April 1st: Cadbury Dairy Milk Caramello (Ireland)

Kcal 230 Fat 11.9g Carbs 27.5g

My research in finding the greatest Cadbury Caramel bar took another step forward today, with *The Irish Shop* kindly providing me with Ireland's take on one of my all time favourites. So far I have reviewed the UK's Cadbury Caramel (9.4), the US's Cadbury Caramello (8.1), the Australian Cadbury Caramello (8.5) and Canada's Cadbury Caramilk (8.4). Today's Irish version sounded very familiar in both name and description - 'Cadbury Dairy Milk Caramello - milk chocolate with a soft caramel filling'.

Puzzlingly this bar didn't state it's size, though I am sure it was actually smaller than the rest of the Irish Cadbury bars I have tried. I say this as it had a far flatter look about it, with the blocks not appearing half as big as I expected them to be ... they were flatter than even the standard Irish Cadbury Dairy Milk blocks. When cross-sectioned the amount of caramel in each piece was to be honest rather lacking - even the filling that was visible seemed relativley thin. Although much less of a problem, I thought the blue colour coding on the wrapper was an odd choice to indicate the caramel nature of the bar. Despite being wrapped in the aesthetically pleasing gold foil wrapping I must also say that the bar lacked the usual dairy freshness and emphasis in its aroma.

As you will be able to ascertain I wasn't all that impressed with the bar in regards to its physical presence, and I was hoping the taste would make up for it. Luckily for this bar the Dairy Milk flavours were still present and were as good as ever. The rich, creamy, chocolaty flavours were not overly affected by the smaller proportion of chocolate in each block and still proved well substantiated in the taste . I do generally find the texture of the Irish Dairy Milk a little on the thick side, so its marginally thinner implementation here was actually to my liking. The majority of my praise unfortunately ends here though, as the caramel filling in my book was really not up to scratch with the usual Cadbury standard. Much like its appearance suggested it was lacking in volume and subsequently presence in the taste. It was just too thin its texture, and didn't deliver the usual quality sweet, buttery, salty elements that every other Cadbury variation has before ... to be honest it was really disappointing, and deeply unsatisfying.

Overall had it not been for the great standard Dairy Milk chocolate, I dread to think what this bar would have scored based on its caramel alone. There is no simpler way putting it other than the caramel was poor. It lacked presence in the taste and really just failed to stamp its authority on any part of the experience. This is the worst of the Cadbury Caramel variants I have tried and would really suggest you give it a miss. Its been saved in the rating system by having a good standard milk chocolate, but I am majorly disappointed by this bar - I was expecting far more. For the minute the UK's own still reigns supreme.

6.3 out of 10

The Irish Shop - Visit for all your Irish Food & Product Needs!!