May 25th: 'Bits n Bobs' Cadbury Biscuits, Cakes, Cookies & Chocos 2011

Cadbury have been pumping out so many new products this year it's almost been hard for me to keep up to date with them all. In an attempt to get somewhat close to covering them all off on the site I have today lumped some of the latest ones in to a single 'Bits n Bobs' post. If you guys have any opinions on any of the products being featured today I would encourage you to add your thoughts via the comments functionality.

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Cadbury BiscBits Orange Crunch
Kcal 120 Fat 5.4g Fat(sats) 2.9g Carbs 16.5g (per 7 biscuits)

After a none to impressive first look at the Cadbury BiscBits range I don't know what quite compelled me to give this Orange Crunch variety a try (See Caramel Crisp review HERE). It must have been the faint hope of these being far superior to them, and the ever apparent 'New' labelling placed on the packaging that convinced me, as I indeed part with my single pound coin for a 110.0g bag. Described as 'orange flavoured chocolate biscuits covered in milk chocolate', these looked more appealing than the previous Caramel Crisp biscuits did as they lacked the scuffed, worn natured look of that product previous. Unfortunately taste wise they proved to be just as poor and it wasn't long before I realised these were just another cheap, cheerful Cadbury product that had recieved little or no thought put in to it. In line with expectations the chocolate was sweet and sugary in taste, though the overriding flavour influence came from the orange flavouring which had the most generic of tastes imagineable. It was neither zesty, refreshing or real tasting - just a real run of the mill sweet tasting dull orange flavouring. I'm sure the sheer blandness wont go as far as offending anyone, but I personally wouldn't recommend these.

6.2 out of 10


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Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocos
Kcal 250 Fat 14.1g Carbs 27.0g (per roll)

Unlike some of the products being featured today these were given some exposure time in the press before they released in order to create some hype (See HERE). As referred to in the article these aren't exactly a 'New' idea from Cadbury as similar products have been on sale in the likes of Finland and Australia for a fair while now. To my knowledge though, this is the first time they have appeared in the UK and I'm glad to say they are a welcome addition to the Cadbury portfolio. As unexciting as this sounds the roll pack simply contained 11 Dairy Milk chocolate pieces that were no bigger or smaller than Rolos. Being this size meant they were the perfect for just popping out the packet and placing on the tongue for a quick, sharp burst of creamy Dairy Milk lovelyness. The roll pack format is an incredibly convenient way of getting your chocolate fix whilst 'on-the-move' (wanky term I know :D ) and I'm happy to say that the Dairy Milk chocolate experience isn't altered in any manner from the switch from bar to 'choco'. These aren't the most exciting of new products but you will be more than happy with what you get here.

8.2 out of 10


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Cadbury Chunky Cookies Milk, Dark & White
Kcal 115 Fat 6.3g Fat(sats) 3.4g Carbs 12.7g (per cookie)

Can Cadbury make cookies? Well of course they can ... well they could try anyway :D If you have peeked at the taste score you will probably have been surprised by another average rating sitting in the region of 7.0 out of 10. How could it be that these Cadbury cookies scored lower than average!? For me there were two fundamental problems I had with these. Firstly, like the aromas suggested, the actual taste wasn't Cadbury like at all. The butter, wheat and brown sugar noted biscuit bases were delightfully tasty with the added raft of sweet chocolate flavours, but to my experienced Cadbury taste buds the chocolate taste wasn't half as creamy as is typical with the brand. My second real issue was the billing of white, milk and dark chocolate all in one. This simply wasn't delivered on, and there was no evidence of any differentiation in impact the taste from the white chocolate or dark chocolate chunks. Overlook all this negativity and I will concede that a single cookie made a nice afternoon snack paired with a coffee but unfortunately the negative aspects did outweight the good ones.

7.3 out of 10


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Cadbury Chocolate Mallows
Kcal 55 Fat 2.2g Fat(sats) 1.2g Carbs 8.1g (per mallow)

'20 mallow teacakes covered with milk chocolate' - is there anything these guys wont try now? Burton's Foods have certainly expanded the breadth of Cadbury's portfolio over the last few years and this has included putting the Cadbury name to these mallow teacake biscuits. When I was lad, Tunnocks Teacakes (See HERE) were the only ones that I ever ate - I never thought any of the supermarket or even Marks & Spencer offerings could compare. The weakness of the Tunnocks ones however I always believed to be the chocolate, so there was at least a part of me open to seeing how good these Cadbury ones were. What I realised upon eating these were that whilst the chocolate standard was a step up from Tunnocks, the inner marshmallow and biscuit bases were far, far poorer. The mallow had a dense, foamy feel in the mouth and lacked any sort of definitive flavours as did the chalky biscuit base below. Whilst the chocolate was superior it could not make up for the poorness of the other two constituents, as it was so thinly portioned it mostly got lost within the bland mallow anyway. Unless you are looking for cheap fodder for sharing occasions like kids parties I suggest you keep clear of these. Cadbury might want to start consider some of the products they are putting their name to.

5.8 out of 10

May 23rd: Thorntons Dark Chocolate with Rose

Kcal 556 Fat 38.1g Fat(sats) 23.1g Carbs 40.9g (per 100.0g)

'New Product Mondays' have been a common occurrence for us here in May 2011 and the trend doesn't stop today. Kicking us off this week we have a limited edition bar from Thorntons - the Dark Chocolate with Rose. This is the first of three chocolates being released this year to commemorate the '100 years' of Thorntons, with the other two following later on in 2011 (I've tried the other two aswell and boy are they great!!). All three of these chocolates will be being released in the Thorntons Chocolate Blocks Collection and are based on classic British flavours. Whilst I could understand the symbolism of the 'British Rose' I wasn't quite so sure most of us Brits would have Rose as classic flavouring in our food!? I'll let you debate that one.

Like all the limited edition Thorntons Chocolate Blocks this one came in the slightly smaller 80.0g bar form. Although I have questioned the colouring of some of the previous chocolate block flavours in the past, I thought the use of a light pink option was suitable for this particular rose variety. I feel I must also give acknowledgement to the fact that Thorntons have resisted going overboard in the celebrations of their 100 years of trading - the sticker you see on the top right of the box was the only reference aside from the on pack blurb. Inside the box the chocolate was kept in a layer of bright silver foil and was sectioned into the usual block sizes and with the same moulded markings providing decoration. Unsealed, the bar emanated some pleasant cocoa scents with detectable sweeter, fruity hints detectable every so often.

This bar came described as '64% Peruvian dark chocolate with crystallised rose petals' - an interesting and unique concept at least. I don't know if any of you girls or girls remember the last time I tried some flower flavoured chocolates, but it was the Zotter Labooko Ein BlumenstrauB (See HERE) and they turned out to be rather fine. Hoping that this rose chocolate could create a similar impression I went in to the taste test with an open frame of mind and I'm pleased to report that this was an enjoyable chocolate. The 64% dark was of a better than average quality and liked the way the initial cocoa flavours were built upon by tones of red wine and citrus fruits to create a nice edgy flavoured chocolate. The crystallised rose pieces were at times a little infrequent in number, but where present they tempered the sharpness of the chocolate with a fruitiness that had influences of sweet raspberry and cherries. The culmination of these bitter and sweet taste tangents created an interestingly flavoured chocolate, though one can't deny that the chewing of the crystallised rose pieces was an unwelcome textural drawback.

Overall one may question the choice of 'rose' to represent a traditional British food flavouring but we can at least feel solitude in the fact that the actual chocolate delivered was pretty decent. The blend of the dark chocolate and sweet rose influence is a combination that works, and I'm glad that Thorntons were able to create a decent enough synergy with the two. As I said above the only drawback for me was the nature in which the rose was implemented in it's crystalised form. Given that dark chocolate is most pleasantly consumed when left to simply melt on the tongue it might have made better sense to integrate the flavour using some sort of rose flavoured oil. That criticism aside there really isn't anything to dislike here if you are a fan of flavoured dark chocolates. Out of the three bars being released to celebrate the 100 years of Thorntons this might possibly be the weakest, but that is more a reflection of just how grand the other two are - reviews coming soon.

7.7 out of 10

May 21st: '7Days of Chocolate Reviews' - Edition 73 - Nabisco Nutter Butter

SITE UPDATE

Hi All,

I'm glad that you guys finally got a full quota of chocolate reviews this week after the Easter holidays and technical issues previous. To be honest with you guys there isn't much to report at the moment - things my side of the fence are ticking along nicely. You may have noticed that I have got reviews of some of the latest new products to hit the chocolate market up pretty sharpish in the last few weeks - you can expect a whole lot more coming soon as I will be sharing my thoughts on certain Thorntons and Cadbury NPDs in the next week or so.

Whilst on the topic of Thorntons you might want to take a look back at my review of the Thorntons Mini Caramel Shortcakes (See HERE) - I recently just updated the photographs on that review. Another one I have recently updated is my review of Montezuma's Culture Shock bar (See HERE).
I'm sure you will all be pleased to hear that Hotel Chocolat delivered a box full of their summer chocolate range this week - like the new products above those reviews will be along very shortly.

Be sure to check out the news page for all the latest goings on in the chocolate market. As ever I can only encourage you guys to leave any stories you find yourselves or any requests you have for product reviews.

Enjoy your 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 130 Fat 6.0g Fat(sats) 1.5g Carbs 19.0g (per 2 cookies)

I know It's been a week of cookie and biscuit based products here on ChocolateMission and you are probably tiring of them all, but I just couldn't help but feature these Nabisco Nutter Butter cookies as 'Snack of The Week'. These were another American delight sent to me my pals at AmericanSoda (See HERE) - if you are lucky they might still have some of them in stock!

Nutter Butters are a Nabisco brand and come described as 'peanut-shaped sandwich cookies with peanut butter fillings'. I'm sure all you peanut butter lovers are salivating at the prospect of this and to be honest you have good reason to be doing so. AmericanSoda sent me the largest pack size of Nutter Butters that they sell (453.0g) but even that only lasted a few hours when left in my open office environment. Luckily for me I managed to grab a fair few myself - boy are they great. The saltyness of the peanut butter filling and the sweetness of the outer malty wheat biscuits is a combination made in cookie heaven. All I can say is that if you love peanut butter, you will love these cookies.

8.0 out of 10



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May 20th: Thorntons Cookies

Back in December, Thorntons released this press release HERE, announcing the launch of a store exclusive Cookies range. Common readers of the site will be aware that Thorntons have tended to score consistently well with their more random chocolate offerings here on ChocolateMission - I'm talking about the likes of their Millionaire Shortbreads, Brownies etc. With these past experiences in mind I was delighted when I was approached by one of Thorntons's PR agencies who offered me the chance of trying these new cookies. I quickly snapped their hands off, and before I knew it I had all four of the varieties in-hand, photographed and prime for sampling.

Before I give you the run down of how each tasted and bombard you with photos and graphs, I must first give you the finer details about the four different flavours. Distinguished by their coloured packs, the four variants were Sicillian Lemon Meringue, Triple Chocolate, Praline & Milk Chocolate and Ginger & Dark Chocolate. Three out of the four (all but the Praline 175.0g) weighed 200.0g with eight cookies in each pack. Aesthetically I thought the presentation quality was fair to standard. I wouldn't say they looked as premium as one might have thought Thorntons would have chosen to make them look, but they looked appetising enough, and it must at least be said the on-pack pictures gave a very good steer as to how they looked in real life.

With thirty-two cookies in my possession, there were more than enough to pass round the family to get some second opinions - brace yourselves for a feast of photos, graphs and ratings:

Sicilian Lemon Meringue
'Lemon flavour cookies baked with white chocolate covered meringue pieces'
Kcal 120 Fat 5.1g Fat(sats) 2.5g Carbs 17.3g (per cookie)

Lets start off the worst ones and get them out the way. When I first showed all these cookies to my family, both my mother and sister latched on to these stating they were the most desirable. Unfortunately they were none to impressed with them, and described them as overly sweet, and fake tasting in regards to their lemon fruit flavours. When I got around to trying them myself I have to say I 100.0% agreed with them. The covered meringue pieces acted almost like lumps of sugar, and the lemon element was tart enough to take the edge off the sweetness (if anything it just enhanced it). Want to know the worst thing of all about these cookies? They made the rest of them smell and taste like them when stored in the biscuit barrel!

4.6 out of 10


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Triple Chocolate Chunk
'Baked with white, dark and milk chocolate chunks, half coated in milk chocolate'
Kcal 124 Fat 6.1g Fat(sats) 3.8g Carbs 15.7g (per cookie)

On to the next disappointing ones :D Now before you all get the wrong idea please take notice I say 'disappointing' and not 'bad'! Essentially these were tasty cookies - the dough bases were pleasant, and the half coated milk chocolate undersides were a nice touch if a little messy. My disappointment, actually, OUR collective disappointment came in the fact that they didn't deliver a 'Triple' chocolate experience. Had you asked me what flavour they were in a blind taste test, I would have told you that they were just milk chocolate chip cookies. Unfortunately the dark and white chips didn't cut through in the taste, with neither the unsweetened flavours of the dark or the creamier influence of the latter mentioned managing to shine through. Good cookies, but didn't live up the Triple Chocolate billing.

7.0 out of 10


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Praline & Milk Chocolate
'Hazelnut & almond praline, roasted hazelnuts, half coated in milk chocolate'
Kcal 117 Fat 6.9g Fat(sats) 3.1g Carbs 12.1g (per cookie)

These cookies were slightly smaller than their other counterparts, but what they lacked in size they made up for taste. These were the favourite of both my mother and sister, and I have to say they did give the Ginger cookies a run for their money. These cookies were billed as being filled with nutty influences and I'm glad to say the nut element was more than delivered on. The combination of the base biscuit and milk chocolate set the taste up with an initial sweet chocolatyness. As the melt developed, and the crunchy hazelnut pieces came into play, a pleasant woodsy nuttyness came to the fore and brought a delicious salty savoury note along with it. These weren't as satisfying as some of the others, but they were well liked all round.

7.2 out of 10


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Ginger & Dark Chocolate
'Ginger flavour cookies backed with candied ginger pieces, coated in dark chocolate'
Kcal 120 Fat 6.1g Fat(sats) 3.8g Carbs 14.9g (per cookie)

Hands down these were the nicest of the lot. As much as the praline variety was liked, these were loved! Being the dark chocolate ginger lover of the family, my father didn't wait to long before tasting one of these, promptly telling us how 'awful' they were, and attempting to run away with the rest of the packet haha :D Luckily the rest of got to him before he could get to far - and we are very glad we did. The combination of the dark chocolate and ginger was executed flawlessly. The outer lick of dark chocolate was thick enough to create a kind, unsweetened dark chocolate taste, which contrasted nicely with rest of the sweeter components. At the heart of each biscuit, the ginger didn't hold back when it came to the taste, offering a beautifully contrastive set of sweet, spicy flavours. Quite simply, these were damn tasty cookies.

8.5 out of 10


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Overall its pretty obvious which of these cookies I would be happy to recommend to you all. Fans of praline or ginger chocolates will be sure to enjoy those variants, whilst I'm pretty certain the Triple Chocolate would go down well with anyone none to demanding of the triple chocolate experience. As ever with Thorntons we got a real mixed here - my advice is just pick and choose wisely.

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.

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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



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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



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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


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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


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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.

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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


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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


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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