April 26th: Galaxy Cookie Crumble

*UPDATE 15/08/10 - NB. Original review written in April 2008 - since then the bar is now availble nationwide and in a smaller 50.0g bar (in photo above!)

Kcal 548 Fat 33.4g Fat(sats) 20.1g Carbs 55.4g

There's a good chance if you don't shop in Tesco that you will never heard of this bar. For some strange reason Mars have taken a rather odd decision and have made it a Tesco exclusive - why on earth? Reading Terry's take on this bar over at http://www.chocolatereview.net/ he seems to be of the opinion that Tesco, Sainsburys & Asda currently hold the rights to one exclusive bar each. If anyone can fill me in with what the other two are I would be most grateful as I have had trouble finding out myself.

Hiding amongst the vast selection of Chocolate at my local Tesco today I picked this 119g bar out and bought it despite the huge mountain of chocolate that I currently have sitting at house - I felt best to review it whilst it was widely available so it is more relevant to everyone ;)

The bar had the new 'smooth' shaped design that you can see in the picture above - I'm not too sure it actually adds extra smoothness though I must admit it does look nice to look at. Breaking the bar in half I could make out little specks of dark cookie placed in the chocolate - unfortunately due to the nature of the small cookie pieces the bar didn't break up that evenly and although the bar was split into blocks the cookie pieces stopped it from breaking cleanly. I guess there is nothing Mars can do about that but it does make it extra messy when breaking up the chunks.

The bar offered little aroma and in this sense the cookie element was anonymous. With Galaxy chocolate I particularly enjoy the smoothness and velvety nature of the chocolate that their products normally offer. It normally makes for a truly luxurious experience, this however was not the case here. Having chilled the bar slightly I placed the first few blocks in my mouth and waited - after a few seconds the chocolate started to melt and which point I began to chew. The chocolate was smooth but once the cookie element of this bar was exposed it acted like sandpaper and made for a distinctly rough grainy texture against the roof of my mouth. I ate about half a bar in one sitting but could eat no more due the roof of my mouth hurting - the cookie element was so coarse it actually made my mouth hurt! Ouchie...This wasn't Galaxy smoothness :( !!

Taste wise the bar wasn't too bad - the chocolate is your great standard Galaxy chocolate - smooth and distinctly creamy. The cookie element added very little in terms of flavour - despite its very distinctive texture it tasted of very little - a very slight biscuity note but nothing that added anything of relevance to the bar.

Overall this is really quite a disappointing bar from Mars. The Galaxy chocolate retains its usual great quality smooth creaminess and is luxurious in both taste and texture. The 'cookie crumble' aspect really REALLY lets this bar down though - shallow in flavour and horrible (even painful!) in texture. I really wouldn't recommend this bar to anyone other than Galaxy mad fans...suffice to say if your not at Tesco shopper I really wouldn't bother going out your way to get hold of one of these.

6.5 out of 10