Pretty Paper

Over the weekend, I visited the Fortnum & Mason website to buy a Christmas pudding.  Although it was never really an annual tradition in my family to serve Christmas pudding, there were a few holidays when my parents ordered one from Fortnum & Mason.  I remember it vividly.  Well, actually, I can't remember if I liked the taste or not.  What I do recall, though, were those terrific china basins in which the puddings were packaged.  And being the sucker that I am for a pretty package, I felt that this year I needed to order a pudding, although I admit it's more for the bowl rather than the pudding itself.

So, while I was on the Fortnum & Mason website, I noticed that they now sell cakes from Demel.  Well, that excited me because I visited the venerable patisserie while in Vienna a few years ago.  Their chocolates are absolutely delicious, but what I liked even more than the chocolate itself was, wait for it...the packaging.  I even saved two of their candy bar wrappers.  They've been sitting in a drawer for five years, and heaven knows what I'll ever do with them.  Still, you can't just throw away wrappers like this:

After leaving the Fortnum website, I just had to visit the Demel site.  I didn't order anything considering that I had a high-calorie pudding on the way to me, but I certainly did spend time browsing.  Just look at their chocolate box that is based on a Wiener Werkstätte design:

Then there's Les Orangines containing candies of orange fondant and orange marzipan:

And for you cat lovers, the Katzenzungen milk, which is described as cat's tongue shapes made of milk chocolate:

And then, as usually happens when surfing the web, I somehow ended up on another site, this one with even more charming boxes and bags, the French chocolatier Maison Boissier:

They even have chocolate petals:

Then I found the pretty boxes of Prestat chocolate from England:

At this point, my confectionary tour ended because I knew if I didn't stop, I'd be up all night.  I didn't even make it to the Laduree or Charbonnel et Walker sites.  If you know of other sites with packaged chocolates and candies like those at Demel and Maison Boissier, please let me know.  I might be ready to take another tour very soon.