November 3rd: McVitie's Milky Way Cake Bars

Kcal 125 Fat 6.3g Fat(sats) 3.2g Carbs 15.7g

The cake bar reviews have been coming in quick and fast but the search for the best one is quickly drawing to a close. At present the Thornton's Chocolate Cake Bars hold the crown as the ChocolateMission highest rated but McVitie's gave them a good run for their money with their Galaxy branded cakes. Although I wouldn't say the UK Mars Milky Way is up there as one of my favourite chocolate bars ever I certainly thought these Milky Way Cake Bars were worth a try given that seemed to offer something a little different in proposition to most the other cake bars I have tried so far this year. These came described as 'light sponge cakes with a creamy filling, covered in milk chocolate' and just like the Galaxy Cake Bars were baked by McVitie's.

I bought these in a local supermarket at the price of £1 for a pack of 5 cake bars. Looks wise I have never been the great fan of the Milky Way packaging as I think it looks a bit dated and in need of refreshing. I will admit that it does have a relatively fun and colourful look that may appeal to kids but this with this particular product only the outer packaging looked vibrant as it was made out of a foil materical. On the contrary I was a little disappointed to see that the inner bars were wrapped in that cheap plastic packaging which I feel doesn't always keep products at their freshest and certainly makes the on pack design look that bit duller. Luckily the cake bars themselves did offer a little more promise and they certainly looked very appetising when cross sectioned where the inner cream layer sat glistening in between the chocolate and sponge. In regards to smell these bars did emanate any strong scents that were immediately obvious but on closer inspection a sweet smelling chocolaty aroma could be detected.

Like with all the other cake bars I have tried recently I sampled these over a course of a week eating one every afternoon with a nice cup of tea. In line with expectations the milk chocolate was good yet certainly not spectacular in any manner with the main flavours influences being milk rooted and quite sweet and sugary in its chocolatyness. Whilst it wasn't the best quality chocolate ever it was thick enough to substantiate a nice chocolate flavour hit with every bite and it melted with relative ease to reveal the sponge and cream elements below. Both the sponge and cream layers were a bit like the chocolate really, in that they tasted nice but were by no means spectacular. The sponge was light in texture and was neither spongy or overly dense. In terms of flavour it offered quite little aside from a floury taste with a touch of brown sugar. The cake did also have a noticeable note of vanilla essence to it which was further accentuated by the cream layer on top. The cream was really quite sugary yet offered up a nice bit of moistness to the drier cake layer. Altogether these Milky Way Cake Bars were not as rich or fulfilling as the Thornton's or Galaxy Cake Bars but they did a reasonably nice job of tieing over my hunger until later in the day.

Overall I guess it is a good sign that over the course of a week I did eat all five bars from the multi pack which suggests that they would of have to have been a fairly pleasant snack. Writing this review a few days later I would have to agree with that, though I wouldn't say that these Milky Way Cake Bars did anything more for me than any other has done over the past few weeks. If you asked me to name one amazing feature about these cake bars I simply couldn't name one, they were more just an all round good product. Each layer from the milk chocolate, sponge and cream filling were all of a fair standard without any of them being either exceedingly tasty or exceedingly not. I am not sure I would buy these again in the near future given the fact I know there are better out there, but if you like your Milky Way chocolate bars these could be well worth checking out.

7.4 out of 10