April 15th: Cadbury Easter 2011

There are so many Easter products floating about this year, I thought it best I compile everything by brand in order to showcase the best and worse of what is on offer. Today Cadbury take centre stage with my reviews of their latest cake bars and some links back to some of my previous reviews that may have slipped you by if you have only started reading the site in the past year or so.

Most (if not all) of these products can be purchased in your local supermarkets, though you may also want to check out CadburyGifts online where they are doing special hampers and online deals - See HERE.


Starting with the older products that may have passed you by, you will see above the Cadbury Mini Eggs Easter egg offering this year. That was a present given to me by one of my work colleagues and has been on sale in the supermarkets since Boxing Day 2010 :D This egg package features a 120.0g of Cadbury Mini Eggs, a large sized hollow milk chocolate egg and lastly (and most awesomely) a Cadbury Mini Eggs mug, which right now is sitting on my desk filled to the brim with coffee.

In addition to all their large egg package offerings this year, Cadbury also have all usual classic offerings ...

Cadbury Creme Egg - See HERE
Cadbury Caramel Egg - See HERE
Cadbury Mini Eggs - See HERE
Cadbury Caramel Bunnies - See HERE

Enough with the past! Here are the new cakes Cadbury have on offer this Easter ....

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Cadbury Cake Bars Orange Creme
Kcal 145 Fat 8.0g Fat(sats) 5.0g Carbs 16.6g
'Chocolate flavoured sponge with an orange flavour creme covered with Cadbury milk chocolate.'

Seemingly Burtons Foods have taken a leaf out of the the Ritter Sport approach to innovation, as a season in the calendar can't seem to pass without them introducing a few new flavours to their Cadbury Cake Bar range. This spring time the flavour variety being offered are these Cadbury Cake Bars Orange Creme, which I found on one of those infamous £1.00 introductory offers in Tesco. The last time Cadbury Cake Bars tried an orange flavour, they went a more direct route in competing with McVitie's Jaffa Cakes and tried pulling off their own Jaffa variety - See HERE. This time around the orange filling tasted more like an orange flavoured fondant, which unfortunately wasn't entirely preferable. Despite it's smooth silky mouth feel the creme was just too sugary when combined with the sweet cake and Cadbury chocolate, the orange influence felt also rather laboured and didn't have the desired fruity zingyness I wanted. I wouldn't be overly concerned if you miss out on trying these this Easter.

6.6 out of 10


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Cadbury Lemon Mini Rolls
Kcal 125 Fat 5.7g Fat(sats) 2.9g Carbs 16.7g
'Golden sponge with lemon flavoured curd and a lemon flavour filling, covered with milk chocolate'

Fruit flavours must be the name of the game this season, as Burton's have also released a new fruit flavoured variety to the Cadbury Mini Roll range. These Cadbury Mini Rolls Lemon are the latest addition to Cadbury's extensive portfolio of Mini Rolls, and I found them on the same £1.00 Tesco deal as stated above. To cut to the chase, these Cadbury Mini Rolls Lemon were actually pretty good, and I enjoyed them immensly more than some of the other varities that have gone before. As you will have determined from the description and pictures, the lemon influence was established by the lemon jam which was intertwinned with the vanilla cream. The lemon flavours created an edgy citrus taste, whilst the coolness of jam mouth feel played off nicely against both the sponge and the cream. Again the overall taste was rather sweet, however it wasn't half as overbearing as some other varities. I wouldn't rate these as Blackcurrant and Vanilla beaters, but for £1.00 you could do worse this Easter.

7.5 out of 10


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Cadbury Mini Egg Chocolate Nest Cakes
Kcal 150 Fat 8.5g Fat(sats) 5.1g Carbs 15.9g (per cake)
'Chocolate sponge with buttercream, covered in Cadbury milk chocolate with Cadbury Mini Eggs'

Out of all the Cadbury cakes I bought this Easter these were by far the most expensive, and cost me £2.25 for the pack of five from Tesco. Compared to the Cake Bar and Mini Roll alternatives showcased above, these did look the fancier cakes - the chocolate curls and decorative Mini Eggs placed on top of the cake just made them look that little bit extra special. Whilst I was impressed by the cakes aesthetically and texturally, I was far less receptive of the taste with my main source of disappointment being driven by the buttercream element. What with the Cadbury chocolate and sponge constituents generating an already quite sweet taste, the buttercream only went to further this with it's heavy sugar emphasis. In essence it failed to deliver either a buttery or creamy development to the taste, and rather just made these cakes overbearingly sweet for my taste.

6.5 out of 10

April 13th: 'Bits n Bobs' Chocolate Cookies, Cakes & Cereal Bars

I'll save you the big introduction today as I'm sure you know the score with these Bits n Bobs posts now. Today we have various cookies, cakes and cereal bars hailing from both the UK & US ... Lets go ....

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Kellogg's Special K Bliss Chocolate & Raspberry
Kcal 89 Fat 2.0g Fat(sats) 1.0g Carbs 16.2g (per bar)
'Mixed cereal bar with raspberry fruit pieces, with a chocolate layer'

It's rare for me even to second glance at a Kellogg's Special K product in any month either side of January, however I missed breakfast this morning so bought one of these Kellogg's Special K Bliss Chocolate & Raspberry from a local newsagent. My convenience driven purchase meant I paid an inflated £0.90, though I'm sure you could buy these far cheaper in supermarket multipacks.

A peak at the score will quickly reveal that this wasn't the most satisfactory of products. The bar was crumbly and messy to eat, and the chocolate layer melted within seconds leaving no lasting chocolatey impression in the mouth. The only positive contributor taste wise were the raspberry fruit pieces, which collectively at least brought the bar to an edible standard by providing some real tasting red berry flavour influences. The rice and wheat constituents were far too light in texture to provide any great deal of satisfaction, thus leaving me both hungry and certainly a little lighter in the pocket for my troubles. Personally I wouldn't even bother with these if I was on a diet.

3.0 out of 10


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McVitie's Hobnobs Cookies Choc Chip & Hazelnut
Kcal 54 Fat 2.8g Fat(sats) 1.3g Carbs 6.4g (per cookie)
'Oaty biscuits with plain and milk chocolate chips and hazelnuts'

Coming from a household where the Hobnob biscuit has always reigned supreme, it was with great delight last December that I learnt McVitie's were going to be releasing a variety of cookies - See HERE. Having been looking out for them for a few months, it came as a bit of a surprise when I found them first on sale in Waitrose where I paid a RRP premium of £1.35 for the 150.0g pack.

Packaging and presentation was all standard McVitie's stuff. The outer out foil wrapper does a good impression of the McVitie's plain Digestive packaging, but the infamous Hobnob branding is just about big enough to differentiate it. The cookies were a similar size and stature to Maryland, though the oat heavy constituents made for a firmer and desnser textured proposition. This more viscous nature meant that the cookies were longer sustained in the mouth, which subsequently made them feel a more substantial proposition. Flavour wise the predominant flavours were that of oat cereal and surprisingly hazelnut. The only disappointment for me came in the form of the chocolate chips, which failed to create any sort of chocolatey cut through in the taste. These cookies are a coating of decent chocolate away from being a very good cookie option.

7.7 out of 10


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Nabisco Oreo Fudge Cremes
Kcal 230 Fat 11.0g Fat(sats) 7.0g Carbs 32.0g (per pack)
'Chocolate cookies topped with Oreo Creme, covered in fudge'

I often get e-mails from readers saying that my 'Bits n Bobs' reviews are too UK focused, so I thought I would throw these Oreo Cookies in the mix in order to please my readership across the pond. I'm sure you are all aware that I love my Oreo cookies - Double Stuff Mint being my all time favourites (See HERE). My passion for trying anything sporting an Oreo logo, led me in the direction of these 'New' Oreo Fudge Cremes, which I received in a 46.0g sized pack.

These cookies were sent to me by one of my suppliers in A-spec condition (no cookie breakage etc) so I was surprised to see such an unappetising prospect when I opened the package. Despite being a good eight months 'in-date' the cookies had scuffed, worn bloomed surfaces and looked totally meagre and unsubstantial due to their flatness. All this negativity unfortunately carried through to the taste test where things were equally as disappointing. The standard Oreo biscuit and Creme constituents held their own, however it was the horrid, waxy melting fudge coating that was the predominant constituent. Not only did it have a horrible mouth feel, but it contributed little aside from a very 'wish-washy' sugary influence taste wise. These are not something that Nabisco should be proud of - Oreo fans you have been warned.

5.0 out of 10


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Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Billionaire Shortbread
Kcal 374 Fat 20.3g Fat(sats) 10.8g Carbs 29.9g (per pack)
'All butter shortbread, caramel and milk chocolate layer, decorated with white and dark'

If you high calorie foods put you in a place of nervous disposition, I suggest you look away from this review now :D A few months ago Sainsbury's relaunched their 'Taste the Difference' range (their premium own brand product tier), a move which saw them add many new products to their existing own brand lines. One of these new products was this single serving 73.0g Billionaire Shortbread slice, a product that shares it's name with one of the highest scoring cakes featured on this website last year - Heavenly Cakes Billionaire Shortbread (See HERE). What with it's name, it had an awful lot to live up to, thankfully it didn't disappoint too much.

Despite claiming to be a single serving piece, I ate the slice across two separate sittings - firstly as an afternoon snack and then later on as a dessert. Breaking each layer down, the shortbread base was lovely. It had a glorious melt in the mouth texture, however kept it's form nicely and wasn't messily crumbly. The caramel layer on top was similarly pleasant in both taste texture. It wasn't overly intensive in it's sugaryness, and was more buttery sweet in it's flavour influence - all it needed was a lick of salt for my liking. Topping the entire cake, the chocolate layer was fair in flavour, though I think more could have been made of the dual chocolate type idea as the white chocolate didn't quite provide the contrastive cream based flavours it could of possibly done. I'm an experienced guy when it comes to B/Millionaire Shortbread products :D and in the grand scheme of them all I would rank this one relatively highly. It should give you some idea of the quality here when I say I would buy it again.

8.2 out of 10

April 11th: Hotel Chocolat Extra Thick Purist Egg

With Easter just a few weeks away the egg reviews will be piling in thick and fast. The word thick is infact very apt for the focus of Hotel Chocolat Monday this week, as I am reviewing their Extra Thick Purist Egg. This egg came described as 'An egg made with two of our most precious chocolates - featuring rare cocoa from our own Rabot Estate Plantation on Saint Lucia and Chuao beans from Venezuela'. A more fact based description would have told you that the package included an egg comprising of one half 70% Chuao Dark Venezuela, and one half 65% Rabot Estate Dark Saint Lucia. Also included where 'ten super premium Purist pralines'. I will only speak briefly about the quality of the presentation because I'm hoping that the 'Old Man's' photography skills have down the package justice. In my opinion the whole thing was absolutely superbly presented. Everything from the from outer box, to the way the egg was presented inside was superb, with both the egg halves coated in thick foil layers. Inside the egg, the truffles came wrapped in several layer of tightly wrapped tissue paper - the cocoa scents emanating from all these different constituents added to the excitement.

After enquiring my snazzily presented in-box menu, I decided to first dabble with a few of the 65% dark, intense pralines. More often than not, Hotel Chocolat pralines come coated in milk chocolate, so it was a nice change to taste some with a greater dark chocolate emphasis. Its fair to say that the pralines set the standard extremely high from the outset, with the combination of the rich outer chocolate dark chocolate and smooth, woody hazelnut fillings making for some deliciously smooth, satisfying pralines.

The next part of the package I took to task was the 65% Dark, Rabot Estate Saint Lucia half of the egg. This chocolate was ever so slightly lighter in colour than the other, though it still held flavours that were equally as bold. Placing the first piece of my tongue the cocoa flavours instantly came to the party, creating an instant unsweetened chocolatey impression as the soft melt began. As the melt developed the cocoa flavours became increasingly stronger, with elements of coffee, red wine and slight touches of red berry fruits encompassing the latter stages of the melt development. The taste was long, and left an impression in the mouth for a long time after consumption. Although only 5% stronger in cocoa strength, the differentiation in the origin of the beans will have largely have accounted for the perceived differences I had tasting the other 70% Dark, Chuoa Venezuela half.

Just like the other half, this chocolate also broke apart with a lovely sounding sharp snap and stamped it's authority on proceedings with it's flavours as soon as it came in to contact with my tongue. The chocolate melted with the most luxurious of soft mouth feels, creating a smooth taste that had all sorts of different flavour contributions accompanying the grandest of rich cocoa base tones. Indeed, throughout the melt there were hints of smokey ash, sweet dried fruits and even small pockets of toffee that kept the taste on the correct side of that fine unsweetened/bitter balance. Despite being billed as the stronger concentrated of the two, I found this chocolate was actually the sweeter. This particular half was the first thing to be gobbled when I left out for the rest of the family to try.

Overall this was a really quite phenomenal package that included two of the finest tasting chocolates I have had the pleasure of trying for a long time. As I alluded to above, I hope you guys can all appreciate just how immaculately the package has been put together. Everything was just near enough perfect, with the chocolate shells and inner pralines flawless in appearance and detailed perfectly by the details provided on both box and inner menu. Its needless to say that this is an egg you are only going to enjoy if you like your dark chocolate. If this is the case you are in for one hell of a treat, as both the 65%, 70% and super premium pralines provide one glorious and varied dark chocolate tasting adventure. If I had to pick favourite out of all three of the inner constituents I would choose the 70% Venezuela if my arm was severely twisted :D Truth be told, anyone that appreciates the darker side of chocolate will just enjoy every microscopic piece on offer. Do I recommend this Hotel Chocolat Extra Thick Purist Egg? Do I ever!

9.2 out of 10

April 9th: '7Days of Chocolate Reviews' - Edition 69 - Balisto Museli

SITE UPDATE

Hi All,

Not much to report this week other than a heads up in the direction of this weeks reviews ...

L'Artisan du Chocolat Creme de la Creme Eggs - See HERE
'Bits n Bobs' Cadbury Biscuits 2011 - See HERE
Snickers Peanut Butter Squared - See HERE

... and a pointer in the direction of American Soda's cake competition which you can find a link to below.

Be sure to check out the News Page for the latest goings on in the chocolate world. After you have done that though I urge my UK readers at least to go out and enjoy this glorious weather! A cheeky chocolate ice cream never hurt anyone either :D

JIM


COMPETITION

My pals at American Soda (See HERE) are running a competition to design a truly unique and original wedding cake for Prince William and Kate Middleton. According to my contacts at AS, they aren't talking about a tiered cake with intricate icing necessarily ... more something out of the ordinary.

The prize is what they're calling a “Complete Cake Making Kit” comprising various cake mixes, pie cases, frostings, icings and decorations! Looks worth entering to me.

The competition and entry forms are HERE

SNACK OF THE WEEK ..... a new part of '7Days of Chocolate Reviews' which will feature any manner of snacking product I have been products munching on in the week ...
Kcal 94 Fat 5.3g Fat(sats) 2.8g Carbs 10.6g (per bar)

Midweek I showed you guys all the new products that Cadbury had recently brought to the biscuit and cakes aisle in my local Tesco supermarket. What I failed to mention in that review was that this latest range update saw an overhaul of the entire contents of the shelves - thus there have been several more additions from other brannds aswell. One of the newest offerings that stood out most to me was the introduction of a brand called Balisto. This is a make of chocolate biscuit bars made by Mars that have been sold in other European countries such as Germany and France for many years previously.

Tesco are currently carrying three different Balisto flavours - Crunchy (plain biscuit!), Berries and Museli, all of which they are flogging on their notorious £1.00 introductory offer for a pack of 9. This week I have been trying out the Museli offering and I can report that with no great excitement that these are the definition of average. To sum things up succinctly, the taste is purely dominated by the biscuit base, with the thin outer chocolate and upper layer of yoghurty museli filling have very little cut through. The hazelnut and raisin constituents mostly get lost in the digestive biscuit like wholegrain flavours, and to be honest more just added an awkward feeling texturally what with them feeling like small lumps in the smoother topping layer. I hate to say it but we weren't missing out on anything when these weren't available to us. The word generic could never be more appropriately used on this site.

6.6 out of 10



CHOCOLATE NEWS

Visit the ChocolateMission news page for all the latest developments in the Chocolate market ... Click the banner below ....

April 8th: Snickers Peanut Butter Squared

Kcal 250 Fat 13.0g Fat(sats) 6.0g Carbs 24.0g

I'm not going to pretend that I haven't read a thousand reviews on this chocolate bar already. Indeed, I have been keep a watchful eye on all my fellow chocolate bloggers websites, watching one-by-one as their reviews have slowly trickled in since its launch in the US. Candyblog, SugarPressure, RodzillaReviews, GiGi Reviews, whilst all these reviews have all written with each bloggers wonderfully unique writing style, one thing has remained consistently the same - the Snickers Peanut Butter Squared has largely disappointed!!

Last week I finally got try one of these for myself, and as predictable as this all sounds I have to side with my fellow candy bar critics. So how have Mars managed to under deliver on a proposition that sounds so tremendously good!? 'Two squares filled with peanut butter, peanuts, caramel, nougat, & nougat, covered in milk chocolate' sounds like a combination that should be knocking on the door of an elusive ChocolateMission 9.0 out of 10 rating! The issues for me began with the presentation of the bar. The yellow coloured wrapper looked nice enough and differentiated from the normal Snickers, however I was not liking the way the bar had been produced in the two Square format and felt that it made the whole product feel less substantial and 'Un-Snickers' like.

Cutting into one of the pieces the usual array of gorgeous Snickers peanutty scents did give me hope that I had something special at hand, though it also became clearly evident at this point that there had been a disproportionate cull when it came to the nougat layer. As seen in my review of the Snickers Maximus recently launched here in the UK (See HERE), one thing that Mars don't need to mess with when it comes to the Snickers is the proportion of nougat. It's skimpy implementation here came across as lacklustre and each bite felt lacking in substantiality in contrast to the usual chewiness offered by a standard Snickers. Moving on to my critique of the peanut butter element, I can be less harsh in my damning as it tasted altogether 'OK' with it's buttery roasted nut flavours enhanced by intermittent small real nut shards. The fact of the matter though, was that the peanut butter just wasn't comparable to Reese's. Comparing the two, the peanut butter here was less flavoursome in it's roasted nuttyness, and it lacked the saltiness that it needed to fully take advantage of the potential contrast with the sweet flavoured caramel layer. The 50.0g two piece totality was still a relatively fulfilling chocolate bar, though compare the experience to a normal Snickers and I can assure you one would leave you feeling a lot more satisfied than the other.

Overall I would have loved it if I was able to write a review totally contradictory of all that have gone before but I just simply cant. Anyone who has been reading this website for any amount of time will know that I'm a massive fan of both Snickers and peanut butter, so you can just imagine my expectations when I heard about this latest Mars creation. Despite me reading the various reviews posted by my fellow bloggers stated above, I genuinely did approach this bar with an open mind willing to form my own opinion, though as you will have read my thoughts are almost entirely aligned to theirs. Fundamentally, Mars have managed to fowl up a bar that had fantastic pedigree. It isn't a bad bar of chocolate by any means, but lets face it - things should have been a whole lot better. Quite why they chose to mess around with the proportion of nougat or format of the bar I really don't know - why didn't they add the peanut butter incrementally rather than taking away from other key constituents? You may think that it was me with expectations hoping the peanut butter was going to be Reese's comparable, but at the end of the day I don't see a reasons for why it couldn't be just as good. As much as I tried not to be, I was ultimately left feeling disappointed - oh what could have been!

7.0 out of 10

April 6th: 'Bits n Bobs' Cadbury Biscuits 2011

It looks like Cadbury and their partners have been extremely busy recently making all sorts of new additions to their biscuit range. If these new products are anything to go by, Cadbury are really looking to step up their game in this sector. Lets take a look at how some of their latest creations have faired on the ChocolateMission rating system ...

-----Cadbury BiscBits Caramel Crunch
Kcal 135 Fat 6.2g Fat(sats) 3.3g Carbs 17.4g (per 8 biscuits)

On one of my frequent trips down the biscuit aisle in my local Tesco this week I was excited to see that they had changed up the arrangement of the shelves and obviously at the same time introduced several new products. Sat next to the some of the other Cadbury biscuit offerings (Cadbury Fingers etc), these Cadbury BiscBits Caramel Crunch were glistening at me with the bright Cadbury purple pouch catching my eye with it's foil fresh look. To my knowledge (which I believe is as extensive as it comes haha!), BiscBits is a whole new sub-brand for the Cadbury portfolio. After forking out £1.69, I have this week been slowly munching my way through my first pack.

This Cadbury BiscBits Caramel Crunch came described as 'caramel flavour biscuits covered with milk chocolate' and it came suggested that the pouch be eaten in four servings of eight biscuits. Presentation wise I liked the aesthetic design of the pouch with it's shiny, vibrant look, however as you can see by my photographs the actual biscuits looked worn and scuffed in comparison. This left me with a sense that these might be a bit lazy effort by Cadbury, and I will say that I was left a tiny bit disappointed by the eventual taste. Chocolate wise, the 14% cocoa recipe established the sugary Cadbury milk chocolate experience from the outset, though the texture was somewhat grainy due to the dusty nature of the surface. The inner biscuits were what let these down in my estimation, as the promised caramel element was nothing more than an extra injection of sweet, brown sugar like notes to the taste. The added rice particles to the biscuit innards did add interest texturally, but alone this wasn't enough to suppress my disappointment with the other issues raised. I wont be rushing back to buy these again in the near future.

6.2 out of 10


-----Cadbury Snack Shortcake Shots
Kcal 260 Fat 14.0g Fat(sats) 8.5g Carbs 30.2g (per 50.0g)

After Nestle's introduction of the Kit Kat Pop Chocs 'sharing pouch' earlier this month, it would seem that Cadbury have been quick to respond with their very own launch of these Cadbury Snack Shortcake Shots. Indeed, these took me by surprise when I found them on sale by the checkout in Sainsburys last week. In the FMCG business, being merchandised here is a giveaway sign of a product that has been very quickly developed and 'sold in' to the retailer as an unplanned development. All that may just be speculation, but the sound of 100.0g of 'milk chocolate coated shortcake balls' sounded like an interesting enough proposition, and at £1.00 a bag I couldn't help but pick one up.

I must admit when I first saw these on the till I did have to 'double-take' the packaging as the Cadbury branding was pretty small, and the usual purple colouring was much more reserved than normal on the front of the pack. The pieces themselves looked uncannily like the Kit Kat Pop Chocs in both size and appearance, though the aromas were distinctly Cadbury. You may have already guessed this but, these of course weren't coated with Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate, but rather Cadbury's 14% cocoa recipe which meant the taste was predominantly more sugar than cream led. Whilst the chocolate wasn't at optimum Cadbury standards, the inner shortcake pieces were at least tasty enough and established short sharp bursts of buttery biscuit flavours to every mouthful. Whilst these were on the whole mostly unspectacular (and in my opinion less enjoyable than the Kit Kat Pop Chocs), I would suggest them a 'fine' snacking option, though I'm sure you are all aware there are better Cadbury options out there.

6.9 out of 10


-----Cadbury Fingers Toffee Crunch
Kcal 120 Fat 6.1g Fat(sats) 3.3g Carbs 13.8g (per 25.0g serving)

Last but by no means least (I think we all know I save the best to finish with anyway haha!), we have these Cadbury Fingers Toffee Crunch. As far as I'm aware you should be able to buy this new variant of 'Fingers' in both pouch or 'carton' forms - I chose the 125.0g carton option as you can see in my photo. Aside from the rebranding of the white and dark chocolate Fingers last year (See HERE), Cadbury haven't done much in the way of new product development on this part of their biscuit line up for years. This Toffee Crunch variant however, appeared as part of the Tesco shelf rearrangement that I alluded to above, and were being sold on an introductory £1.00 offer.

These Cadbury Fingers Toffee Crunch came with a description of 'Crisp toffee flavoured mini biscuits covered with milk chocolate'. On the surface of things, these Toffee Crunch biscuits looked no different to the standard Cadbury Fingers, though once the inner biscuit portion was revealed they were noticeably more golden in colour compared with the usual white shortcake. Of course like all the biscuits today, the chocolate was Cadbury's secondary 14% recipe which again established that very familiar sugary sweet milk led cocoa taste with every bite. Thankfully I liked the biscuit portion here an awful lot more than the BiscBits Caramel Crunch, as the toffee element was in integrated far more subtly with it's more minor suggestions of butterscotch like flavours. Whilst the biscuit innards could have down with being just a touch more salty, I still on the whole enjoyed them and felt far more comfortable eating them in greater quantities than the other two featured products today. I don't often buy Cadbury Fingers, but if I was to again I would probably pick these up.

7.9 out of 10

April 4th: L'Artisan du Chocolat Creme de la Creme Eggs

Kcal ??? Fat ??? Fat(sats) ??? Carbs ???

With Mothers Day now safely negotiated today ChocolateMission turns its focus on to the next major holiday in our calendar - Easter of course! Over the next few weeks I will be aiming to bring you reviews of some of the best (and maybe some of the worst :D ) chocolate products that are on offer to us all this year 2011. I could think of no better way to get things really kicked off this year, other than by starting with a brand who hasn't featured on ChocolateMission for a fair while. Indeed, L'Artisan du Chocolat make a long over due return to the spotlight today as I take a look at their Creme de la Creme Eggs.

The ever so kind people at L'Artisan were lovely enough to send me across five of their 25.0g Passion Milk Eggs which I managed to eat over the last two days with the ever willing help of my family. The eggs came firstly packaged together in a clear cellophane packet that was neatly sealed with a L'Artisan fabric sticker. Each egg was then contained within a single layer of gold coloured plastic. It wasn't the classiest exterior presentation I have seen from L'Artisan but it did the job, and the spectacular colours displayed by the eggs when cross-sectioned quickly made this a complete after thought anyway.

On the L'Artisan website these Passion Mik Creme de la Creme Eggs come described as 'small eggs containing a white chocolate ganache 'egg white', with a passion fruit 'yolk'. Not being a common consumer of passion fruit I was feeling a little unbeknown what to expect, though my sister was very keen at the prospect. Starting with the outer shell of milk chocolate, I was delight to see that the thickness of the exterior was just about correct. For my liking, the shell was thick enough to create a substantial chocolatey taste for every bite, though it wasn't overly thick or dominant over the lighter textured filling. The milk chocolate tasted abosulutely fantastic and had a very clean, crisp milky cocoa taste that gave the impression of being ever so fresh. Time for marvelling in the gloriousness of the milk chocolate was limited however, as it was soon the turn of the inner filling to take centre stage and boy was it delicious! The white chocolate creme straight away enahnced the creamyness of the milk chocolate and delivered a lingering vanilla note that was even detectable upon revelation of the 'yolk'. Sat right at the centre of each egg, the passion fruit flavoured yellow creme proved itself to be absolutely divine. As I said, I'm no passion fruit expert, but the fruity taste delivered here was simply incredible. It was real tasting, correct in terms of strength, and most importantly balanced perfectly between juicy acidic zingyness and sweet sugar.

Overall these L'Artisan du Chocolat Passiont Fruit Milk Creme de la Creme Eggs have really set the standards for the rest of the Easter products to come this year. At their price of £1.50 each they aren't exactly a snip, but in my opinion (and the rest of my famalie's) the taste is just about special enough for them to justify this price point. The advantage these eggs have over many of the other market offerings like the Cadbury Creme Egg are that they come with fresh ganache fillings, rather than the sugar based fondant used by those other more common place products. Put quite simply, everything about these eggs was fantastic. The milk chocolate was of a high quality, whilst the centre passion fruit egg creme was nothing other than out of this world. Unlike many of the other Easter products which have been around since Boxing Day 2010 :D these eggs have a limited shelf life due to the fresh cream ganache fillings - I suggest you get going to the L'Artisan website if you fancy them. They come highly recommended by me.

8.8 out of 10

April 2nd: '7Days of Chocolate Reviews' - Edition 68 - Aero Biscuits

SITE UPDATE

Hi All,

It's been another hectic week for me, both in terms of my day job and ChocolateMission goings on!!! I'm sure you are all way more interested in the latter so let me fill you in on a few things. The good news is that this week I've received several more samples from some of our favourite chocolate producers all in time for the Easter reviews you will start seeing appear on the site as of Monday. L'Artisan du Chocolat, Hotel Chocolat, Thorntons ... you name it there has been a package from them - my family and friends haven been the chief beneficiaries of all this :D All the chocolate but without the review writing - lucky for some eh!?

Below this week you will find a link to the News page (updated daily!!), the Kit Kit Competition winner announcement and also the 2nd SNACK OF THE WEEK!!!

Have great weekends - Don't hesitate to get in contact.

JIM


COMPETITION WINNER

Congratulations to Jane Willis from Hampshire who has won the latest ChocolateMission competition. Jane will soon be the recipitent of a pack of the Kit Kat European Cheese that featured on the site a few months ago :D

Judge for yourselves whether that makes her lucky or not :D For those of you who haven't won do not fret! The next ChocolateMission competition is only days away! I have the wheels in motion already!


SNACK OF THE WEEK ..... a new part of '7Days of Chocolate Reviews' which will feature any manner of snacking product I have been products munching on in the week ...

Kcal 99 Fat 5.5g Fat(sats) 3.1g Carbs 11.1g (per bar)

You know the saying about waiting for one bus and then two come along at once? Well Nestle have taken this to new extremes with their Aero brand this year. Before the start of 2011 I don't think we had seen any 'new product developments' on Aero for years. Three months gone in to the new year and we all of a sudden have the Aero Dark, Aero Lamb, Aero Caramel, Aero Orange, and now these Aero Biscuits - what on earth is going!?

I found these bars of 'bubbly milk chocolate with shortcake biscuits' in my local Tesco, merchandised alongside the 100.0g Aero range (i.e. not in the biscuit bar aisle where you might have thought!!). A multi-pack cost me £1.00 and contained 7x17.9 bars which I have been consuming this week as my mid-afternoon snack. Ultimately I would say they fitted this purpose really quite nicely. Despite sounding a little on the light side, the actual bar felt substantial enough, and the shortcake biscuit pieces were portioned more generously than I thought they might. Being Nestle milk chocolate, the taste was predominantly quite sugary and sweet, but it was satisfactory and the biscuit pieces added a relative degree of extra interest with small flavour pockets of brown sugar noted wheat. Chocolate wise these were never going to be turning up any trees, but as a light snacking option I would give them a thumbs up.

7.7 out of 10




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April 1st: 'Bits n Bobs' Japanese Superpost 2011 # 4

I've buckled to demand with 'Bits n Bobs' today and have finally got around to posting some highly requested Kit Kat and Pocky reviews. As a little added bonus I've also included another fantastic flavoured bar from Meiji - as you will see by the scores the standards are very high this week!
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Kit Kat Green Tea Variety Minis
Kcal 69 Fat 4.0g Carbs 7.7g (Both Varieties)

I can't think for whatever reason why but there weren't too many volunteers coming forward from my family taste panel when these arrived in our latest J-List sampling box :D Indeed the task was left up to me to try these new green tea flavoured Kit Kats. Despite the rest of my families disregard, it seems that these are quite the popular product at J-List - at time of writing this post they were actually the best selling snack product on the website! This bag of thirteen minis contained two different green tea varieties, with six Rich Green Tea packs and seven Matcha Milk chocolate. Both flavours were portioned in 13.2g Mini format - small and unsatisfying, but certainly not lacking flavour.

If you look at the photos of each of the two above, you will see that in addition to the differentiated wrappers, there were also minor differences to the colouring of the two very funky looking green bars. Taste wise the two different varieties were only subtly different, though after a few of each I was able to pick my favoured one. As you will see reflected in the scoring charts below, my preference fell with the Matcha Milk Chocolate (the lighter green pack) as it had a creamier, sweeter aftertaste that didn't have the hint of bitterness that the other did. On the whole, I found both varieties both tasty and unique with their sweet, herby grass flavours complimented superbly by the malty wheat wafers. I have little doubt that the more adventurous Kit Kat lover will get a great deal of pleasure from these, though common sense tells you that they of course aren't going to be a product to appeal to everyone.

Kit Kat Rich Green Tea - 8.0 out of 10
Kit Kat Matcha Milk Chocolate - 8.1 out of 10


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Glico Pocky Chocolate on Chocolate Caramel
Kcal 81 Fat 4.5g Carbs 9.2g (per 15.1g pack)

Despite the popularity of Kit Kats supposedly overtaking these in Japan, whenever I ask readers what brands and products they wanted to see reviewed on the site one of the most frequently requested are Pocky. Back in November I featured the first two variants from Pocky's new 'Chocolate on Chocolate' range (See HERE), a line of products that have supposedly come in to replace the Pocky Desserts. After sending my sampling recommendations to Peter at J-List, he saw fit to send across the latest flavour released on this new line-up - the Pocky Chocolate on Chocolate Caramel.

Unlike the Kit Kats above there were plenty of forthcoming volunteers willing to try these so I was glad to see they came in four sealed packets that had three sticks contained within each. On the J-List website, these were described as 'biscuit sticks covered in caramel and milk chocolate', which combined with the delightful toffee aromas had my expectations built up really quite high. Thankfully it was agreed by one and all that these expectations were delivered on. Despite the aged old problem of Pocky being rather unsubstantial, these tasted superb with the thick caramel bottom coating providing a delightful set of butterscotch flavours from the outset of each nibble. Though I was fearful that the milk chocolate pattern work on top was purely there for design purposes, it was nice to see the cocoa flavours come through in the latter stages of the development of the melt, which made the overall taste both progressive and multi-dimensional. It was agreed these were the best Pocky that we had tried in ages - they get a ChocolateMission recommendation.

8.4 out of 10


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Meiji Mango Chocolate Bar
Kcal ??? Fat ??? Fat(sats) ??? Carbs ???

I told you the standards were high today and this Meiji Mango Chocolate didn't fail to hit the grade. Peter has been way too kind in sending me the latest Meiji products recently, but this one was without doubt one of the better flavours I have tried as of late. I will admit that mango fruit is a real favourite of mine, though I'm not sure if that was a good or a bad thing for Meiji as whilst this increased the likelihood of me being favourable to this flavour, it also set my expectations pretty high.

This bar came in a 46.0g block form, packaged in a very bright and cool looking box and silver foil protective duo. It was immediately noticeable (and a little worrying!) that the bar was very, very thin and flat in nature, whilst the aromas emanating from it's foil confines had just a minor touch of fruity artificialness. Thankfully all these initial worries were put to bed by the second the chocolate landed on my tongue. Despite it's skinnyness, this bar was one of the most flavoursome and fruity I have ever tasted. The milk chocolate was by all accounts nothing that special, but the mango element was just simply sensational. The realness of the sharp, sweet mango flavours was incredible and surpassed all my prior expectations with its long lasting, refreshing fruity flavours. If you are a fan of mango then I simply can't recommend this chocolate enough - I'll happilly give this the third ChocolateMission recommendation of the day.

8.2 out of 10