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Kcal 272 Fat 14.4g Fat(sats) 4.6g Carbs 31.3gI always say ChocolateMission readers are the best, and I have to pass my thanks on to yet another one of you for providing me with this bar for the review today. My gratitude must specifically go to dedicated reader Daisy, who was kind enough to send me a 'Christmas treat box' full of chocolate bars from her latest trip to a well known candy importer based in London. Within the selection of bars, Daisy managed to pick out a whole host of limited edition chocolates from all over world, some of which I hadn't even known existed. One of these very bars was the Snickers Hazelnut Slab, which is bar hailing from Australia. On the wrapper the bar came described as 'a pile of hazelnuts, chewy caramel and a slab of nougat, covered in chocolate', this was pretty much your standard Snickers, but with the peanuts replaced by hazelnuts.
Unlike the majority of limited edition Snickers products made in the US, this bar pulled no punches in terms of it's size, and came in a plentiful 53.0g form. In terms of the wrapper and presentation, the bar clearly communicated it's hazelnut theme with the aid of some on bold secondary branding and clear on-pack hazelnut pictures. Suffice to say it was differentiated enough from the standard Snickers, yet retained the brand essence by maintaining the clarity of the original Snickers logo (nice work Mars!). Peeling back the folds of the plastic wrapper, the first thing to come to my attention was that the usual peanutty smells were replaced by some more savoury hazelnut scents - it still smelt pretty appetising.
Once I had got my fix of the smells being offered, the next action I took was to cross-section the bar (see above!). At this point I was both pleased and somewhat disappointed, as the hazelnuts were plentiful, but were chopped into smaller pieces rather than integrated as wholenuts. Taking my first bite in to the bar the wonderful array textures were self evident with the crisp outer chocolate, chewy nougat, soft caramel and crunchy nut pieces creating a familiar Snickers mouth feel. Taste wise the milk chocolate, nougat and caramel elements were almost entirely comparable to any standard Snickers bar we get here in the UK i.e. there was nothing remarkable about any of them, but combined they made for one lovely synergy of toffee and vanilla noted, sweet milk chocolate tastes. In addition to this standard Snickers base, the hazelnuts also contributed nicely to each bite, adding a woody, nut flavours. Despite my initial concerns, the nuts still made a major influence on the taste despite their chopped nature - why did I ever worry eh? :D
Overall this was a nice variation on a cult classic, and it was certainly interesting to try. Being realistic, I don't think there is any variation or limited edition that Mars could ever release that would make me think that it was superior to the original. In my opinion I can't ever seeing there being another Snickers bar that can take on the gloriousness of the salty peanut and sweet caramel taste. Whilst the hazelnuts were certainly a welcome addition to this bar, I didn't feel that they were as tasty, or as complimentary to the other constituents as the normal peanuts. Whilst this may be the reality of the quality of this product vs the original, what must be considered is still how good this bar is on it's own merits. On the whole my experience with this Hazelnut Slab variation was nothing but positive - it looked great, smelt great, tasted great and satisfied my hunger fantastically. If you are a fan of the Mars Topic, this bar is almost identical to that one, but just with ten times the amount of hazelnuts. Although the reality is that it isn't as good as the original, I would still give it a ChocolateMission thumbs up, it's well worth a try if you ever see it.
8.6 out of 10
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59 comments:
For a second there I got all excited that we were getting a new Snickers but no :(
Its just so annoying comparing the standard of the limited editions we get versus what they get abroad. In our ones they take stuff away, abroad they actually try to make them better. Grrrrr.
Looking good Jim. Liking the work with the camera again. You always do a nice job of the cross sections with these sort of bars.
I like the look of the wrapper man. Thats one of the coolest snickers ive ever seen before.
Is this one of your old school reviews or something? I did a quick google search and it looks like its been well gone from Australia for a while now. I hope one day the UK mars team get sight of it and think its worth a dash on the UK market. I don't think ive ever tried a snickers bars that is different from the normal one.
Do they do the Mars bar down under? Have they ever done any special versions of that?
If they were going to change nut type they could have at least done it with a more interesting one. How a Snickers Mega Macadamia Munch or a Snickers Pistachio Power?
Lol crappy names I know but that was just off the top of my head.
Do i think replacing the peanuts with hazelnuts is a good idea? ... nope.
Do i want to see this come out in the uk? .... nope
Do i want to see them trying more new things in the future? ..... yep
I have a holiday booked for Australia in December :-) I will have to take a look at all your old reviews to see if there is anything I should be especially keeping an eye out for.
Is it Oz or NZ that sell that Whittakers stuff. I remember they had some class chocolates that you recommended.
And there was me thinking that Snickers had done something cool for us here in england for once. SIIIIIIIIIGH back in my box I go gumble grumble.
8.6 ..... thats a great rating considering the rest of the products that have cropped up this week. Congrats to Mars making another pearler.
Is this an older review or something? The internet i.e. google lol doesn't seem to have much information about it at all.
Wow a limited edition made by mars thats worth looking at. Lol now thats a rarity.
Bits and Bobs was brill this week. Make sure we get another next week Jim.
It wouldn't be a bad thing trying but I sure dont want hazelnuts replacin peanuts in Snickers forever. Actually scrap that im 100% confident that I wouldn't like that decision at all. Snickers are all about the peanuts and their saltiness playing off against the sugary caramel and chocolate. Taking that away from it would be a criminal if it were a pearmanent move.
Do you even realise the amount of chocolates you keep reviewing that have nuts in lately?
Speaking as someone who doesn't like nuts it can get a little on the boring side reading review after review of things im not ever going to buy or like myself. Just take a watch out for it please.
If if wouldnt cost me ten times the amount in postage fees I would get right on the case buying one of these. Its cool seeing what the likes of Australia sell but its annoying at the same time.
And that ladies and gentlemen is the difference between us and Australia.
They get interesting new products for adventurous people and we get boring old rehashes. How depressing is that.
Hey hun lovely post. I've not ever been much of a snickers person because i don't like peanuts very much. Im not crazy about hazelnuts either but if it were a choice between the two the hazelnut option would win out every time for me. For that reason I would contemplate giving this one a try. Its not something I would spend any money of note on. Thanks for another lovely review.
Rxxx
I've got cousins over in Australia. Lol I should get them to send me over a package with all the latest and greatest in. It might look a little bad though. I haven't talked to them for zonks so it will look well random of me to ask them out the blue to send me some of their local chocs.
Something british, bits and bobs and a foriegn chocolate. A perfect mix of posts if you ask me Jim. Thanks.
This would have been tons better I reckon if they put beasty sized nuts in there rather than chopping them all up. I don't understand why nintey percent of manufactures insist of chopping nuts up for their bars. When you look at bars like the ritter ones where they are kept whole they manage to better bring the nuttiness to life dont they. I know which way I prefer it.
God its about time mars in this country stepped up its game sorted us out with an idea as interesting as this. One would imagine it would go down well considering they have starved us off any real new exciting chocolates for such a long time.
I dont get why all the brits are complaining today. Guys we already have this bar ......... its called the Mars Topic!
Quit complaining you miserable lot.
@David knows the score - I can tell it tastes every bit as good as you say by looking at your photo Jim. You have such a good style of capturing whats inside all these different chocolates you review, its so useful to look at when trying to relate to the words you write (which i also think are excellent ;) ).
I dont think you realise how lucky you are trying all these different chocolates from all over the globe mate. Some of us can only dream of trying one chocolate bar from australia let alone all their limited edition ones. It would be so interesting counting up all the different individual bars and chocs youve tried now. It must be approaching the 1000s mark easy.
Ahhh you had me all excited for a minute there because I thought this was a UK one. Then I started reading :-( Booooo Hoooo
Bring on SOTW Jim. They have been brill recently. I can't wait to see what you have instore for us tomorrow. Gr8 review today btw.
To be fair its not like we haven't had nothing new from Mars recently - they've been busy lol. We had the Mars Triple Choc, Twix Fino and Twix Dark in recent times. People too often forget that it isn't just the Snickers that they make, its got to be hard striking a balance between giving everything they own enough attention.
Mars uk are a bit of a disgrace for us Brits. I wouldn't say they are necessarily bad with the snickers because they always advertise it etc.My main gripe with them is that they don't do anything with M&Ms.
I don't know a single person who doesn't love M&Ms, I just don't understand why they dont do more with them here like they do in the US. Its annoying having to spend through the nose buying all the new flavours from overseas the whole time.
/rant over
I would be ok with Mars changing anything else in Snickers apart from the peanuts. I don't think it makes sense taking them out because they are what make the Snickers what it is. Change them and then its like you have something different altogether.
There was a time when I would have been obsessed with trying something like this LE but i'm just so far behind everything now I can't be bothered to try and keep up with them all.
Unless you are dedicated to the cause like you are Jim there is little sense to trying them all. I now just go by the mindset of picking off the ones that you deem as worthy rather than every single one of them.
Interesting review. We haven't seen you do a review os something from Oz for ages. Its always cool to compare the sort of chocolates they get down there with what we have. I think I might just move there for their chocolates now lol.
Even a Snickers which you dont appear to be too positive about gets an 8.6 lol. Some of the other manufacturers must be wishing you were as kind with your scoring as you were here lol.
For what its worth I cant see hazelnuts working better than peanuts either.
Jim do you know what sort of prices they sell their LEs at abroad? Obviously when they get done here they always get sold at a higher price. It would be tres interesting to see if they try the same approach abroad or whether they recognise that people will notice them charging them more. In effect what I'm asking is whether Mars abroad thinkin their customers are as stupid as they think they are in the Uk lol.
All you people complaining about the snickers getting low levels of attention should stop and think about what they have done for the Bounty bar lately.
When was the last time we saw them make any new flavours or adverts for that one hey!? Lol I think you will struggle to answer that unless your really sad like me ;)
Well this is just unfair.
Hazelnut Slab vs Maxximus = no contest landslide.
The only issue I can see any person taking up with this is taking away the peanuts sorta makes it a non-snickers because snickers are all about the peanuts in the first place
Im getting so bored of seeing other countries get superior LEs than we do. Its been the same with Snickers for years and years now and sadly I cant see it ever changing. Every year we see interesting ones released in America like fudge and peanut butter squared etc then we just get something totally lame like the more nuts or the snickers maximum. Even getting one like the Cruncher which just has cereal in it would make things more different. Sorry for ranting but its true.
Impressie review Jim. When it comes to these manufactures doing varieties of their main brands I never expect them to better but it is nice when they come close and offer something a little different. I think 99% of people wouldn't like to see the peanuts go away permanently but trying it with hazelnuts would be tres interesring if only to see what its like.
I see some peeps have mentioned the 'Topic' bar that Mars make. I would say that is a sensible way of trying something like this however I don't think I have seen one on sale for years. Is everyone here sure they still make it?
Please forgive me asking a dull question but do you know where Daisy bought this for you Jim?
Please post today lol I know shes a regular like me =)
I agree with the anonymous person about the wrapper, it looks cool. When I was younger I used to collect chocolate wrappers but I somehow managed to lose them all when we moved house. I used to have quite the collection of Snickers.
Lol you got to laugh at the people complaining about us not getting a bar like this one. Ryan's has rightly pointed out the exsistance of the Topic bar itself lol. Snickers getting hazelnuts in it would be pointless, it woud be exactly the same chocolate bar wouldn't it. You fools.
Omg jim i saw something crazy the other day. Tesco have already started selling Xmas chocolates on specially dedicated shelves. How mental is that huh!? Before we know it the easter gear will be next lol.
So much for the Snickers being dead for ideas. There are so many different things they can do with it I do wonder why they never bring out any different flavours for it in England.
Hmmm this is one of those ones I regret not buying now. I remember seeing it in cyber candy birmingham before but for some reason or other I decided not to buy it that time.
Great reviewJim.
If anyone from the UKfinds stock of these somewhere please can you post a link up on here. I did a quick search myself but I think in all likelyhood this has been and gone.
What a shame :(
I found a cool thing on your fave resource in the world Jim :p
Wikipedia has a list of all of the limited editions there have ever been for Snickers. It makes me feel very old because I remember way too many of them lol.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snickers
Hey Jim, how's it going? This is certainly an interesting (and as usual, fantastic) review. I always love seeing the various limited edition Snickers/Mars/Twix reviews. It's amazing how many different, yet completely simple, changes can be made to these bars to change them up a little. It's even more amazing that Mars Uk doesn't take advantage of this and produce m/any limited edition varieties. Are they just not interested or are they just not creative enough to try swapping 1 type of nut for another etc? Anyway...This bar sounds great. It may not live up the the original's standards but an 8.6 means that it's still a quality bar. I might try and get my hands on 1. As for why do you worry about the pieces of nut having less impact on the taste, hmmm perhaps it's because that's usually one of your bug bears and you're always moaning about the annoying little pieces of nut not being as good as a whole nut? :P :D
Have a great wkend.
PS, not only do you have the best blog on the net, but you definitely also have the best readers too!
Hi All,
As you might have been able to tell this was a review that had been in the bank for a long time now so it was great finally getting to post it and seeing what you all made of it.
You might have been able to tell that things have been incredibly busy my side lately. It sure is tough balancing everything (aka real work) with the site at the moment and this might be something I have to address come the end of the year.
Looking at the feedback it looks like a lot of you are a little frustrated at the quality of the limited editions we have had in previous times for the Snickers. looking at the More Nuts and Maximus bars it is hard to make a case arguing against that view.
Perhaps we can look at the Mars Triple Choc as a real step in the right direction - its a least something new.
As always thanks for the nice words about the review and pictures. The nice comments are what keep this worth doing for me.
NICK - It was a review I wrote months ago yes.
UMER - Yes and they call
ROBERT - Interesting names I have to say :D I think hazelnuts were a more than fair choice mind you.
LINDSAY - If you sent some British product to them in exchange.
RYAN - This is a fair point but the Topic bar is different I think. The nougat for starters is differently flavoured and the nuts are far less generously portioned.
TRICKY/XEN - reading your comments one after another was an eye opener. There's a real split crowd when it comes to the quality of innovation.
RICHARD - No idea chap. I would have thought it would be the same as this country where we traditionally try and launch at a small price premium.
WARREN - It is definitely still around. I saw one only yesterday.
ZARA - Cybercandy I believe.
PATTRA - All I will say is look out for Snack of the week tomorrow :D
RIA - Hey there long time no speak. Im good ... busy .. but good. Im not sure about the Mars UK strategy but it appears not to as flexible as the likes of the US etc. You could be right about the nuts thing ... they did it just to spite me :D
Thanks for the feedback everyone. The ritter competition winners are announced tomorrow aswell as snack of the week. Thank you all for the feedback.
JIM
They've done this before in Britain but I can't for the life of me remember what they called it.
Great review Jimbo. Looking forward to snack of the week now! Have a great weekend man.
I would cry if they did this forever to my lovely snickers but as a part time thing I would give it a try.
The words limited edition and snickers just give me harrowing memories of the snickers more nuts lol. You remember that one? All it had was 10% more peanuts in. I think it was the worse product ever that tried to claim it was new. That was just cheekyness to nth degree.
You can tell they put more effort into the chocolate rather than the marketing. Lol 'hazelnut slab' isn't the most inspirational name ive ever seen given to a product now lol.
The Aussies may get better/more interesting limited edition snickers chocs but we still have the Ashes folks :-) :-) Lets not let them forget that fact whilst we still can.
I knew I shouldn't have come on here :( :( :( im so gagging for a snickers now lol.
How much do you think one would have to pay for this bar from the like of cybercandy? Is it one of those expensive ones which they charge over £2 for. Lol it seems to silly paying that much for a snickers.
I think I might potentialy might like this one more than the normal one. For me its hazelnuts > peanuts all day long.
Its happened again lol my comments keep not showing up, although they seem ok my end :( oh well lol
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