August 15th: Milka Marzipan-Creme

Kcal 510 Fat 31.5g Carbs 50.0g (per 100.0g)

Once again I have to start off yet another review by issuing my thanks to reader Lottie who made another contribution to the ChocolateMission cause by kindly donating this bar for me to review. Dean-German-Grocery normally supply me my fill of Milka products though this just so happened to be one of the very few that they hadn't sent me yet. This bar was formed of 'semi-sweet Alpine milk chocolate with a both a marzipan and cocoa creme filling'. The only instance where I had tried a marzipan based Milka product before was in one of the Milka Easter egg products; looking back on that review I wasn't particularly complimentary of it - I hoped for better things today.

Like so many Milka products that have gone before this was yet another from the 100.0g range and was split into several bite sized blocks. The outer packaging implemented the standard Milka design theme with the marzipan flavour communicated through the red secondary colour and almond nut pictures. As you may be able to tell from my photo above the bar I ate did suffer from some slight melting issues in the post but I still thought the actual construction of the bar was well executed with just about the right amount of marzipan in each block. In regards to the aroma of the chocolate it was all relatively appealing and was a fusion of nice chocolaty and nut based smells.

When it comes to marzipan I seem to like very few brands outside of the Niederegger and Zentis portfolios. Generally I find other brands to be rather generic with a lot of them providing the same sort sugary, dry experience and thats not even going into the standard of the chocolate that generally accompanies them (even the Niederegger chocolate isn't great!). With this in mind on the whole I guess I was more impressed rather than disappointed with what this Milka bar had to offer. The dark chocolate that coated the marzipan of course wasn't really that dark at all - it was just the standard Alpine Milk chocolate with a much lower level of sweetness. This might sound like a criticism but I thought it was actually pretty damn tasty. Milka Alpine Milk chocolate tends to be a tiny bit of the sweet side for me, so I really enjoyed the creamy taste without harshness of the sugar. The hazelnut noted aftertaste of the chocolate also nicely led into the almond flavours of the inner marzipan which in regards to quality I have to say wasn't anywhere near Niederegger or Zentis standards ... but that is not to say it wasn't passable. Compared to the aforementioned brands it was a little on the dry and crumbly side and lacked a little in terms of focus on its almond flavours. I think it is worth bearing in mind that these are indeed high standards and I enjoyed this bar enough to eat it across three different sittings.

Overall one way to look at this review would be to conclude that this was neither the best Milka or marzipan bar I have ever tried. More positively though it could be viewed in the light that it was still pretty damn tasty and was a bar that provided me a great deal of satisfaction. As I mentioned above the problem with most marzipan products is that a lot of the time the chocolate that accompanies it is more often than not pretty poor. On the contrary the semi-sweet Alpine Milk chocolate that coated this bar was pretty damn enjoyable and I must say that I even might prefer to the standard Alpine Milk chocolate that is implemented on 99% of Milka products. If your looking for great tasting marzipan your probably best looking elsewhere - if its a bit of a change up from your usual Milka bar though you could do a lot worse than this.

7.9 out of 10