October 15th: Cadbury Cake Bars Milk Chocolate / Caramel

Yesterday I informed you all in my review of the McVitie's Penguin Cake Bar that I would next be moving on to looking at Cadbury's offerings in the cake bar market. Well as always I have kept my word and today I bring you one of my double reviews looking at both the original 'Milk Chocolate' and 'Caramel' flavoured offerings.

Each variants was bought in a multi-pack which contained 5 bars. Both flavours sported the usual purple Cadbury theme though the caramel one of course also had the yellow secondary colour influence. Inside the cake bars themselves were contained within film wrappers which did a reasonably nice job in maintaining the inner bars in pretty good condition. Before I start rambling on too much lets get stuck in to what I thought of each:

Cadbury Cake Bars Milk Chocolate:


Kcal 150 Fat 7.4g Fat(sats) 3.8g Carbs 18.7g (per bar)

On pack this one came described as 'chocolate flavoured sponge with a milk chocolate filling, covered in milk chocolate'. I have to admit that out of the two this was the one that less appealed to me at first as it sounded more or less exactly like the Galaxy and Penguin McVitie's bars I had tried before.

One of the first things that you may have picked up on when reading the start of this review is that the words Dairy Milk haven't appeared yet and sadly I can confirm that Dairy Milk chocolate was nowhere to be seen. As suspected the bar incorporated Cadbury's secondary milk chocolate recipe which meant that the taste was a little more sugar rooted than it was creamy. Don't get me wrong the chocolate still had a sweet, milky appeal but I couldn't help but think it could have been all that bit better had it been proper Dairy Milk. You may also have noticed from the photo above that this milk chocolate coating was also a little bit flimsy and thin in its portioning which meant it got dominated by the far greater portioned inner cake. On the plus side the inner chocolate cream filling did bring a much needed moistness to the dry cake, though admittedly in did little in terms of bringing any new flavour influences to the table.

Overall this 'Milk Chocolate' variant had undertones of Cadbury charm but at at the end of the day it didn't strike me as anything that special when put in the context of the cake bars I have had recently. As stated above I think it would have been better for at least the coating to have used the Dairy Milk recipe though I think even that would have struggled to exert its presence given the thin nature of the outer coating. This was by no means a bad cake bar (better than the Penguin one at least), but at the same time nothing all that special either.

7.5 out of 10

Cadbury Cake Bars Caramel

Kcal 145 Fat 6.7g Fat(sats) 4.7g Carbs 19.3g (per bar)

The back of the outer wrapper described these bars as 'chocolate flavoured sponge topped with caramel, covered in milk chocolate' which I thought certainly sounded like the more exciting out of the two at hand. These Caramel cake bars were flatter and a little smaller in appearance compared to the 'Milk Chocolate' variant though they looked appetising when cross sectioned with the golden caramel layer really catching the eye.

Just like the 'Milk Chocolate' bars Dairy Milk chocolate wasn't in the offering here again though I felt it didn't matter quite so much as the caramel layer was the real focus of the taste. Despite the bar being thinner itself, thankfully the outer chocolate wasn't an area of cut back so the initial milky, sweet flavours were still well and truly substantiated. I felt that with the cake not being quite as heavily portioned in these it was actually beneficial to the product overall as there was still enough to make it feel like a substantial snack, though it also didn't dominate the other elements of the bar quite as much as it did in the 'Milk Chocolate' bars. Despite the caramel not being implemented quite the same as is in standard Cadbury Caramel bars as it was a bit stodgier in texture, it still brought the usual butter and sugar elements to the taste which made brought a nice variation to the rather placid cake. Although this was the smaller out of the two bars its greater variation in flavours made it the more fulfilling and satisfying out of the two.

Overall this was defiantly the better out of the two variants I tried today and would certainly be the one I would more readily reach for if I was to buy either again. In comparison to the Galaxy Caramel cake bar I have to say that the McVitie's offering is the better out of the two as the Galaxy chocolate is portioned far greater and lack of Dairy Milk used here means that the quality of chocolate is greater on the latter. Whereas I wouldn't say that either of these cake bars are necessarily bad I can't help but feel that Cadbury could have done just a little better with these products. If your a fan of Cadbury chocolate then these could be worth a look at but for the rest of you I wouldn't be in a massive rush to try these.

8.0 out of 10