December 16th: Thorntons Winter Fruit Crumble

Kcal 174 Fat 9.6g Fat(sats) 6.6g Carbs 20.2g

At the back end of last month I brought you the first of two seasonal limited edition chocolates from Thorntons in the form of their Creme Brulee bar. A few weeks down the line from that relatively disappointing offering I today bring you the second and last review from this selection - the Thorntons Winter Fruit Crumble bar. Constituting of a 'winter fruit mousse with crumble pieces, covered in milk chocolate' this didn't strike me as your typical British product, with only German produced Ritter Sport and Milka equivalents springing to me top of mind. It was going to be interesting to see whether Thorntons could produce a product of a similar quality, one thing was for sure that it wouldn't take the greatest of efforts for it to be better than the Creme Brulee bar.

This bar came in a 35.0g size which similarly to the Creme Brulee struck me as pretty small compared to the average size chocolate bar you get on the market nowadays. Aesthetically I had no problems with this product whatsoever and thought the outer wrapper looked nicely festive with its dark red and purple colour scheme which was complimented nicely by a few silver snowflake patterns. Inside the bar itself also looked fantastically tempting with the bumpy surface studded with some small sugar crystals which glistened against the denser looking red coloured filling. Taking in the smells from the bar a decent array of fruity scents were showcased, however I did have that nagging sense that they were a tad artificial.

A thing I rarely complain about with Thorntons is the standard of their chocolate and once again I can have very little complaints about what was on offer here. Given the size of the bar the actual thickness of the outer milk chocolate layer was reasonably good and it delivered a creamy tasting, sweet chocolate flavour hit with each and every bite. Of course as is the case with the majority of products like this the true quality of the product was of course going to be dependant on the inner winter fruit mousse filling which for me was a bit of a mixed bag. What I liked about it was the soft, yet relatively dense texture which was nicely broken up by smaller pieces of dried fruit and crunchy crumble pieces. The dried fruit pieces in particular delivered some wonderful bursts of red fruit flavours with strawberry and raspberry influences brought to the party. What I didn't enjoy so much about this bar was the fact that just as I had perceived with the smell I did get a sense that the taste had a artificial edge and that the fruit flavours at time were perhaps at little chemically derived. In comparison to the Creme Brulee variant I did find this bar a little more satisfying which is something I would mostly attribute to the thicker chocolate coating.

Overall thankfully this bar was a few steps ahead of the other seasonal limited edition Creme Brulee offering from Thorntons and I would have to say that on the whole it was much the more well rounded option out of the two. Just as I said in the opening paragraph the UK alternatives to this bar are few and far between, with only the real comparators being the German produced chocolates from the likes of Lindt, Ritter and Milka in the form of their many fruit flavoured yogurt bars. Although I would say that this chocolate struggles to compete with the likes of them, what Thorntons offered up here was far from a disaster and I did get a reasonable amount of satisfaction from the chocolate, crumble and dried fruit element of this bar. The only part that I felt slightly let it down was the actual base constituents of the mousse filling which was fruity but had a sweet, artificial edge that partially hampered my enjoyment of the overall taste. It perhaps isn't the best in it's part of the market but it was a nice try by Thorntons and I would welcome more innovation like this from them in the coming future. If you really enjoy your Thorntons chocolate then this could be an inexpensive option for you to try from their range.

7.4 out of 10