April 21st: Ritter Sport Milchcreme Mandel

Kcal 578 Fat 40.0 Carbs 47.0g (per 100.0g)

Coming straight off the back of my reviews of Ritter Sport's 2010 Spring range, I today have the pleasure of bringing you all my thoughts about their new 'variety of the year'. I understand that some of you may be starting to think that Ritter are making flavours for almost every day of the year, but if you think back to last years 'variety of the year', you may remember that the Ritter Sport Karamell Nuss proved to be a really fantastic limited edition that won several prizes in my 2009 awards. With that top of mind it wasn't like this Ritter Sport Milchcreme Mandel had a lot to live up to then did it ... no pressure :) ... at least the prospect of 'milk chocolate with a milk cream and almond nut filling' sounded like it had a chance of matching up.

Just like last years special edition this bar came in the usual 100.0g, sixteen chunk format that I devoured (with some help!!) over the course of two separate sittings. Looking at the wrapper it is was exactly what you would expect from Ritter Sport. It was clean cut in design, and simply presented with the inner milk cream and almond nut flavour well communicated through both branding and pictures. The chocolate itself was also pretty pleasing on the eye, with the light coloured cream centre visibly studded with small golden pieces of almond nut. Taking in the aromas on offer I detected the usual sweet chocolatey scents - as nice as these were I was a little disappointed that the nuts didn't have a presence at this point.

I always say that the smell of a chocolate is often indicative of the taste, and this particular bar would further strengthen my hypothesis. If you want to read about what I think about Ritter Sport milk chocolate in great detail I suggest you take a look at any of the 25+ Ritter Sport chocolates that I have reviewed which have included the stuff (to be more precise look - HERE). Long story cut short it was it's usual sweet, milky self - it wasn't really distinctive in any manner, but it did the job nicely of delivering a fair standard chocolate flavour hit with every chunk. Sandwiched in the centre of the outer milk chocolate the milk cream and almond centre did little but further compounded the creamy nature of the chocolate. At times the almond nuts did cut through adding a further buttery, nutty hints to the cream flavours, however these instances were few and far between and I would much rather the nuts of had a grander say in the taste. The work colleague I shared this bar with was not half as disappointed at the mildness of the almonds, but they did admit that they would have liked the nut pieces to have been larger in size.

Overall compared to other Ritter Sport flavours I would have to say this Milchcreme Mandel would be verging more towards being a 'miss' rather than a 'hit', but put in the perspective of the whole chocolate market it has to be considered a sound offering from our German friends. Fundamentally there was nothing wrong with this bar whatsoever - the chocolate was of a fair standard, the milk cream was ok and the nuts didn't detract from the experience in any manner. Unfortunately when I compare it to other bars in the Ritter range I wouldn't say it delivered the same impact with it's flavours that others have done in the past. I guess what I am trying to get at here is that if you want a pretty 'safe' tasting chocolate, that isn't overly elaborate in flavour then this would be a fairly decent option. However, if on the other hand you want a more exciting, hard hitting taste I think you are best off looking at other Ritter Sport alternatives.

7.0 out of 10