September 24th: '7Days of Chocolate Reviews' - Edition 88 - Galaxy A Gift For You

SITE UPDATE + RITTER COMPETITION WINNER

Hi All,

Again it's been a busy week on ChocolateMission and I can once again only thank you all for all the feedback you have sent my way. If you managed to miss any of the reviews I've posted the links to them below - please continue to add any thoughts or opinions as and when you have them.

* Go*Do Organic Chocolate Selection - See HERE
* 'Bits n Bobs' Chocolate Cereal, Flapjacks, Cookies & Bars - See HERE
* Snickers Hazelnut Slab - See HERE

I'm sure most of you are far more interested in hearing who has won the Ritter Sport Noisette bars that I put up for grabs in that review nine days ago - See HERE. After receiving so many responses and sensible suggestions as to why Germans use hazelnuts so often, I decided the only fair way to determine the winners was to use my trusted spreadsheet random number generator to pick my winners.

I can now reveal the lucky winners are ....

Comment #17 - Rachel
Comment #36 - Stu
Comment #75 - Tomas

Well done to you guys - I will give you a week to get in contact with me via e-mail to claim your prizes. Failure to do so will lead in a Ritter Rollover :D

With that guys I will leave you to the weekend ahead with this weeks Snack of the Week :D Thanks again for your continued contributions to the site.

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 weekGalaxy A Gift For You
Kcal 198 Fat 11.3g Carbs 21.7g

With a full three months to go before the big day, on the 24th Spetember I bring you ChocolateMission's first Christmas 2011 review :D It's unbelievable to think but the UK supermarkets have been stocking Christmas themed products for a fair few weeks now - it does make you kinda think why they don't just start stocking them all year round doesn't it!? To just showcase how silly this all is I thought it a funny idea to bring you a first Christmas review before I even got stuck in to Halloween this year - quite the comedian aren't I haha!

Well starting things off this year we have these Galaxy 'A Gift For You' chocolates. Billed as 'one half caramel and one half milk chocolate', this 38.0g present shaped chocolate piece cost me £0.65. To save me giving yet another long winded run down of just how amazing Galaxy Caramel chocolates are, let me point you in the direction of this review HERE. Suffice to say the present shaped mould was every bit as suitable as I imagined, and although the proportions of caramel to chocolate were disappointingly more weighted towards the milk chocolate, it was still a lovely little snack oozing with buttery caramel and sweet chocolate class. I'm sure I will be eating a fair few of these this festive year.

8.4 out of 10



CHOCOLATE NEWS

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September 23rd: Snickers Hazelnut Slab

Kcal 272 Fat 14.4g Fat(sats) 4.6g Carbs 31.3g

I always say ChocolateMission readers are the best, and I have to pass my thanks on to yet another one of you for providing me with this bar for the review today. My gratitude must specifically go to dedicated reader Daisy, who was kind enough to send me a 'Christmas treat box' full of chocolate bars from her latest trip to a well known candy importer based in London. Within the selection of bars, Daisy managed to pick out a whole host of limited edition chocolates from all over world, some of which I hadn't even known existed. One of these very bars was the Snickers Hazelnut Slab, which is bar hailing from Australia. On the wrapper the bar came described as 'a pile of hazelnuts, chewy caramel and a slab of nougat, covered in chocolate', this was pretty much your standard Snickers, but with the peanuts replaced by hazelnuts.

Unlike the majority of limited edition Snickers products made in the US, this bar pulled no punches in terms of it's size, and came in a plentiful 53.0g form. In terms of the wrapper and presentation, the bar clearly communicated it's hazelnut theme with the aid of some on bold secondary branding and clear on-pack hazelnut pictures. Suffice to say it was differentiated enough from the standard Snickers, yet retained the brand essence by maintaining the clarity of the original Snickers logo (nice work Mars!). Peeling back the folds of the plastic wrapper, the first thing to come to my attention was that the usual peanutty smells were replaced by some more savoury hazelnut scents - it still smelt pretty appetising.

Once I had got my fix of the smells being offered, the next action I took was to cross-section the bar (see above!). At this point I was both pleased and somewhat disappointed, as the hazelnuts were plentiful, but were chopped into smaller pieces rather than integrated as wholenuts. Taking my first bite in to the bar the wonderful array textures were self evident with the crisp outer chocolate, chewy nougat, soft caramel and crunchy nut pieces creating a familiar Snickers mouth feel. Taste wise the milk chocolate, nougat and caramel elements were almost entirely comparable to any standard Snickers bar we get here in the UK i.e. there was nothing remarkable about any of them, but combined they made for one lovely synergy of toffee and vanilla noted, sweet milk chocolate tastes. In addition to this standard Snickers base, the hazelnuts also contributed nicely to each bite, adding a woody, nut flavours. Despite my initial concerns, the nuts still made a major influence on the taste despite their chopped nature - why did I ever worry eh? :D

Overall this was a nice variation on a cult classic, and it was certainly interesting to try. Being realistic, I don't think there is any variation or limited edition that Mars could ever release that would make me think that it was superior to the original. In my opinion I can't ever seeing there being another Snickers bar that can take on the gloriousness of the salty peanut and sweet caramel taste. Whilst the hazelnuts were certainly a welcome addition to this bar, I didn't feel that they were as tasty, or as complimentary to the other constituents as the normal peanuts. Whilst this may be the reality of the quality of this product vs the original, what must be considered is still how good this bar is on it's own merits. On the whole my experience with this Hazelnut Slab variation was nothing but positive - it looked great, smelt great, tasted great and satisfied my hunger fantastically. If you are a fan of the Mars Topic, this bar is almost identical to that one, but just with ten times the amount of hazelnuts. Although the reality is that it isn't as good as the original, I would still give it a ChocolateMission thumbs up, it's well worth a try if you ever see it.

8.6 out of 10

September 21st: 'Bits n Bobs' Chocolate Cereal, Flapjacks, Cookies & Bars

Reader requests have been coming in from left-right and centre in the past couple of months so what better way to cover a good selection of them off but with a 'Bits n Bobs' post today. The reviews will be short and sweet, but I encourage you guys to let me know what you make of these products yourselves. There is a lot to get through today so without further ado lets get down to business ...

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The Fabulous Bakin' Boys Choc on Top Flapjack
Kcal 354 Fat 17.1g Fat(sats) 7.7g Carbs 45.8g

I've had a few variable run-ins with with the Fabulous Bakin' Boys range down the years - some good, some pretty abysmal (See HERE). Encouraingly one of the better experiences I've had with them was with their Choco Flapjacks, which managed to impress despite their small size.

Aiming to combat the problems of the aforementioned FBB offering, this 'Choc on Top' flapjack looked like it meant business and weighed in at a 75.0g catch weight. Calories galore, I ate this flapjack alongside my mid-afternoon coffee and boy it felt exceedingly heavy in hand. The base flapjack was pleasant, though the taste was definitely not as buttery or caramel led (new word haha!) as say Heavenly Cakes flapjacks are. Whilst the base was fine, the chocolate topping was abysmal. It was waxy and horrible in texture, and almost completely devoid of any cocoa or milk flavours whatsoever. The chocolate element was so AWOL I question why they bothered including it in the first place. There are many better chocolate flapjacks out there.

5.8 out of 10


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Kellogg's Krave Cereal
Kcal 135 Fat 5.0g Fat(sats) 2.0g Carbs 9.0g (30.0g serving)

The reader requests for me to review this cereal have been coming in ever since it's launch back in 2010 (See HERE), and what with the launch of a second Milk Chocolate variant (purple) to accompany the original Milk Chocolate Hazelnut variant (red) I could hardly ignore it any longer. I found these 'limited edition trial packs' on sale in my local Tesco - how convenient for a chocolate reviewer who just wanted to try them the one time - Thanks Kellogg's :D

To test these cereals out I replaced my usual big bowl of bran flake cereal with these 30.0g trial packs. You may have noted already that I have lumped both of these cereals ratings under the one Krave scoring chart - I've done this because I thought exactly the same about both of them. A real strength about both variants were that they had a nice unique mouthfeel, and the distinction between the crisper outer shells and inner paste centres was evident even after a long duration in the milk. In terms of differentiation between the two, I felt there was very little difference between the two flavours. Both were very sugar led in taste, though the milk chocolate offering was just a touch sweeter in my estimation with the hazelnut variant tasting just a little saltier (despite having lower salt in ... go figure!). My big issue with these cereals was that they just didn't do the functional job I wanted from my breakfast and on both trial days I was hungry by 10.30am having consumed them at 9.00am. I'm sure the kids will love these sugar fest offerings but I can't envisage them appearing in my cereal cupboard again anytime soon.

6.5 out of 10


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Nabisco Chips Ahoy!
Kcal 190 Fat 9.0g Fat(sats) 3.0g Carbs 27.0g (per 4 cookies)

What with my forays into the British biscuit market this year it was only a matter of time before some of my US readers began requesting I reviewed some of their most popular cookie offerings. In the US, Chips Ahoy! are one of the best selling cookie brands - I have my pals at American Soda to thank for providing me with the ones you see in the review today.

American Soda were kind enough to send across a few 40.0g packs of these original Chips Ahoy! and I ate them across various times during my working week. Partnering my mid-morning and mid-afternoon coffees, I often left the packets unsealed (four was a bit too many for one time!) - this didn't effect their texture whatsoever, as they maintained a consistent crunchy freshness. In terms of taste I found them preferable to the majority of lacklustre cookie offerings we get in this country (e.g. Marylands's), with their less sugar focused taste allowing greater emphasis on the salt hinted wheat. The semi-sweet flavours of the chocolate chips also came through relatively well, though at times I thought they were a little sparsely integrated. Store bought cookies aren't ever as good as home made fresh, but for a taste of America these snack-pack Chips Ahoy! are a decent little offering.

7.7 out of 10


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Mr Kipling Choc Chip Cakes
Kcal 108 Fat 5.0g Fat(sats) 2.0g Carbs 10.0g (per cake)

Mr Kipling hasn't always had the best time here on ChocolateMission - his Chocolate Slices (See HERE) hardly lit up the scoring chart when he was last featured on the site. Despite this I had higher expectations for these Choc Chip Cakes. I used to have these often during my younger years and used to really quite like them. Today I was hoping this would all stay true to the current day so I could finally have something nice to say about our beloved Mr Kipling :D

Just as with the majority of all these products featured in Bits and Bobs I found these on a £1.00 deal in my local Tesco. Aesthetically and 'in-hand' these cakes looked a lot smaller than I remembered them from past times - I don't have the figures to confirm it but I'm pretty confident saying they are definitely significantly smaller than they used to be. To my delight the smaller size was thankfully no issue to the taste - they were exactly how I remembered. The sweet, vanilla noted Madeira cake was delightful and the chocolate chips were surprisingly well portioned which created a more than adequate chocolatey flavour burst. These weren't the most fulfilling of cakes because of their size and light texture, however that just gave me all the more excuse to have two :D I recommend them as a decent, cheap cake option.

7.7 out of 10

September 19th: Go*Do Organic Chocolate Selection

Back in February I put up a link on the news page directing you guys to an article talking about the launch of a new brand of chocolates called Go*Do (See HERE). A few months down the line and it wasn't long before I got the opportunity to try out a few offerings from their current range. Before I talk about my thoughts on them, it's probably worth me giving you a bit of background on the brand itself. As explained in their own press article

Go*Do was "launched in October 2010 and has proven very popular in Italy and Japan". In Italian the word GODO means to enjoy "sensual pleasure" (ooooh err!), and the bars are made by a fifth-generation Italian family in their "state-of-the-art factory near the Italian Lakes". Go*Do have total control “from bean to bar – farming the cocoa, harvesting the beans, making the chocolate and forming the bars". According to their website, the "cocoa they use is organically grown in Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and Peru – all areas known for high quality cocoa". Supposedly this all culminates in superb bean quality and a truly sustainable brand - I think I will be the judge of that :D

Over the past week I tried out three of their current range which I sampled in 35.0g mini bar portions. The packaging and presentation of the range was hardly what I would call unique (remarkably similar to Green & Blacks if you ask me!) but I thought it did the job nonetheless with it's paper sleeve and inner foil wrapping combo. Below are my thoughts on the bars I tried.


It made sense to start off with the plain dark chocolate offering I had so this was the first bar of theirs that I tried. My initial feelings placing the first few blocks on my tongue were rather similar to how I ended up feeling about the range as a whole - tasty but unspectacular. The first flavour influences to greet me were a plethora of milky cocoa notes and these established a pleasant unsweetened, chocolatey cocoa taste from the onset. The texture of the melt was kind and smooth - this was definitely the best paced and most pleasant mouthfeel of the three on show today. The only real thing holding this chocolate back from being one of true quality was it's lack of progression from it's initial flavour establishment. The dark chocolate taste was fresh and non-bitter, but it lacked a little depth and didn't have the definition of say a Hotel Chocolat or even a Lindt dark chocolate.

6.8 out of 10




With the above lack of flavour development evident across the plain dark chocolate I was hoping the additional coffee influence here would solve a few of these problems. To an extent the coffee factor did exactly this, however there were some additional very obvious drawbacks due to it's inclusion. The back of the pack revealed that the bar contained 10.0% coffee nibs - thats tiny little pieces of coffee beans to you unawares folk! The obvious plus side of this was that the dark now had that extra dimension of flavour, with the strong tasting coffee coming through strongly in both aroma and taste. Unfortunately the drawback of these nibs were that they were almost a complete chocolate spoiler for me, as they brought a horrible gritty feel to the mouthfeel and melt. I loved the taste of this one but texturally it wasn't nice.

7.3 out of 10



Did I do my usual trick of saving the best until last? Well no not quite, but it was still pretty good. Out of three this was the one I had least faith in - not many manufactures can make decent white chocolate so why could an infant brand like Go*Do belong in their company!? Well I'm pleased to say that Go*Do managed to do a relatively good job here - they certainly have a good base white chocolate to which I hope they will do some flavoured varieties with later down the line. Taste wise I would say it was similar to the Green & Black's vanilla white chocolate with it's light milky taste noted very lightly with a touch of well rounded bourbon vanilla. It didn't quite have the creamy long lasting taste of some of the real top white chocolates I have reviewed previously, but it was noticeably higher quality than the cheap sugary abysses of the white chocolate world.

7.1 out of 10


Overall its understandable the scores awarded here might not be too inspiring for many of you, but I hope I have got across the point that I believe Go*Do is a brand with some real potential. The chocolate itself is of a better than average quality, however I think to make themselves really stand out from a very packed market they will have to make some refinements in their packaging, presentation and possibly introduce some truly unique flavour combinations. At present I think they are positioned way too closely to the likes of Green & Blacks for them to have any decent brand cut through here in the UK. If they are to make a mark on the UK chocosphere they are going to have to offer a bit more than what they are currently bringing to the table.

September 17th: '7Days of Chocolate Reviews' - Edition 87 - Kellogg's Pop Tarts Frosted Blueberry

SITE UPDATE

Hi All,

Another hectic week has passed by on ChocolateMission - we've had Hotel Chocolat going bananas, Ritter Sport driving people nuts with head scratching brain ticklers and finally GU finishing us all off with some tasty looking cakey treats. If you don't have a clue what I'm talking about check out the links to the reviews below ...

Hotel Chocolat Go Bananas - See HERE
Ritter Sport Noisette - See HERE
GU Anytime Chocolate Hazelnut Slice - See HERE

Hopefully you guys will have all clocked the competition going down in the Ritter Sport Noisette review ... answer me this folks ... why do the Germans use Hazelnuts so often in their chocolates? I'm accepting all answers in the comments section! We've had some brilliant answers thus far please keep them coming in.

Apologies if the site is feeling a little random at the moment in regards to my own personal responses and updating of news pages/comments etc. You might be able to tell there is a lot going on behind the scenes at the moment :D Hopefully I can fill all you guys in at a later date.

Anyway ... I'm sure you are all way more interested in what's due up next week. To be 100.0% honest with you guys I don't have a clue :D One thing you can garuntee is a Bits & Bobs post, but the other two days I will play by ear - there are so many new products flying in my way at the moment I need to get my house in order.

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 weekKellogg's Pop Tarts Frosted Blueberry
Kcal 200 Fat 5.0g Fat(sats) 1.5g (Per Pastry)

I've been opening several of my 'Snack of the Week' reviews recently with the line 'replacing my usual Bran Flakes cereal, this week I've been trying ...', but American Soda's mission to make me work through their entire collection of Pop Tarts and American cereals has meant I haven't touched my so called breakfast norm for weeks now. Indeed this week it was the turn of yet another Pop Tart flavour from the States - the Frosted Blueberry variant. From what I'm aware this Blueberry flavour is one of the oldest in Pop Tarts range. The guys from American Soda sent over a standard 8 count box - two of which I gave to a work colleague (who just so happens to be a Pop Tart enthusiast) for a second opinion.

I like pastry and I like blueberries, but boy I wasn't looking forward to these. My memories of trying the Kellogg's Strawberry Pop Tarts we get here in the UK were still fresh in my mind and that must have been over ten years ago. I remembered those being so throat scorchingly sugary sweet that I binned them after only a few bites - tried once and never again. Suffice to say fruit flavoured Pop Tarts haven't been high on the agenda since, however these Blueberry Frosted have gone some way to changing my mind. The combined brown sugar noted pastry and sweet, sticky jam filling taste still rendered the taste on the sweet side of things, though that unsettling sickly feeling that some Pop Tarts create never came to fruition. In both a chilled and toasted state I was impressed by the realness of the Blueberry fruit flavours, and I easily consumed two each sitting when washed down with a highly complimentary glass of chilled milk. For a product I was half dreading ('dreading' sounds OTT for a Pop Tart taste review doesn't it :D haha) I'm willing to eat my words on these. I enjoyed them and would have them again - now I wasn't expecting to say that.

7.7 out of 10

You can buy KELLOGG'S POP TARTS HERE HERE at AmericanSoda

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September 16th: GU Chocolate Hazelnut Squares

Like many people I work in a busy office environment in a job where my day-to-day workings are changing at an ever gathering pace. One thing I can always count on however is that on any given weekday at roughly 4:00 pm in the afternoon it's tea time. At this point in the day the energy levels are enhanced with caffeine and normally a small sugary snack (well for me anyway!). This week I've been treating myself to a new range from GU puds - these 'Anytime' cakes.

The 'Anytime' cakes are essentially 'snack pack' portions of GU's 'Naughties' cakes range I have featured on ChocolateMission before (you will see the links below). I found these three variants in Tesco last week at £1.00 a pack, sitting next to the likes of Mr Kipling and the Cadbury cake bars etc. At that price I felt like the single serve packs (which claim to be for sole indulgence) were hitting a premium price point that some my find off putting - what do you guys think?

Below are links to my original reviews of both the Rocky Road and Millionaire Flapjacks flavours. They remained consistently good from the big tub formats, so it is the Hazelnut Chocolate Squares we will focus mainly on today.


GU Anytime Millionaire's Flapjacks - See HERE

GU Anytime Rocky Road - See HERE

GU Anytime Chocolate Hazelnut Squares
Kcal 270 Fat 12.0g Fat(sats) 5.0g Carbs 31.0g (per 3 squares)

To my knowledge these Chocolate Hazelnut Squares are solely being made for this new 'Anytime' range so you wont be finding them in any of the larger tub formats like seen for the two variants above. On pack these came described as (surprise-surprise!) 'Chocolate hazelnut squares, sprinkled with crunchy hazelnut pieces'. I should have heeded this as a warning as when I opened the packet I was met with a mass exodus of tiny hazelnut fragments, most of which are still stuck in-between the keyboard keys of the laptop I'm using right now.

Following a brief clean up, one of the squares finally made it's way in to my mouth - a comfortable fit given it's perfect one mouthful size. Unfortunately I have to report what followed was a largely underwhelming experience, as taste wise these didn't deliver. Chocolate flavour hit wise, these were a more than adequate set of cakes. They seemed to bring a degree of rich chocolatey flavours to the party initially, however even these came across as limited latter on in the flavour development as a layer sugary chocolate caramel interjected with a generic sweet sugary flavour input. Forgetting that, what I found most disappointing about these cakes was the lack of presence of the hazelnut in the taste. Despite the smattering of hazelnuts adourning the top of the piece, neither the bottom layer of cake or upper coating of chocolate established any sort of nutty flavours. This ultimately left me feeling very underwhelmed by these supposed Chocolate Hazelnut Squares.

6.2 out of 10



Overall I would say the Millionaire's Flapjacks and Rocky Road cakes are just about there in terms of pulling off the £1.00 price point but as far as the Chocolate Hazelnut Squares go I would seriously reconsider your purchase before investing. Have any of you guys come across these yet? Thoughts and opinions are of course most welcome.

September 14th: Ritter Sport Noisette

Kcal 553 Fat 35.0g Carbs 52.0g (per 100.0g)

As I mentioned in my review of the Milch + Weizenpops last week, Ritter Sport have somehow managed to squeeze in another two new flavour variants alongside their usual seasonal limited editions. The second new chocolate which I'm featuring today is the new Ritter Sport Noisette. Propositionally this bar sounded very familiar to a lot of previously reviewed Ritter bars that had featured on the site before - Nougat Praline (See HERE) and Nuss in Nugatcreme (See HERE). Looking at the scores of those two, this bar obviously had some promise as this was an area where Ritter had shown some competency in before. One thing this one did have me wondering though is whether the hazelnut is the national nut of choice in Germany!? I don't think there is another country in the world that flavours so many of their chocolates with this one ingredient - If someone can tell me why Germany loves hazelnuts so much I will send you a bar (best explanation wins!!)

Unlike last weeks bar which was a 250.0g beast, this Noisette is an addition to the standard 100.0g range. As usual the presentation of the chocolate was of a fair to good standard, though Ritter have had to double up on the choice of colour given for the wrapper - Keks + Nuss (See HERE). The Chocolate inside the plastic packet was branded with the usual Ritter logos and broke apart with a surprisingly soft, almost gooey ease. Aroma wise the chocolate was relatively mild in fragerance, however there was a detectable nutty hazelnut scent that was decently reassuring.

My worryingly ever improving German language reading skills led me to interpret that this was a bar consisting of simply 'milk chocolate with hazelnut mass' i.e. gianduja! Reading that, the soft yielding texture suddenly began to make sense and it struck me as extremely promising that the total bar consisted of over 13.5% hazelnut. Suffice to say I was expecting a big time hazelnut flavour hit and I guess on balance this it was delivered to a relatively good standard. Containing 30.0% cocoa the chocolate was it's ever fair self and delivered it's standard milky sweet flavour base. Just as the break up action suggested, the texture was very unique and this chocolate melted in true gianduja fashion with an infinite fast, smooth softness and almost a cool melting sensation. As the quick melt developed the hazelnut flavours became increasingly prevalent in their raw woodiness, however they were very short lived and thus severly limited the chocolates ability to feel totally satisfactory.

Overall this chocolate had some pretty obvious pros and cons that are well reflected in the scoring chart you see below. Working in it's favour, it tasted very nice and the promised hazelnut influence was brought to the party by the very generously portioned hazelnut mass ingredients. Another area where this bar had strength was also in the mouth feel that it had as it melted - anyone who has ever had gianduja chocolates will know what to expect here - spectacular! Unfortunately this Noisette bar did admittedly have it's shortcomings though with the most notable weakness being it's inability to serve as a fulfilling chocolate. Normally I feel that a 50.0g portion of any chocolate is a more than adequate amount, yet not at all with this one. There's no doubting this Noisette bar tastes great, but it's really not one you want to be eating if it is hunger satisfaction you are after.

7.8 out of 10

September 12th: Hotel Chocolat Go Bananas

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

Get out the tissues, today we have ourselves our last Hotel Chocolat review from their Summer 2011 collection. Luckily for you guys I have saved one of my favourites until last. From the off it was all to obvious that this Go Bananas slab had all the makings of a Hotel Chocolat classic and it certainly had my banana loving Mother excited at the prospect of trying it. The descriptor of 'milk chocolate and banana flavoured white chocolate' left little to the imagination and certainly didn't temper our sky high expectations.

You may have seen that Hotel Chocolat have treated me recently to some of their 500.0g slabs. This 'Go Bananas' offering came in the smaller 200.0g size, though it still came across as just visually impressive with some grand design work with it's swirled chocolate and yellow covered splodges. Again I had minor issues with the practicality of the breaking up of the slab, and it's non-fresh sealed paper based material, but hey, who am I kidding the chocolate lasted less that 48 hours once opened anyway.

So with it's milk and white chocolate split was this a story of two halves? Well no not really .... both were incredibly tasty :D You will see by my photo above that it was the 40.0% house milk that made up the slight 60:40 majority at least visually. This was perhaps slightly misleading as the yellow squiggles where also white chocolate so carried the banana flavouring across both chocolate types. In terms of taste and texture this slab was just fantastic, and exhibited some amazing real tasting fruity flavours within it's always delightful thick melt. The milk chocolate had a more cocoa focused flavour base versus the creamier, vanilla noted white. What was consistent across both chocolate types were the incredible banana flavours which were created by the small specs of dried banana and the flavourings present in the white chocolate. For a fruit flavoured chocolate it was surprisingly satisfying - that's not to say it didn't disappear in double quick time.

Overall Hotel Chocolat have managed to sign off the summer season with one of their best efforts with this 'Go Bananas' slab more than meeting expectations. Compared to some of the other offerings I've reviewed over the past few months this was one of the simpler in terms of proposition (See Cherry Pop HERE). I think it was this simplicity of just being banana flavoured milk and white chocolate that bore dividends - this wasn't one of those chocolates that needed the full bells and whistles. As I said above, both chocolate types were as tasty as each other, though I can see white chocolate fans really taking to the white with the dried banana crisps just that little bit more prevalent. It seems ridiculous I bother adding a recommendation sentence in here ... what the heck :D ... highly recommended with two thumbs up for you banana fans.

8.7 out of 10

September 10th: 7Days of Chocolate Reviews - Edition 86 - Kellogg's Froot Loops

SITE UPDATE

Hi All,

Another week passes on the ChocolateMission and we had a nice blend of new and old product reviews. If you missed anything this week please see the links below ...

Hotel Chocolat Nut Mania - See HERE
Ritter Sport Milch + Weizenpops - See HERE
Cadbury Caramello - See HERE

There has been plenty of interesting Chocolate news this week, including the rather unfortunate latest financial figures from Thorntons which sadly aren't showing a pretty picture - See NEWS PAGE HERE

With all these new products coming out lately I seem to be booking all these reviews day-to-day so to I'm a little hesitant to say what is coming up in the next week. One thing I am sure of is that midweek there are prizes to be won in the review :D All I will say is come armed with some knowledge about German chocolate and just make your answer sound like you know what you are talking about :D

*** BREAKING NEWS ***

I have just received the go ahead for an interview spot with the people at Ritter Sport! Look for that in the next few weeks.

Have an enjoyable weekend everyone. There is a festival of sport what with the Football, Rugby, Cricket and F1 being on. You have to love that now.

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 weekKellogg's Froot Loops
Kcal 110 Fat 1.0g Fat(sats) 0.5g Carbs 25.0g (per 29.0g serving)

Life's easy when you have splendid people like AmericanSoda sending you interesting American products to review :D Indeed, the only thing I have moan about 'Snack of the Week' this week is that Kellogg's decided to spell Froot Loops in a very silly way. Honestly my brain couldn't hack having to be so stupid and spell fruit with a double-O :D

All week I've been eating my through these single serve Kellogg's Fruit Loops packs which replaced by usual Bran Flakes cereal. For those not in the know, Fruit Loops cereal is produced across several geographies including America, Australia and Korea, just annoyingly not the UK (See WIKI HERE). The cereal itself comprises of ring-shaped pieces (hence "loops") and come in a variety of bright colours that are enhanced with natural fruit flavours. Aesthetically they do look impressive - I can't think of another cereal that quite has so colour to it (Haha certainly not Bran Flakes!!).

Despite the artificial, fake look, the cereal actually surprisingly tastes pretty fruity. The taste of sweet fruits is sweet and ill-maintained due to the lighter than light texture, but genuinely this is a unique cereal that provides a curiously moreish taste. The fruit flavours are hard to pin down to a single fruit, though anyone who has tried 'grape' flavoured candy from America will familiarise the taste instantly. Like most of these Kids cereals I wouldn't promote their consumption on a daily basis, but Froot Loops are worthy of a try if you fancy something just a little different in your breakfast bowl.

7.8 out of 10

You can buy KELLOGG'S FROOT LOOPS HERE HERE at AmericanSoda

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Spetember 9th: Cadbury Caramello (US) - (Original Post - August 7th 2008)

Kcal 220 Fat 10.0g Fat 6.0g Carbs 29.0g

My continued relationship with AmericanSoda (See HERE), has given me the opportunity recently to revisit a few of the American products I first reviewed way back at the start of the ChocolateMission. Two weeks ago you may recall me checking back over my past review of one of my all time favourite bars, the 3 Musketeers (See HERE). Whilst I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of my redux review of that bar, I thought it would also be worthwhile seeing whether the Cadbury Caramello bar had improved since I last tried it.

Well one thing I think we can all agree on is that my photography skills have improved since August 2008 :D - I hope you guys now have a better idea of the bar presentation. Wrapper and production wise there was no difference. The foil wrapper still looked attractive, but disappointingly the bar was still split into four large sized blocks.

This format of course meant that the same issue I found over three years ago was still unfortunately there. I found the taste of the chocolate still pretty closely aligned to Cadbury UK chocolate (perhaps a touch less creamy!), however the usual thick melting texture still wasn't there. Just as with my experience in 2008, I found the caramel to be more of a mid grade syrupy sweet experience compared to the UK golden nectar that has that ever so delicious butterscotch, salt licked delightfulness. The burnt sugar aftertaste was still retained and gave it some unique character, but my own personal preference still resided with the sweeter finish of the British bar.

Overall like the 3 Musketeer bar there was no difference in what I perceived over three years ago and I still feel very comfortable with the original score I awarded it. Having since tried a crazy amount of different Cadbury Caramel bars from all corners of the globe since my last review of this US Caramello I would say it was probably one of the weaker ones. I can recommend trying this bar if you are interested in seeing how the same chocolate bars vary by region as it does offer something different to what many of the others do. Based on satisfaction delivery as a chocolate bar though I would still say you would be more happy sticking with the UK option.

8.1 out of 10

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Kcal 210 Fat 9.0g Fat 6.0g Carbs 29.0g

Today I continued my pursuit of finding the best Cadbury Caramel bar sampling the US variation. The US bar shares its name with the equivalent Australian bar...'Caramello'. The bar weighed in at slightly less than the UK Cadbury Dairy Milk with Caramel at 45.0g, and was split into four bigger sized blocks in comparison with the six blocked UK and eight blocked Aussie variations. Aesthetically this didnt bother me - it still looked nice but as I will go into, the design of the US bar did indeed have a few detrimental repercussions.

After opening the wrapper I was confronted with a familiar cocoa smell - it also had quite a strong sweet caramel scent which combined with the cocoa made for a very appetising prospect. Texture wise the bar had a slightly different proposition to its UK /Aussie counterparts. Due to the bar being split into four blocks it felt only natraul (and most convenient) to eat it in four chunks. The base of the bar was particularly thick and the caramel was well and truly crammed into each of the four block pockets...to the point of overspill (see above picture). What this all made for was a slightly detrimental texture as the two ingredients felt very isolated from each other. What I enjoyed so much with the UK version was the way the chocolate and caramel were proportioned, and how the chocolate melt coincided with the slow release of the sticky caramel. Unfortunately this wasn't the case here as the thick chocolate base did not retain the same melt in the mouth quality and conversely acted as a massive barrier between the two components combining ... slightly disappointing. Taste wise the chocolate retained many of the attributes of the UK Dairy Milk - it was creamy and had a rich cocoa taste ... absolutely delightful. The caramel in the US version was more akin to the Aussie version and didn't have quite the same smooth flavour depth of the UK equivalent. It was still pleasant but it had an over agressive 'burnt' aftertaste despite having a very sweet initial flavour.

Overall this didn't quite live up to the standards of the UK Cadbury Dairy Milk with Caramel. The design of the bar with its four block approach came at detriment to the texture and made for a weaker synergy of flavours between the chocolate and caramel. The taste of the chocolate retained most of the UK Dairy Milk qualities and was very pleasant, though the caramel was not quite of the same standard and varied in its taste. This is still a great chocolate bar but simply not as good as the UK version.

8.1 out of 10