May 18th: 'Bits n Bobs' Chocolate Chocolate Biscuit, Cookies & Cereal Bars

There have been so many new products in the biscuit, cookies and cereal bars category recently its been hard to keep up with the pace and give them their ChocolateMission reviews. Here are a few products that I have trying out recently, that haven't quite made it on to my 'SNACK OF THE WEEK' weekend shout outs. The reviews are short and sharp so be sure to leave your own thoughts on them.

---
Kcal 71 Fat 3.3g Fat(sats) 1.8g Carbs 9.5g (per cookie)

To my knowledge, Oreo Double Stuff are currently available in Tesco & Asda where you can buy 185.0g packs for £1.30. As you can probably tell from the name, these are simply your standard Oreo cookies with twice the amount of 'stuff' (vanilla flavour creme!) sandwiched in the middle. These have been a long time coming to the UK, but Kraft have finally obliged, and by my ruling they are very welcome. The additional creme may not do much for the taste, but the beefed out creme does provide a little more moistness to the very dry biscuits, and it does make them seem like a more satisfying product compared to the originals. The only problem you guys might have with these, is that like myself you may find yourself never being able to look at the original Oreos in quite the same way - they just look a little meagre now I'm used to these.

8.3 out of 10



---
Kcal 126 Fat 4.3g Fat(sats) 1.3g Carbs 19.4g (per bar)

The Mcvitie's Hobnobs Medley range was first featured on the site back in July 2010 - See HERE when I reviewed the chocolate & raisin variant in the range. Although this peanut variant was released at that very same time, the distribution of it was rather low, and it was only recently that Tesco stores actually started carrying this part of the line. Described as 'biscuit & cereal bar with peanuts & milk chocolate chips', I was excited that this variant might be more to my liking than my previous raisin experience. The packaging certainly looked a bit more suitable for Hobnobs with the use of the orange colouring to indicate the peanut flavour, though I was a little disappointed to find it was hard to pick out the peanuts aesthetically when looking at the real thing. Essentially these turned out to be nice enough cereal bars, however they struggled with the same issues that the raisin variant did with the influence of both the biscuit and peanut contents lacking cut through against the syrupy oat base. As I said, nice enough, but couldn't of been better with a greater presence of chocolate and peanuts.

7.3 out of 10



---
Kcal 65 Fat 3.1g Fat(sats) 1.6g Carbs 8.6g (per biscuit)

Perhaps I was being a little presumptuous, but when I saw the press release from Fox's about the launch of his Amber range, but I was expecting them to be positioned as a premium tier offering to their usual 'Chunky' cookies. You can imagine I was relatively surprised then when I saw the entire line on a £1.00 deal in Tesco - a much cheaper option than the 2 for £2.50 deal running across the 'Chunky' cookies. Looking at both packaging and presentation of all three Ambers variants there was very little disparity, though it was the Praline flavour that caught my eye. Billed as 'golden honeycomb biscuit, baked with praline and dipped in chocolate' I thought these sounded like they had great promise stepping in to a 'praline' territory not ventured in to often by the likes of McVitie's etc. Unfortunately when it came to the tale of the taste, the praline element didn't come through strongly - a blind taste test on some colleagues totally proved this when they failed to register nut content of any sort. The taste was dominated by a strong golden syrup influence, with the oat and milk chocolate very much secondary players in the background. The taste was resultingly very, very sweet - too much so in my honest opinion. These weren't bad biscuits, but they didn't deliver the praline experience either promised or desired.

6.8 out of 10


----
Kcal 495 Fat 24.7g Fat(sats) 14.5g Carbs 59.7g (per 100.0g)

After a few demoralising product reviews from M&S recently I have been a little less willing to check out their confectionery range, though these chocolate coated pretzels did catch my eye when I saw them instore. At first it was the rather ghastly green colour of the packaging that got my attention, however the premise of chocolate pretzels encouraged me enough to part with £1.49 for a bag. The whole area of chocolate covered salted snacks is a massively untapped area of the market here UK what with Nestle Flipz being a sore loss from our shelves a very long time ago. I thought this presented M&S with a real opportunity to offer something different here, but unfortunately they didn't quite manage to deliver the product I had in mind. Cutting the long story short, these pretzels were coated in a thin layer of no better than average, sweet tasting milk rooted sugary chocolate. The potential of the savoury pretzels was unfortunately not taken full advantage of - they were neither flavoursome or salty enough to really deliver the contrast of flavours that these needed to give - if anything they just tasted like rather bland biscuits. These could have been so much better and I wish they were - a real opportunity missed out on by M&S here.

5.8 out of 10


----
Kcal 131 Fat 6.8g Fat(sats) 4.0g Carbs 15.9g (per bar)

Unlike most of the others featured today, these Fox's Classic Originals weren't so much a new product, but more the case of an existing product being added to the shelves of one of my local stores. Indeed, coinciding with the rest of the latest shelf update, these 'milk chocolate covered cream filled honeycomb biscuit bars' popped up in my local Tesco. A £1.00 expenditure bought me a multipack of seven bars - just about enough for me to dish out to the people sitting round me at work. As you can hopefully see from the photos, the standard of packaging and overall presentation was really rather standard - the cream poking out between the biscuit pieces was at least somewhat appealing. General consensus when it came to taste test was one of disappointment, with no fewer than 5 out of 7 saying they wouldn't buy again (myself included!). The main point of issue with these chocolate biscuit bars were that the terrible milk chocolate meant they were ridiculously sugary tasting, and both the biscuit and cream elements added little or nothing to experience. These were fundamentally bland tasting sugary biscuits - I wouldn't recommend.

5.4 out of 10

May 16th: Galaxy Bites

Kcal 197 Fat 9.7g Carbs 25.2g (per bag)

With the launch of the Cadbury Nibbles (See HERE) in October 2009 it was a nailed on guarantee that Mars would follow up with a similar rival chocolate caramel offering. At the time the quick fire response was the launch of the Galaxy Caramel Pieces (See HERE) which I actually thought were superior to what Cadbury were offering at the time. A few years have now passed and the Galaxy Caramel Pieces seemed to have lost their permanent distribution and are only available around holiday times (Christmas time was when I last saw them!). As disappointing as this was, a few weeks I learnt that Mars would be launching a whole new product line called Galaxy Bites - 'bitesize pieces of Galaxy chocolate with a heart of soft chocolate caramel'. The concept was hardly new, but it was hardly something they could screw up ... could they!?

I was the lucky recipient of some sample 40.0g bags off one of Mars's PR companies though looking at this trade release article it looks like these will carry an RRP of £0.54. Aesthetically the bag design was what you expect to see from Galaxy with the two tone brown shadings and curved font types giving a familiar look and feel to the product. I was a little surprised to see that the material used was plastic film, however this didn't appear to have any detrimental effect on the freshness of the inner chocolates. Speaking of which, the pieces inside were about the size of Maltesers and emanated a sweet sweet set of cocoa scents upon opening the bag.

As the pieces weren't the largest ever it made sense to consume these more than one at a time - about three was a comfortable mouth fit. At first I let the ball shaped chocolates melt on my tongue at which point in time I was greeted with the standard creamy sweet Galaxy milk chocolate taste. The initial melt of the chocolate felt somewhat delayed due to thin layer of glaze that coated each chocolate but this was to be the least of the problems so it didn't come across as a particularly big issue. Unfortunately, as I have just alluded to, I wasn't totally satisfied with these Galaxy Bites and my main issue with them was their caramel centres. I fully expected that these were going to be the same sort of soft caramel chocolate filled chocolates as per the Galaxy Caramel Pieces, but I was majorly wrong. Unbeknown to me, these had hard, chewy centres that had a textural mouth feel of taffy and hard gummy sweets. This wasn't so much a problem in itself, however the centres failed to establish any sort of grand presence flavour wise, which ultimately rendered them as chewy and relatively flavourless. I found the 40.0g bag to be relatively unsatisfying which is a phrase I not often use with Galaxy products.

Overall I'm sure you can tell by my rating that these were a product I was left feeling pretty disappointed by. The descriptor provided stating 'chocolate caramel centres' I guess is a little vague in some respects, though I don't think I would be the only person expecting soft caramel as opposed to the harder, toffee like ones which were delivered. This unexpected textural difference wouldn't have been any major issue had the caramel actually been flavoursome and highly contributive to the taste. This just wasn't reality though - the caramel lacked the expected buttery, creamy sweetness and just came across as frustratingly bland and ultimately pretty pointless. With so many decent alternatives around I couldn't possibly recommend these ahead of the likes of the Cadbury Caramel Nibbles etc. If you are looking for a product along the same lines of Paynes Toffee Poppets then these could be worth checking out if you want a better quality milk chocolate - at least I can say they are better than them.

6.4 out of 10

May 13th: UAE Chocolate Superpost Part # 2

Today we have Part # 2 of my UAE Chocolate Superpost, where I will be looking at the remaining chocolates sent to me by ChocolateMission reader Fiona Nesbitt. If you happened to miss Part # 1 I would suggest a quick wander HERE to get familiar with the unfortunate themes that were appeaing from my first experiences with the UAE chocolate. After you have done that you will be all set for checking out todays reviews which cover some familiar offerings from both Cadbury and Galaxy.

----
Galaxy

We will beging today by looking at the two remaining variants in four flavour 'mini' bar pouch I showed you all in Part #1.

Galaxy Roasted Caramelised Hazelnuts UK -Review (See HERE)
Kcal 249 Fat 14.5g Carbs 26.7g (per 47.0g bar)
Ingredients - Sugar, Cocoa Ingredients (Cocoa Butter, Cocoa Mass), Skimmed Milk Powder, Hazelnuts, Milk Fat, Demineralised Whey Powder, Lactose, Emulsifier (Soya Lecithin), Flavouring.

Galaxy Hazelnuts (UAE)
Kcal ??? Fat ??? Carbs ???
Manufactured - Mars, Dubai, UAE
Ingredients - Glucose Syrup, Sugar, Skimmed Milk Powder, Hydrogenated Vegetable Fat, Glycerol, Water, Milk Fat, Hazelnuts, Emulsifier, Dextrose, Thickener, Flavouring (artifical ethyl vanillin). Milk Chocolate Contains Milk Solids 14% Minimum and Cocoa Solids 25% Minimum.

Comments: Any hope of the UAE milk chocolate being improved by the presence of the hazelnuts was all to quickly lost when I saw how they had been implemented in to the bar. The hazelnut element had neither cut through in taste or flavours due to the pieces being so tiny. Whats more some of the fragments were quite sharp and thus roughned up the the already horrid feeling waxy texture. To be honest with you I didn't bother eating most of these ones. There just wasn't enough to keep me wanting to come back for more.

6.0 out of 10


Galaxy Caramel UK -Review (See HERE)
Kcal 232 Fat 11.6g Carbs 29.6g (per 48.0g bar)
Ingredients - Sugar, Glucose Syrup, Cocoa Butter, Skimmed Milk Powder, Milk Fat, Cocoa Mass, Lactose, Whey Powder, Vegetable Fat, Emulsifier (Soya Lecithin), Salt, Flavouring, Milk Chocolate contains Milk Solids 14% minimum

Galaxy Caramel (UAE)
Kcal ??? Fat ??? Carbs ???
Manufactured - Mars, Dubai, UAE
Ingredients - Glucose Syrup, Sugar, Skimmed Milk Powder, Hydrogenated Vegetable Fat, Glycerol, Water, Milk Fat, Emulsifier, Dextrose, Thickener, Flavouring (artifical ethyl vanillin). Milk Chocolate Contains Milk Solids 14% Minimum and Cocoa Solids 25% Minimum.

Comments:This was essentially the best of a bad bunch, but even this caramel variant wasn't a patch on the UK equivalent bar. Like I found across all three other variants, the milk chocolate was poor in not only a UK comparator context, but essentially as a milk chocolate. The caramel filling was thankfully nicer in mouth feel and taste, however it was still mostly just sugar rooted in taste and lacked the prestige and buttery, salted flavour depths of it's UK equivalent. The caramel did at least have a nice soft, chewy feel compared to the waxy slimey chocolate.

6.7 out of 10


-----
Cadbury Dairy Milk
Cadbury Dairy Milk UK -Review (See HERE)
Kcal 255 Fat 14.6g Fat(sats) 9.0g Carbs 27.7g (per 49.0g bar)
Ingredients - Milk, Sugar Cocoa Mass, Cocoa Butter, Vegetable Fat, Emulsifiers (E442, E476), Flavourings.

Cadbury Dairy Milk (UAE)
Kcal 233 Fat 12.1g Fat(sats) 6.8g Carbs 27.5g (per 45.0g)
Manufactured - Eygpt, Cadbury Eygpt Group
Ingredients - Sugar, Full Cream, Milk Powder, Cocoa butter, Cocoa Mass, Vegetable Fat, Emulsifiers, Flavours, Milk Colids 20%, Cocoa Solids 20%

Comments: Being a Brit this was always going to be the most interesting of comparisons given that Dairy Milk is probably the most famous chocolate recipe we have here in the UK. In terms of aesthetics and presentation there were no immediate differences of note in regards to the wrapper or blocked nature of the bar. What was noticeable however was how 'Un-Cadbury-like' the smells were that emanated from the wrapper, and how more generic the scents seemed in their sweetness. When it came to the taste and texture, the initial suspicons raised by the aromas were unfortunately lived out - this was not Dairy Milk as I knew it. Essentially the usual cream based tasted came across as watered down in both taste and mouth feel, which I felt was every bit as bad as the waxy, bland Galaxy. I don't think any Cadbury fan alive would say it was even close to many other countries Dairy Milk offerings.

6.4 out of 10


Cadbury Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut UK -Review (See HERE)
Kcal 255 Fat 15.0g Carbs 27.7g (per 50.0g bar)
Ingredients - Milk, Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Cocoa Mass, Vegetable Fat, Emulsifiers (E442, E476), Flavouring], Dusted Raisins (16%) (Raisins, Cocoa), Almonds (7%).

Cadbury Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut (UAE)
Kcal 233 Fat 12.1g Fat(sats) 6.8g Carbs 27.5g (per 45.0g)
Manufactured - Eygpt, Cadbury Eygpt Group
Ingredients - Sugar, Full Cream, Milk Powder, Raisins (11%) Cocoa butter, Cocoa Mass, Almonds (3%) Vegetable Fat, Emulsifiers, Flavours, Milk Colids 20%, Cocoa Solids 20%

Comments: So did the addition of some Fruit & Nut prove to beneficial? ... no not really I'm afraid. If you take a look at the photos for both the UK bar, and this UAE bar, you will instantly see that both the raisins and almonds were a lot smaller in the UAE variant. When it came to taste, both elements failed to spicen things up, the only additional flavour influence being a minor sweet, fruit one from the raisins. Out of both enhancers, it was the almonds that were most upsetting though. The small fragments were at times quite sharp and irritated the top of my mouth as I let the chocolate melt. I thought this bar was worse than with the Dairy Milk just on it's own.

6.4 out of 10


----
Galaxy

Galaxy Smooth Dark UK -Review (See HERE)
Kcal 521 Fat 32.6g Fat(sats) Carbs 48.0g (per 100.0g bar)
Ingredients - Cocoa Ingredients (Cocoa Mass, Cocoa Butter), Sugar, Milk Fat, Emulsifiers (Soya Lecithin, E442), Flavouring, Chocolate contains Cocoa Solids 50% minimum

Galaxy Smooth Dark (UAE)
Kcal 227 Fat 13.0g Fat(sats) 7.5g Carbs 18.0g
Manufactured - Mars, Dubai, UAE
Ingredients - Sugar, Cocoa Mass, Cocoa Butter, Milk Fat, Emulsifiers, Artifical Flavours, Natural Flavours (Vanilla)

Comments: So was absolutely everything I tried from the UAE horrible? Thankfully not! Out of everything I tried this Galazy Smooth Dark was by far the best. If you have seen my review of the UK's Galaxy Smooth Dark you will be aware that I rate it very, very highly as a mass produced dark chocolate so if anything this bar should of had a tougher time to meet standards than some of the others. To my delight I was pleasantly surprised by it, and it turned out to be far better than I was expecting. In comparison to the rest of the Galaxy bars I tried from the UAE, this chocoalte was far superior in both taste and texture departments. For a mass produced dark chocolate, the taste was actually quite layered and progressed from it's begginning unsweetned cocoa taste to bring hints of citrus fruits and vanilla to the fore. The melt was also far better than any of the other Eastern chocolates I tried, with the chocolate transitioning from solid to liquid at a nice rate and smoothness. From the limited selection I tried, this Galaxy Smooth Dark would seem to be the way forward if your are looking for a semi-decent chocolate in the UAE.

8.0 out of 10

May 11th: 'Bits n Bobs' Chocolate Biscuit Stick Superpost

These chocolate stick products are always some of the most requested reviews here on ChocolateMission so this post today will hopefully please an awful lot of you. Below you will find mini reviews of the newest market offerings from Mikado, Pocky and Fran. The Mikado flavours are both available here in the UK, but if you are after the other two I suggest you head on over to J-List. I hope you enjoy the post - your views and opinions are always welcome ...

----
Glico Mikado Dark Chocolate
Kcal 10 Fat 0.4g Fat(sats) 0.2g Carbs 1.5g (per stick)

These Mikado Dark Chocolate came described as 'biscuits coated in dark chocolate' and came in a 75.0g box. If you look back to my review of the Mikado White Chocolate you will see that the milk chocolate variety was to my preference when it came to the taste. I can tell you now that having tasted these dark chocolate ones, that the milk chocolate variant is still my favourite, however there is a slight caveat that makes these a more than worthy alternative. In terms of the core taste, in my opinion the dark chocolate didn't quite reach the levels of the Mikado Milk Chocolate, as it came across as more of a 'mass consumer friendly' tasting chocolate, and not as differentiated as it could have been. Whilst it was richer and less sweet, it lacked the definitivness of the creamy flavours of the milk chocolate, and it didn't raise the cocoa volume enough to compensate this. The redeeming issue of all this, was that in comparison to the milk chocolate variety, these dark chocolate Mikado were a little more satisfying as the chocolate flavours left a greater lasting impression in the mouth. Worth checking out if you like the originals but want something a little different.

8.3 out of 10



----
Glico Mikado Totally (Hazel)Nuts
Kcal 11 Fat 0.5 Carbs 1.5g (per stick)

You may be able to tell that I wrote that review on the Mikado Dark Chocolate a little while ago. Since then these Mikado Totally (Hazel)Nuts have been released here in the UK and they come described as 'Biscuits coated with milk chocolate and hazelnut pieces'. My initial thoughts about these were that it was going to be terribly difficult to integrate nuts into Mikado considering how thin they are. Looking at the sticks it was immediatedly apparent that Glico had gone about this by implementing tiny hazelnut fragments into the milk chocolate coating. Addmiteddly I was sceptical to how much of a hazelnut nut influence these minimal sized pieces were going to create, however I was surprised by what I tasted. Amazingly these (Hazel)Nuts sticks retained all the creamy milk chocolate biscuit flavours of the originals, yet also managed to layer a strong ... yes strong note of woody fresh nuts in the latter stages of the taste. Your own enjoyment of these will be dependent on your own liking of hazelnuts. It sounds silly to say that but I genuinely believed these were going to struggle get the nut element involved so thats a good thing for me to be able to write.

8.4 out of 10



----
Glico Pocky Chocolate-on-Chocolate Creamy
Kcal 86 Fat 4.7 Carbs 9.8g (per 16.0g packet)

As good as the Mikado offerings are here in the UK, when it comes to biscuit sticks we all know that the Japanese are the kings! Thankfully for me (and you guys of course!!) J-List are at always at hand, allowing me to try all the latest new Pocky flavours. Having tried so many different Pocky, Fran, Toppo etc products in the last three years, my most common complaint is that they are never satisfying or fulfilling enough to be an all round great snack. Well it seems that the people at Glico towers have answered my wishes with these new Glico Pocky Chocolate-on-Chocolate Creamy as they included 70.0% more chocolate on each stick! Hopeully in my photos you can see the two different chocolate layers and how they were layered to create a far thicker chocolate coating on the biscuit below. A little disappointingly these two different chocolates didn't produce much in the way of differentiated flavours, though the sweet milky taste was still very tasty when matched with the buttery flavours of the wheat biscuit sticks. I would love to see Glico make more of their more interesting variants this substantial - it's another ChocolateMission thumbs up for Pocky here.

8.4 out of 10


------
Meiji Fran Premium Hard Chocolate/Strawberry & Bitter
Chocolate & Bitter - Kcal 94 Fat 5.4g Carbs 9.8g (per 17.0g packet)
Strawberry & Bitter - Kcal 88 Fat 5.1g Carbs 9.3g (per 16.0g packet)

As well all know Mikado and Pocky aren't the only ones who make these chocolate stick products. Indeed there are vast amount of alternative offerings in Japan, and Meiji's Fran brand is probably another that can claim to be obscenely popular. By the looks of things, Meiji didn't want to 'miss the boat' offering consumers a more up-market version of their original Fran product line, so like Glico with the Pocky Chocolate-on-Chocolate, they have also just released a premium tier product line of Fran. Both of these Premuim Hard flavours came in stylish looking matted cardboard boxes and both contained four individual serving packs that contained three thick looking sticks in each. The blue flavour you see on the left was the original 'Chocolate & Bitter' flavour, whilst the one on the right was a 'Strawberry & Bitter' variant. Out of the two, the original chocolate was by far my favourite, and I felt that the flavour journey going from an unsweetned outer chocolate to a creamier, sweeter one below was really rather good. The strawberry sticks on the other hand didn't sit so well with me, as not only did the sticks smell artifical, but they unfortunately tasted rather like this to which came to me as a great disappointment. The blander tasting biscuit make these a less appetising product than the Pocky equivalents, though I would offer the original Chocolate & Bitter flavour as a worthy ballpark competitor.

Chocolate & Bitter -8.1 out of 10
Strawberry & Bitter -6.3 out of 10

May 9th: Cadbury Dairy Milk Bliss Truffle Bars

Whose been keeping an eye on the ChocolateMission NEWS PAGE then??? Well if you were last week than you would have seen the announcement of the these three new Cadbury Dairy Milk Bliss Truffle Bars in the press. Following on from last years initial Bliss offering (Vanilla Truffle - See HERE), these new Bliss Truffle 110.0g bars are supposed to provide "a little pampering at home after a stressful day", with the new larger format designed for in-home consumption rather than "the smaller bars which are more suitable for on the go".

Just like the Cadbury Dairy Milk Bar of Plenty range release last year, this new line of bars features three different flavours straight from launch - Chocolate Truffle, Toffee Truffle & Hazelnut Truffle. All three came packaged in very cool looking cardboard boxes that contained 16 large sized blocks which could be consumed comfortably in two bites. My overall perceptions of the presentation were very positive, and the new cardboard sleeve design and product concept for that matter reminded me of the Milka Amavel range - some Kraft influence coming through perhaps?

Here are my brief thoughts on each of the three flavours:

Cadbury Dairy Milk Bliss Chocolate Truffle
Kcal 125 Fat 8.2g Fat(sats) 4.6g Carbs 10.7g (per 2 chunks)

This was obviously the least interesting one to me out of all three what with it being just a dual textured Dairy Milk offering. As was the case across all the bars, the outer portion of the chocolate broke with a nice crispness and was just about the right thickness to provide a the familiar, thick sweet cream based Dairy Milk experience before revelation of the truffle layer below. As expected, with this particular variant the taste showed little to no progression with the exposure of the middle truffle, though that said the pace of the melt quickened with the softer textural feel. This bar reminded me a lot of the Galaxy Truffle bar I reviewed earlier this year in that it was a nice enough chocolate but not one that necessarilly needed making.

7.7 out of 10

Cadbury Dairy Milk Bliss Hazelnut Truffle
Kcal 125 Fat 8.3g Fat(sats) 4.5g Carbs 10.5g (per 2 chunks)

Given the amount of praline chocolates I try nowadays from the likes of Hotel Chocolat I was a little concious that Cadbury might struggle to create a decent impression on me with their own attempt at a hazelnut truffle bar. In the ingredients list I was pleasantly surprised to read hazelnut paste, rather than hazelnut pieces - it sure would have been a dumb idea to upset the delightfully smooth mouth feel melt created by these truffle offerings. Speaking of the bar's textures, the feel of the middle filling was nicely differentiated, with it having more of a slower paced, drier feel compared to both the Toffee & Chocolate. For the record, this was no issue for me whatsoever - it just meant that the surprisingly strong hazelnut flavours gripped more in the mouth, and created a longer sustained savoury nut impression. This made for a very satisfying chocolate that was better than I was expecting.

8.4 out of 10

Cadbury Dairy Milk Bliss Toffee Truffle
Kcal 125 Fat 7.8g Fat(sats) 4.5g Carbs 11.4g (per 2 chunks)

This flavour chaught my attention from the outset for two reasons. Firstly the choice of colour for the packaging made it look exactly like the old Cadbury Dairy Milk Apricot Crumble that they got rid only just over a year ago - perhaps a little confusing for less well informed folk maybe!? Secondly the bar smelt exceedingly sweet when I released it from it's foil confines - a strong set of burnt sugar notes had me a little worried this was going to be a sugary abyss given how sweet Dairy Milk is already these days. Well I shouldn't have been so concerned - this bar tasted wonderful, and the toffee truffle centre exceeded expectations. Unlike the aromas it generated the smells suggested, the truffle was more notable for it's buttery caramel flavours rather than merely just progression the sugar authoritiveness. The Toffee flavours created weren't long lasting, but they were incredibly moreish and the delightful butterscotch taste left me coming back for more time and time again.

8.1 out of 10

Overall if you have read the reviews it isn't exactly rocket science to work out which of these three I suggest you get acqauinted with. Cutting the long story short, the Chocolate Truffle was what it was - a plainer offering for those who either don't like nuts or caramel. Although that bar was a little unexciting the other two offerings were anything but. The Toffee Truffle exceeded expectations with it's smooth, moreish caramel truffle tones, and the Hazelnut Truffle was just as good (if not better!) with it's surprisingly accomplished rounded hazelnut taste. The sensible RRP price of £1.39 I think make these a rather decent offering for those looking for a more luxurious Cadbury offering. It's nice to see one of our chocolate producers focusing on heightening their quality for once rather than the more obvoius 'cheaper alternatives' route given the economic situation. Give them a try and let me know what you think.

May 7th: '7Days of Chocolate Reviews' - Edition 72 - McVitie's Twix Caramel Slices

SITE UPDATE

Hi All,

What an amazing stretch of bank holidays and royal weddings we just had huh!?

I'm sure you will all be glad to know that the usual posting schedule will return this week with reviews on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I know I always say this but I have some genuinely exciting things in store for you all including a whole new range of bars from Cadbury, some more crazyness from Japan and then whatever I fancy ending the week on :D

Looking below you will see that 'Snack of the Week' was more like 'Disappointment of the Week' - Have any of you sampled the delights (tongue in cheek here!) of McVitie's new (term used loosely) Twix Caramel Slices?

You guys might want to check out Hotel Chocolat this weekend - there are further reductions on their Easter chocolates and they are starting to get their summer lines added to the website to. Let me know if you spot anything you want reviewed.

Right I'm off to update the News Page with the non-existent news articles on chocolate this week. At least we can always bank on a few laughs from Thorntons' explaining their shortcomings for the umpteenth time.

Have great weekends

JIM

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 142 Fat 7.8g Fat(sats) 4.3g Carbs 16.6g (Per Slice)

A few weeks ago I read with great excitement about these Twix Caramel Slices in 'The Grocer Magazine' - See HERE. Being a fan of the original Twix bar, and of course a lover of Millionaire Shortbread cakes, I kept a keen eye out for them in my local supermarkets and I found them just last weekend in Tesco priced on a £1 introductory deal. Packaging wise I was impressed with the outer and inner wrappers and I liked the consistency brought over from other Twix products. Upon revelation of the slices however, an unnerving sense of familiarity came across me. McVitie's couldn't possibly have done this?? Could they?? ... Yes ... unfortunately they had!! Anyone remember these - McVitie's Caramel Shortcake See HERE??? Well welcome to the all new repackaged version! Indeed these were every bit as poor as those used to be - some might say even poorer due to their slightly smaller size. If you want my more in depth analysis I suggest heading to that old review - I refuse to waste all your time on such cheeky use of branding. To say I was disappointed with these is an understatement.

5.7 out of 10



CHOCOLATE NEWS

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