March 23rd: Nestle Smarties Shaker Egg

Kcal 123 Fat 6.2g Fat(sats) 3.9g

Having reviewed Smarties yesterday I chose today to sample the 'shakers' version of the Smarties range this Easter.

Similar to the Milkybar 'Shakers' egg I had the other day this unique little offering replaced the traditional creme/fondant centre with a helping of solid loose mini smarties...now I say mini and I mean minature.

The Smarties inside were about a quarter of the size of a traditional Smartie and unfortunately this was to their detriment. One thing I liked about the Smarties yesterday was that the sugar shells were not overpowering; unfortunately this was not the case here as the sugar shells made up over half of each of their individual constituants making them in taste to be nothing more than litte sugar lumps - disappointing. Yesterday I also praised Smarties for including an orangey flavour to the orange coloured smarties; sadly this was not a flavour I could detect in the mini orange smarties...saying that though I could hardly taste the chocolate in them anyway regardless the colour.

The egg itself was a rather standard in flavour being neither unappealing or overly pleasent - just average really. The egg was decorated rather nicely with a few patterns etched into the side aswell as the Nestle logo. Also despite their unpleasent taste the mini Smarties at least looked nice adding a bit of colour to the product.

In size it was neither the biggest or the smallest - the mini Smarties were quite plentiful and the shell was of standard thickness compared to other Easter offerings.

Overall this seems to me to be a bit of a missed oppertunity by Nestle. The idea concept is unique and the inclusion of Smarties in the shell is at least original and a nice break from the usual creme/fondant/truffle concept. Unfortunately due to the average tasting chocolate and disappointing make up of the mini Smarties the experience is rather underwhelming. There is better out there this Easter.

6.4 out of 10