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Kcal 175 Fat 10.8g Fat(sats) 5.9g Carbs 17.4g (per 5 hearts)With Valentines day only five days away its probably around the time that most people start thinking about what to gift that special someone they have front of mind. Lets face it - chocolates, flowers and a card are a recipe for success, they are the failsafe when it comes to Valentines. As I showed you all in the last few days, Hotel Chocolat have a stunning line up of products this year, fronted by the Melting Hearts selection which got some amazing reader feedback weekend just gone (See HERE). As good as Hotel Chocolat are, they aren't always an option for everyone given their limited availability and premium prices. I believe here is where the likes of Cadbury, Guylian, Nestle etc should come to all our rescue - providing a low cost, readily available product that will sweep our Valentines off our feet. Attempting to fulfil this very role, I put these new Cadbury Lots of Lovely Pralines to the test.
I bought this box of chocolates from Tesco on an introductory half price deal, £2.05 for a 187.0g box. I was a little embarrassed picking up this huge big heart shaped box knowing it was for my own consumption, but I thought Cadbury had done a decent job with the exterior design work - it reminded me a lot of the Thorntons Praline Melts chocolates (take a look HERE). What with the massive sized box I was hugely surprised when I lifted the lid and saw the chocolates inside - they looked ridiculously small, and there were around thirty of them at least. Small size aside, the heart shaped chocolates at least promised more in regards to their aromas, with comforting Cadbury chocolate scents making themselves known.
'Milk chocolates with a smooth hazelnut filling' - that sounds all good right!?? Well I'm going to let the 'cat out the bag' early and tell you they weren't. Issue number one was that the chocolate wasn't Cadbury's Dairy Milk. Now I know the average consumer probably wouldn't notice this, but speaking as someone who can instantly tell the difference between Dairy Milk and their inferior milk chocolate recipe I was disappointed to find the 14% cocoa solids chocolate had it's usual thinner melt and more sugar focused taste. Of course none of this would have mattered if it weren't for issue number two - the ridiculous 'praline' fillings. Excuse my bluntness, but boy was the so called 'praline' woeful. It lacked any sort of nuttyness, wasn't differentiated in texture, and frankly only just went to intensify the sweetness of the outer chocolate. These truffles were small and totally unsatisfying - I ended up throwing the majority of them in the bin.
Overall, prior to lifting the lid on the box things looked fairly good what with the reasonable price point and nicely designed packaging. Everything from there though took a sharp nose dive and I haven't even mentioned the gareish pink tray that the chocolates sat in (electric pink!! I should have got a photograph for you!). As you will have read above, the inner tray was the least of the problems - the actual chocolates were so under par for Cadbury. The non-Dairy Milk chocolate would have been far less of an issue had the praline centres not been woeful - unfortunately they were just as poor. If you are looking for a box of chocolates that will impress your Valentine this year, I would highly recommend you stay well clear of these Cadbury Lots of Lovely Little Pralines. These aren't going to impress anyone, not even the most diehard Cadbury fans.
5.7 out of 10
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63 comments:
Top review Jim.
Sorry you didn't enjoy these much. It must be pretty crappy when you come across something that you dont like eh?
Im disappointed to hear these are so bad. I sadly got quite excited when I heard cadburys were making pralines. More fool me :(
I saw the big boxes of these going for £2 in tesco at the weekend. You would have to be a right cheapskate of a boyfriend to only spend that amount on a box of chocolates for someone you like.
Woah Jim I don't remember a time when you have been so damning on something coming out of Cadbury HQ before?
You almost come across upset that these were so bad.
This is further evidence that we should leave the praline chocolates to the people who know what they are doing. Lindt, Ritter Sport etc we all know they are going to do it much better than any one of our lot.
Oh no these don't sound very nice. I would have been one of those people completely sucked in by the nice looking box aswell. Aren't we all lucky we have our wisdom filled Choccie mission man to warn us of such things.
Dx
For something that got only a 5 you don't half make them look yummy in the photographs you posted up. Lol when I saw that I thought they were going to be a stick on for at least an 8.
Moral of the story here appears to be the aged old 'dont judge a book by its cover'. Thank you for the heads up, another quality review sir.
These seriously remind me of these:
http://www.milka.de/milka2/page?siteid=milka2-prd&locale=dede1&PagecRef=616&pid=191&cid=98
(which are also available in heart shaped boxes, especially at this time of the year...)
Did not have them in ages but as most Milka chocolate goes, they are quite nice, if rather on the sweet side.
How disppointing to read that Cadbury made such a poor copy of the product! If Kraft wanted to launch such chocolates on the UK market they might as well have just brought over the Milka version or at least have a decent go at it with Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate and a let someone who understands praline develop a decent praline filling...
Guess it was another rushed product launch for some quick Valentines Day profits...
I think this is the first time I have seen you heavilly criticise cadburys. I don't like it :-( You sound all angry.
Where are they selling the other box of chocolates they said they were coming out with? Personally I think they sound a lot more promising than cadburys attempting to make pralines. I wouldn't have ever trusted them to make a good go of that, especially when we have such high quality alternatives to compare them to.
These look like something you would expect from Nestle not Cadburys. What the blue hell are they up to? Sort it out lads.
EPIC FAIL CADBURYS.
These look so cheesey. What is with the high score for presentation. These deserved to be one of the lowest scoring things ever but you bumped the score up there.
Any man or boy who reads this and then goes out and buys them for his girlfriend is terribly cruel. I know we shouldn't expect much in the way of praline chocolate from Cadburys but these sound horrendous. I do believe you should be grateful when being given anything as a present though so if someone did give me these I would still say thank you (then maybe feed them to the waste bin lol).
Thanks for the review love.
Rxxx
Its inexcusable that they dont use dairy milk. Despite what you say Jim I think most people can tell the difference between their cheaper chocolates and Dairy milk. Any person who cant must be so stupid - for a start Dairy Milk is about ten times thickers when it melts and it is so much creamier than the cheaper one.
What a total disappointment. When I saw that you said Cadbury had two new chocolate boxes coming out the other day I thought you meant they were going to have different flavoured pieces in and all. Im well aware of the milk tray already existing, though I thought they would then make a more expensive option. Im annoyed they chose to do the opposite and just make a crappier set of chocolates :( Boo you Cadbury.
The non-Dairy Milk chocolate would have been far less of an issue had the praline centres not been woeful - unfortunately they were just as poor
..... I genuinely lol'd at that bit :-)
These aren't going to impress anyone, not even the most diehard Cadbury fans.
.... I wont even look at these now. I hope you understand the influence you have on people. Use your talent wisely darling. We would be devastated to find out you are a fibster.
I know its early on in the year but I never thought we would see a cadburys chocolate as the worse product of the year so far. Oh deary me.
As perverse as this sounds its when you review things really badly (and really well of course lol) that I want to try them :)
I always wonder if I think they are going to be as bad as you reckon they are.
Might I be trying to look on the positive side of things too much by suggesting you might have thought more of them if someone had given them to you as a gift? Lol at least I am trying to put a positive spin on things.
Hey Jim,
England international tonight mate :-) Stevie has the flu so he cant play lol. I will believe that when I see it :-)
Personally Im about as keen for this England match as I am for trying these chocolates. I think we can safely say I could do with out them LOL.
N
Sorry Jim I don't agree with you at all about the packaging.
I know nothing about Valentines day is ever considered classy anyways but these are ridiculous. Could they have made them look anymore tasteless if they tried?
Have you seen the other box of chocolates called 'Thank You'. They have vanilla cream in them i.e. they are Cadbury Bliss reshaped into flowers.
Jim, reading your review I get the feeling that these were a little worse than the Hotel Chocolate hearts you reviewed the other day?
:) :) :) :) ROFL lol these sound sooooooo lame.
I know you have torn shreds of Nestle for lazy new products recently but these sound craptacular to the extreme. I would of thought cadburys were much better than this. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come from them :( I think they just went for the cheap and nasty for some short term money by the looks of it. How sad.
I doubt anyone needs to go cheaper but there its worth mentioning that there is also a smaller 50g box of these being sold.
How do you always manage to get hold of these things so quickly? It takes forever for these new things to appear here in the shops (Glasgow) we still haven't got the aero orange and that was ages ago it was supposed to be out.
I very briefly considered buying these for my partner when I saw them in the supermarket but then I thought about the grilling she would give me if she ever saw how much they cost :-0 They say money can't buy you love kids but I tell you it can really upset somone if you don't spend enough on them lol.
Whats the point on calling something praline if they haven't flavoured it with nut at all?
One thing you didn't mention is how they intended to make it nutty mate. I assume they didn't use chunks cause you don't mention them in the review and I can't see any in your pic.
I think the box looks very sweet but I dont like what I am hearing about the chocolate by any means. Why are cadburys progressivelly trying to get away with not using dairy milk?
More often on all of these new things they keep coming out with are using that crappier chocolate they use for Freddos WHY NOT DAIRY MILK?
You would think it would be in there best interests to use the best chocolate they can so people dont lose trust in them. If cadbury chocolate starts tasting like everything else then there is no point paying more money for it. You might as well just buy the supermarket stuff.
Oh no I thought Cadburys were better than this :( it looks so pretty :(
Are these the worst cadburys chocs ever then?
Its unlike Cadbury to make chocolates this bad.
They look very different to what I expected them to be. I was thinking they were going to be more along the lines of the hotel chocolat ones ie. bigger and with small nuts in them.
I wouldn't worry yourselves folks. It isn't a sustainable strategy for cadbury to be pumping rubbish like this out on the regular. It would damage how people see their brand too much and they will eventually stop buying. Eventually Cadbury will see this and move back to producing quality chocolate. I hope this is the case anyway. It should all by cyclical.
Boy oh boy!!!!!!!
This was very unexpected. I dont think I have seen a stinker from Cadburys for ages so perhaps we should excuse them just this one time. Cheers for the review mate, at least you know your readers will be spared the embarassment of gifting these away. We have been warned
Being a lonely singleton there was never any threat of me suffering these. It just proves that all of these chocolate makers are willing to go for quick cash ins the cheeky ********s
Its such a shame you wasted your time reviewing these and not something like ...I dunno ... lets say the hotel chocolate drinking chocolates ;) Fingers crossed for Friday.
Cripes that score took me by surprise. They didn't look like one of those chocolates that wasn't going to score very well, you make them look too nice in the photos I think lol.
When you do reviews where things don't taste as nice you should make them look less appetising in the pictures you post up.
Wow, I'm surprised at Cadbury. Or should that be Kraft.
How on earth can they have the cheek to not use Dairy Milk when they are in a purple box? Everyone associates purple with Dairy Milk. I kinda expected these to be boring, but not this bad. I suppose you won't be reviewing the ones with the vanilla filling, eh Jim?
I laughed at them using electric pink for the tray colour, how tacky.
@Daisy - "Aren't we all lucky we have our wisdom filled Choccie mission man to warn us of such things."
Agreed! Just think of all the potential bad products we've avoided!
Personally I think we have been very lucky with Cadbury recently, they have come up with way more ok/good chocolates than they have bad ones.
The ones I am thinking of are the Bar of Plenty and Bliss, Im sure there are a few more that haven't been bad. I think everyone is being too harsh on them.
Jim sorry to go way off topic but have you seen these new choc flavoured teas? If you are continuing your campaign to find the best hot drink you should give it a try.
http://www.fdin.org.uk/2011/02/us-brand-the-tea-spot-launches-new-chocolate-tea/
Not that I'd be buying these anyway but it's a big disappointment to see these do so badly. I knew you really don't like Cadbury when they stray from their milk chocolate range but I'm surprised this product is so poor. I always thought Cadbury's milk chocolate was fail-safe, even when they've used their lesser recipe. This box just smacks of trying to get as much money out of Valentines shoppers as possible, without caring about the quality on offer. Hugely disappointed Cadbury (Kraft?)!
Such a shame as Cadbury had the chance to make a delicious Valentine's product & they blew it! Why oh why would they use rubbish cheapo choc & not perfect Dairy Milk? No wonder these are so cheap in Tesco! Thanks for another great & as always helpful review dude x P.S: Sorry if you get my comment through more than once - it kept coming up with an error message when I tried to post!
Thats so wierd.. I havnt seen any of these in the shops yet but was at the hospital today and went into the WRVS shop and guess what - they had the little version of this box for £1.10 and the big box of the flower one (£4.10). I decided to try the litte box of pralines, and here you are reviewing them haha. I havent tried them yet.
It made me laugh though as when I'd bought this one of the old ladies working there picked up the big flower box and said to te other 'these would be better just solid chocolate and not that funny creme stuff wouldnt they...' lol!
I think in such small quantities its not all that easy to tell DM and the other version apart in all honesty but what i dont undersrtand is why they didnt just use the same recipes as in the KOKO boxes.. theyre nice :)
@Fiona.. they do use DM in Freddos, it says it on the front of the wrapper. They do use DM more than people think but not so much on the more 'obvious' things like Milk Tray, these etc (although in the old days they pretty much used it on everything inc Milk Tray!)
5.7/10 that must be an all time low for cadbury. I must say im surprised by this.
God this is quite worrying cause I would have considered buying these.
If you can't trust cadburys for quality these days who the hell can you trust? God why is present buying always so stressful.
Do you think it is going to be too late for a Hotel Chocolat order or am I better off looking in one of their stores now?
If the Thank You box is consistent with these then aren't they just going to be a worse version of the Bliss bars?
I would imagine they are going to be are non DM chocolate with the same vanilla stuff in. Lol I think we could be in for more low scores sooner than we hoped.
Its been ages since you last went off on a proper rant. Good on you Jim its nice to see you dont just say everything is good.
@Ria, I wouldnt say Jim doesnt really like Cadbury when they dont use Dairy Milk.. theres loads of things he's reviewed that dont use it that are good scorers. Their secondary recipe is far from poor afterall lol. I think its the centre hes more disappointed with.
Haha, this review was pretty funny! I was really attracted to these because of the nice box and thought I might treat myself to them, but thank you for saving me from buying them!
Hi All,
Again this is going to have to be a flying reply today as things are very busy at the coal mine :D (aka real work!!)
Indeed this was a hugely disappointing offering from Cadbury, certainly well below par some of their recent innovation which has actually been rather good as of late.
From what I have tasted/seen here I would personally offer the view that this seemed like a very rushed product. I think like some of you have suggested these new chocolate boxes might have been rushed to market in order to cash in on a day they hadn't previously cashed in on before. Who knows? I would be a little worried if I was to hear this was a project that had a lot of thought put in to it :D
Right questions/comments.....
Joel - Its a lot easier writing about products I like.
Golden - Bournville would have scored lower I would have thought. It bloomin well deserves to have done.
Daisy - Im glad my reviews are of use to you guys :D
Anne - They do look very similar to that chocolate box don't they. Almost like they have taken the concept entirely and just rebranded them Cadbury. I think you guys have hit the nail on the head with the quick cash in thing. Why they didn't just attempt to do the same thing with Milka I don't know. I guess they just thought the strength of the Cadbury brand would be a better option than Milka. It will be interesting to see the consumer reaction to these.
Lauren - I haven't seen the Thank You Cadbury box yet myself.
Steven - That is a bit harsh on Nestle. Their chocolate boxes are poor but at least they aren't obvious cash ins.
Rachel - Good point! It is cheesey to say but it is the thought that counts. Just smile when you recieve these girls ... then next time suggest what to buy.
Andrew - You really think people can tell the difference? Perhaps people who are fan of Cadburys might be able to.
Katie - I never write reviews to encourage or discourage people to buy certain products. I do recommend based on my own opinion but it is very rare I ever say 'you must/musn't buy this'
Linda - Haha I don't think my opinion would have been different no.
Nigel - Its going to be woeful watching INGERLAND tonight. All I will be watching it for is to see whether Rooney comes out unscathed. United over England any day!
Colin - Each to their own chap. Perhaps I was just searching for something good to say about these a bit. I genuinely dont think the presentation is that bad though. They look nice enough.
Joe - Haha yeah they were just a tiny bit worse than the HC filled hearts.
Richard - The funny thing is that the smaller boxes cost £1.20. You can get more than three times the amount for just £1.00 more. It makes no sense.
Kels - I have my means :D usually it involves me watching my local supermarket shelves like a hawk haha :D
Steve - Wise words there.
Duncan - They had 'hazelnut paste' in supposedly. I will be damned if I could taste it mind you.
Fiona - You would assume that their secondary recipe is the cheaper out the two so they would make higher profit margins. I feel 90.0% comfortable offering that as the reason.
Nick - Agreed. They can only do this for so long before it starts hampering their percieved brand health. Don't worry I genuinely don't belive this will become common practice with them.
Francesca - The reviews are coming on the HC drinking chocolate front :D I had 5 e-mails about this today haha!
Phil - I guess they believe purple is to be associated with Cadbury as a company and not just Dairy Milk. When you think about it the Cadbury logo is on a purple background so I guess they have grounds their. I will review the Thank You box when I find it, just out curiosity if anything. I wish I had taken a photo of the pink tray! Honestly it looked so cheap. Thanks for the nice words about my reviews being useful - Im glad you think so.
Susan - Good point well made. Their innovation has been strong recently.
David - If I see them I will buy them to review.
Ria - As I said to the guys above I think you are spot on when it comes to the cash in thing. It would be interesting who was pushing for this internally ... the original Cadbury team (if they still exist!?) or Kraft. Increasingly we would be left to believe it would be the Kraft officials.
Roxy - Dont worry I sorted out the duplicates. See what I said to the guys above about the no Dairy Milk thing. It all comes down to £££.
Alan - As soon as you try them I want your opinion chap! I sorta wish you hadn't read my review, I know that wouldn't influence you anyway :D I look forward to your opinion.
Thanks for the comments everyone. Sorry if my responses come across rushed, I am just so so busy at the moment. If any of you try these out I am always loving hearing what you have to say! Be sure to share!
JIM
Well my sister and I opened the box lol we thought they were really nice, and we could taste the hazlenut well enough.. I wonder why you couldnt?
I'm quite surprised because it was pretty pronounded, at least in our box lol. We enjoyed the texture too, although I agree they are on the small side. They may not be the best pralines out there but I think they did a pretty decent job personally :)
... the name's clever, at least. Because they are, in fact, little! ha.
These would have scored so bad if they weren't inflated by the presentation and smell stats. 5.7 is overstated by the sounds of things.
@Matt HC do something called Gold delivery which gets you stuff special delivery. You should be ok if you use that.
Did you put yourself through it Jim?
I thought that Jack Wilshere lad was amazing. I wish we had someone like him at LPool.
@Jim/everyone
They are only making the THANK YOU ones in the big box I believe. If you look on Cadburygifts.co.uk you can see what it looks like. Sadly all signs point towards it not featuring Dairy Milk again :(
These must have some sort of nut content if the nutritional statistics are anything to go by. I don't ever get why Cadburys chocolate has such high levels of saturated fat in it. That amount for 5 hearts is more than 25% of your RDA. That is pretty gross considering Jim says they are so small.
Awesome review jim mate. I will avoid these like the plague. Lindor truffles all the way :)
I still haven't tried one of the new snickers yet. Its getting so hard to keep up with all these new chocolates that keep coming out. There just isnt enough time to try them all.
@Alicia it may be to do with the milk content? to be honest that kinda thing doesnt bother me, its not like your eating hundreds of bars each day afterall :)
They look exactly like these:
http://www.godisbiten.se/godis/namn/357,Marabou_Aladdin_Hjartan
Milk chocolate with hazelnut filling from Marabou. They've been around since the mid 1990's!
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