May 27th: Ritter Sport Summer 2010

Some of my longer standing readership may remember that around twelve months ago I published my reviews of Ritter's Summer Sorte 2009. This was a range that comprised of three flavoured yoghurt bars made especially for the summer season - Raspberry Yoghurt, Peach & Passionfruit Yoghurt and the Wildberry Yoghurt.

If you look to the photo above you will see that one year on, the line-up for 2010 isn't much different, apart from the substitution of the Raspberry variety for a new Stracciatella variant. Below are photographs (courtesy of my father - great work old man!!) of the updated 2010 wrappers for both the Passionfruit and Wildberry variants. These aesthetic touch-ups aside, I can confirm that they didn't change from last year, and were still every bit as tasty - check out the links below the photographs for the reviews.

Ritter Sport Wildberry Yoghurt - See Review HERE

Ritter Sport Peach & Passionfruit Yoghurt - See Review HERE

As aforementioned, replacing the Raspberry Yoghurt for 2010 we have this Stracciatella bar, which came billed as 'milk chocolate with a milk cream filling with crunchy milk chocolate pieces'. As well as coming in the usual 100.0g form, this new flavour is also available in the mini-squares format (photo also taken by my father) ...see below.

Ritter Sport Stracciatella

Kcal 571 Fat 38.0g Carbs 51.0g (per 100.0g)

In terms of the quality of the packaging and presentation it wont surprise you to hear I thought everything was of the usual high Ritter standards. The wrapper was modern in design, whilst the inner bar looked very appealing with the cream filling generously sandwiched between the two fresh looking branded milk chocolate layers. Aroma wise the smells were noticeably sweeter than other milk chocolate based Ritter offerings - a nice smelling vanilla essence type hint helped to further my intrigue.

After some of the shortcomings that I experienced with some of the 2010 spring limited editions I was hoping Ritter Sport weren't going to let us down with this flavour, as Lindt had previously proven how tasty Stracciatella could be when done right. From the very first piece it became evident that this chocolate was pretty much everything I had hoped for from the Spring Vanilla Bourbon flavour, and was perhaps just a little bit better. The milk chocolate as always did a sterling job of carrying the inner filling, and provided the standard no frills chocolate flavour hit for each block. The nature of the chocolate allowed plenty of room for the expression of flavours from the milk cream centre, which melted with a slightly softer texture than the outer chocolate. The flavours were predominantly sweet and creamy, almost like condensed milk and finished with a delicious real tasting vanilla note. The difference between the quality of the vanilla influence from this bar and the Vanilla Bourbon spring bar was night and day - the vanilla in this Stracciatella chocolate tasted far more genuine and fresh. Whilst the vanilla flavours were the ones left lingering in the mouth at the latter stages of the melt, the small remnants of crunchy cocoa pieces further compounded the chocolatey flavours established by the outer coating. On reflection this wasn't the richest chocolate I have ever tasted due to the quickness at which it melted, but it was as satisfying as your average chocolate bar when eaten in a 50.0g portion.

Overall Ritter deserve a pat on the back for not only making a very fine Stracciatela chocolate, but also making a good decision when it came to their range. Considering I scored the Raspberry bar the lowest out of the three summer offerings last year, it was great to see Ritter chose that flavour as the one to make way for the new variant for 2010. I guess that shows that the average consumer must have also thought it was the weakest ... aren't I just brilliant :D Somewhat more importantly I guess, having picked the right one to replace, it was also going to be of up most importance that the new bar coming in was going to have to be even better. Those at Ritter Sport HQ can now take another bow, as this Stracciatella chocolate was one of the better bars I have had from them for a while. Just as the wrapper suggested, the filling delivered a chocolate chip, vanilla ice cream experience that was far superior to the disappointing Vanilla Bourbon of the season before. This summer 2010 range is one very much worth looking at and there is no better place to start than with this Stracciatella bar.

8.4 out of 10