August 27th: Nestle Dairy Box

Kcal 199 Fat 11.9g Fat(sats) 5.7g Carbs 20.3g (per 4 chocolates)

It's been a while since I last reviewed a selection box on ChocolateMission so I thought I would give this Nestle Dairy Box a try when I saw it on a special offer in my local Sainsbury's supermarket. With an RRP of £3.75, this Dairy Box is Nestle's equivalent to Cadbury's Milk Tray and comes described as an 'assorted selection of milk chocolates'.

Presentation wise I thought it was a little on the plain side with it's use of mostly cream and beige colours on the packaging. On the flip side I was a little more impressed by the inclusion of a menu and the look of the chocolates which at least looked to have some sort of effort put into their shaping and decoration.

In the selection there were a decent sounding ten chocolates on offer. Below are my thoughts on each of them starting from left to right in the photos. Apologies if my descriptions of the taste all sound so similar - as will come apparent this is not my fault!

Whole Almond Delight - As suggested by the name this piece contained a single whole almond at it's centre and was coated in milk chocolate. The milk chocolate exterior was severely lacking in flavour, whilst the inner nut was relatively flavourless and lacking the desired fresh crunchiness. Poor.

Caramel Creme - I was expecting a liquid caramel centre given the 'indulgent creamy caramel' descriptor but was left very disappointed by the filling that lacked any caramel resemblance whatsoever. Again the outer milk chocolate was poor in terms of flavours offered. Poor.

Almond Crunch - This was a piece comprising of a 'cream mousse centre with caramelised almond pieces'. There were fine, grainy particles detectable amongst the softer, lighter centre, however neither constituents offered any flavour progression from the mild milk chocolate. Poor.

Orange Sensation - This chocolate was supposed to contain an 'orange truffle centre with orange peel pieces and crunchy cereal'. Again there were noticeable particles evident amongst the truffle centre, but they did little more than provide an awkward lumpiness. The orange flavours were completely MIA, they must have forgotten to put that bit in!? Very Poor.

Chocolate Almond Mousse - 'Chocolate Mousse flavoured with a hint of almond', again the milk chocolate exterior and filling was devoid of any flavours of note. No one on this planet would have guessed this was supposed to be flavoured with almond in a blind taste test - it was totally lacking in nutty flavours. Very Poor.

Raspberry Parafait - The colour of the centre above gave me hope that this might be one of the more flavoursome offerings in the box. How wrong I was! Once again the centre was nothing more than a mushy flavoured version of the flavourless exterior chocolate. Just like the other fruit flavours, the raspberry was nowhere to be seen here. Very Poor.

Double Hazelnut Delight - This piece at least sounded somewhat exciting on the menu and came billed as 'hazelnut praline studded with roasted hazelnuts, dipped in milk chocolate'. Despite the poorness of the milk chocolate constituents, the hazelnut elements did manage to offer a woody nut hint to the mild taste. Standard.

Rich Chocolate Truffle - This was probably the best piece in the box, but that's not saying much. The upper portion of white chocolate managed to bring a creamier edge to the plain tasting milk chocolate. Inside the softer centre there were evident bits of wafer which did bring a nicely contrasting crunchy element to other smoother melting constituents. Standard.


Chocolate Dream - Well at least they didn't even try to suggest this one had more to it - 'chocolate truffle enveloped in chocolate'. Sorry if this is getting boring already, rinse & repeat ... the milk chocoalte was very mildly flavoured - I didn't get any enjoyment from this piece. Very Poor.

Perfect Praline - Out of all the chocolates in this box this was probably one of the few that I would deem as a passable chocolate. Between them the praline and chopped almonds didn't manage to generate some sort of nut offering to the taste, which is more than can be said for several of the other nut flavoured pieces in this selection. Standard.


Overall I must start off by firstly offering my apologies if this review reads like one long moan! Unfortunately though this selection box gave me little opportunity to do anything other than that - it was one of the poorest collection of chocolates I have ever tasted. The main issue with these chocolates was the quality of the milk chocolate that coated every single one of them. The cocoa content isn't listed anywhere on the box (18% milk solids), but I would certainly expect the figure to be extremely low. As I have described on all of the pieces above, the milk chocolate offered very little to the taste, which was obviously never going to be a good basis from which to build off. Just to compound the tasteless nature of the outer chocolate most of the centres were equally devoid of flavour, the caramel, fruit and mousse flavoured chocolates stand out as the main perpetrators. To be honest I can't see any sort of situation that I would recommend buying this Nestle Dairy Box Selection. I certainly wouldn't recommend buying them for yourself, I wouldn't recommend buying them for a partner or friend ... I don't think I would even recommend buying them for your worst enemy :D Long story, cut short - I would just avoid these.

4.8 out of 10