s Day sale, but they are all really good value for money.

Thanks to jenine01 at HUKD!

It is Mothering Sunday, increasingly referred to as Mother's Day, on the 3rd of April in the UK. Which is roughly just over three weeks away. So you've got plenty of time to get prepared. But if you're wanting to snap up any bargain gifts, now is the time to go shopping.

Here I've drawn on the collective expertise of the PlayPennies' parents to gather together some fabulous ideas for Mother's Day gifts, priced at a fiver or less.

1 Card And Gift

This is really cute. I love it. The Mother's Day Ask Your Dad Door Hanger Card is a Mother's Day card and a gift all in one. And a gift you can use all year round. On the outside it tells the kids to go find Dad (I am paraphrasing just a tad) and on the inside it says 'have a relaxing day'.

The Ask your dad door hanger card is sold by Marks & Spencer and can be bought for the princely sum of £2.25.

Over at the PaperChase, they have the perfect get-out-of-buying-a-present-altogether card. It's the No Gift Card. But it is better than it sounds. The card actually says 'No Gift To My Mother Can Equal The Gift She Gave Me'. Awww how sweet is that?

2 Chocolate

Thornton's chocolates. Delicious. This little package of I Love Mum Cups simply says I Love Mum. They're milk chocolate truffle cups. The pack contains five chocolates. It costs £2.99.

Something simple, sweet and unfussy. Try this chocolate bar from John Lewis. It is the Ambassadors of London 'Happy Mother's Day' Chocolate bar for £4.

Or you could add that personal touch. At Not On The High Street they're selling personalised Best Mum chocolate bars. You can choose from milk or dark chocolate, and add a message to the back of the bar. The site also sells Yummy Mummy chocolate bars (£4.45) and Thanks So Much bars (£4.95).

3 Smellies

In my book it is hard to go wrong with something that smells lovely. Bubbles, salts, soaps. Anything for the bath is good. One of my favourite brands, Lush, sells this lovely A Ring Of Roses soap, which sells for £3.45 per 100g.

According to the website "A Ring of Roses smells of sweet oranges and lemons, as well as genuine Turkish rose absolute. This skin softening, soothing body soap has the same fragrance as Amandopondo, but surrounded in an infusion of larkspur, honeysuckle, marigold and cornflowers, it smells completely different. Use it when you need calm for your skin and your mind."

When I looked on The Body Shop website, I was surprised not to find any specific Mother's Day items. Maybe it is too early? But regardless, there's this little gift set, which is cheaper and more practical than buying actual roses. The Moroccan Rose Small Gift Box (£5) contains a Moroccan Rose Bath & Shower Gel (60 ml), a Moroccan Rose Body Butter (50 ml) and a Bath Lily.

Here's something a little more unusual. Whittard, the tea people, sell Fleur Bathtub Tea (£3.50). This is not actually tea you drink though. It is a soothing and calming infusion for your bath, which you soak in.

According to the Whittard website "four jumbo teabags filled with a calming blend of herbal teas and blossoms, scented with lemon balm and lavender. Sit back and relax with the calming scent of lavender."

4 Practical But Different

You really have to know your recipient before buying something like this. But I think it would be PERFECT for my mother in law. She's the type of person who can pull a mini-screwdriver set out of her handbag at a moment's notice.

I think she'd love this. Actually, so would I. It is really gorgeous. The Kirstie Allsop, she of Location Location Location fame, Mini Measuring Tape, available at Marks & Spencer, is £4. It has a floral design, or vintage chic as it says on the website. The Kirstie Allsop Mini Measuring Tape has a button to hold and release the tape. The site doesn't say how long the tape measure is, which is a bit of an oversight I think. But one of the reviewers on the website said it was quite long. Another said that it was really handy for measuring about the house.

5. Photo Gifts

There's two advantages of photo gifts over other types of presents for mum. First, they're personal. You can make them about you and the family, and that's always a good thing. Second, you can get creative and make the gifts together.

At Snapfish, photo posters start from £3.99. We published a half price and free delivery promotional code for posters from Snapfish as well. To use this click here.

The Kodak Gallery has 20% off all photo books at the moment, but sadly that doesn't put any of them at the sub £5 mark. And at Photobox you get £5 off when you spend £20. Which, although it involves a fiver doesn't technically fit the specfications of this feature.

Photobox do photo fridge magnets for £4.10. I'm not sure exactly what you get for that price though. On the website it says that you can "go for a 6”x4” print presented in a magnetic photo frame, or two mini frames each holding a 3”x2” photo of the same image." But to look into it further you have to upload photos and so forth, so I didn't investigate. Would be well worth checking out though. You could do a fridge magnet for each member of the family.

Use this Thorntons Chocolate promotional discount code to get 20% off your order. Now if you're a chocolate lover or know one that will already have you salivating. But it gets better. The code works on sales items. Yum yum yum.

Click here to get 20% off Thorntons Chocolate

• Discount: 20%
• Promotional code: VCVT
• Expires: unknown

To use the code, go to the checkout page and enter it in the promotional code box. It will immediately tell you if the code has been accepted and what you get.

I tested it out on a box of Thorntons Ultimate Indulgence. This was already reduced from £24.99 to £10. With the Thorntons Chocolate promotional code this reduced further to £8. The standard delivery charge is £3.50.

If your other half likes chocolate, then this could be a particularly tasty present for Valentine's Day. You can pick something from their range, or from the sale section - this is divided by price. Handy if you're a bit strapped for cash.

Or, if you want to splash out there's their Valentine's section. To be honest I think most of the stuff in here is a bit overpriced. I'd rather not pay a premium just for something that is heart shaped. But I thought the Alphabet Truffles, £15, were quite sweet. You can spell out a message on the buttery truffles.

Thanks to shadow1 at HUKD!

This Thornton’s Winter Wonderland hamper was selling for £120 but now you can nab it for £60 and you can shave off another £12 using the voucher code below. How terribly awesome! This is a monster present for someone special who loves chocolates.

• Click here to get chocolatey with Thorntons

The winter wonderland basket from Thorntons includes loads of delicious fudge and chocolate and toffee treats. You get Milk Classics, Chocolate Truffle Baubles, Orange Truffle Babules, Champagne Truffle Baubles, Milk Chocolate Reindeer, Milk Chocolate Santa, White Chocolate Snowman, and Assorted Toffee.

Oh, and there is more….

You also get a chocolate selection, a mint collection, a metropolitan collection, assorted fudge, milk chocolate brazil nuts, a continental Viennese bag, a continental bag and an assorted range of milk, dark and white chocolates.

This is one scrummy package that will astound anyone you give it to, seriously. Now, to shave off an additional £12 then use the code SNOW. Happy chocolately shopping!

Thanks to ajcsjm at HUKD!

Oh, how I love Thorntons chocolates. I could talk about them all day and eat them all week. They make fantastic Christmas gifts, especially for difficult people, and now Thorntons are having a 25% off sale on a bunch of fabulous hampers.

• Click here to get chocolatey with Thorntons

There are four hampers included in the special offer. The first is the I Love Chocolate Hamper that has been marked down from £25 to £18.75. It includes Moments, Continental Viennese Truffles, Dessert Gallery, Chocolate Smothered Fudge, Original Chewy Toffi-Chocs and much more.

The Chocoholics Hamper is down to £37.50 from £50 (nice saving, that) and this one has loads and loads of chocolates stuffed inside. You’ll find all the choccies from the first hamper, plus others, and all of them at bigger weights. This is a hefty hamper for a real chocolate fan.

Then there’s the Family Share Hamper with Classics, Chocolate Reindeer, Santa Lollies, Snowman Lollies, Assorted Toffees, Truffles, Brazils, Melts and Chocolate Baubles. YUM! It is marked down from £35 to £26.25.

These offers end on 11 November so HURRY to nab your set, and then take another 10% off at the till by using the code WK05. Yeah!

Thanks to arsenal79place at HUKD!

Yesterday I was the luckiest chocaholic in town. I got to go and see what Thorntons are planning for their Christmas chocolate range this year, and I can tell you that we are in for some seriously yummy stuff. They even had a chocolatier come and talk to us about the different kinds of chocolate and we tasted them while he talked so we could understand more about the flavours.

I was, I admit, amused by the fact that the man who makes chocolate and tastes chocolate was thin. How is that fair?

So, at the launch he told us about how normally white chocolate is deodorised so it doesn’t smell as strong. The white chocolate that they are using for the yummy new white chocolate, coconut and lime bars (see above!) hasn’t been deodorised and so smells and tastes incredible. It is, honestly, the best white chocolate I’ve ever tasted.

Other delights in store for you include: personalisable chocolate Christmas trees, personalisable chocolate advent calendars, gorgeous Santa chocolates (actually you can personalise most of this lovely stuff), gigantic adult sized bars of chocolate (and I mean GIGANTIC), and more.

There were two things that I really liked. The first was the new dipping set (picture to the right), that has yummy dippers like marshmallows, and chocolate pots that you can heat up in the microwave. How perfect are those for winter?

And the last thing that I really liked was the advent calendar. You can personalise a little mini-slab of chocolate so everybody knows who’s calendar is whose. In a big family, that’s a real winner. As a parting shot I have to tell you a funny story that one of the lovely Thorntons' people told me...

“If you are really careful, you can ease the advent calendar out of the box, steal the chocolates, and ease it back in without anybody knowing,” he said, “In our offices we take turns opening a day and so we all snuck one lady’s chocolate out so when she opened it up, there was nothing in there!”

I don’t know about you, but I found that really funny.

Nothing says I love you than a box of delicious Thorntons’ chocolates, unless you’re on a diet...But on the 14^th of February all such worries must be thrown from the window so you can indulge in a spot of parent pampering with this divine hamper packed with goodies for only £16.99 at Thorntons. 

• Click here to munch your way on over to Thorntons  

The hamper includes a reusable bag with Love written on the sides, a little bit of stylish carrier fashion for your next weekly shop, and a ton of lovely chocolate. Inside you’ll uncover a 191g box of Metropolitan chocolates, two milk chocolate heart lollipops and a pack of four chocolate lip glosses.

Those lip glosses better be edible... 

I can still remember the first time I tasted Thorntons, their chocolate really is heavenly. I adore the clever blend of milk and the subtle flavour on the tongue. You can taste the quality chocolate and blending that have gone into making them. 

I’m particularly impressed with the bag as well as the range of choccies included here. The bag is lush and looks a thousand times better than the ones you’d usually get in a hamper. Definitely a deluxe treat for someone special this month. 

Thanks to Laffy42 at HUKD!