Back to Basics

So I was in one of the more down-market newsagents near my office, and something new grabbed my eye. Not new to England, I know, but new to me! I discovered Cadbury's Chomp and Fudge bars, which, with their small size, no-frills wrappers, and 20p cost resemble the 'basics' line of groceries at my local supermarket. Undaunted, I decided these new discoveries deserved a chance along with the more expensive or exotic bars I had reviewed in the past.

I was pleasantly surprised. These two petite little candy bars are a refreshing change from the bells and whistles of the last review. They're nothing fancy, but they're good because they're simple.

Both bars are covered in Cadbury's milk chocolate, which is a nice complement to the fillings.

The Chomp is filled with a really nice, buttery caramel. It resembles a chewy Werther’s Original - not overly sweet and just sticky enough. I think I prefer this to the teeth-sticking yet tasty Curly Wurly. Really simple and tasty. 4 bars!

The Fudge surprised me, not being filled with chocolate but instead with a vanilla-y, soft filling. That's when I remember that fudge in England doesn't mean the chocolate-y kind we're used to in the US. But this isn't bad - it reminds me of the vanilla or maple fudge we’d get on vacation up in Vermont. It has a nice soft, chewy texture, but as it's a little sugary, I'll award it a slightly lower 3 bars.

The sheer bargain-ness of these bars amazes me – I can’t even actually THINK of anything else that costs 20p. So not only are they tasty, they also suit these austerity days very well. Recession bars!

In hard times, the people of London should return to a classic candy bar. It turns out you don’t always get what you pay for – sometimes (and not often!) it is an awful lot more.

Combined 3.5 bars.

Bar-o-Meter



A Disappointing Return

So, I know I’ve been away for a while, but I genuinely thought I had reached the end of the UK candy bar selection. That is, until I saw an advert on a bus stop for Cadbury’s bars with a whole new set of fillings.

The bars are called ‘Marvellous Creations’, and seem to promise some kind of fantastic experience, what with their hyperbolic description (do you really need to try that hard to promote how good chocolate is?) and circus-like imagery. So you can imagine my anticipation when I picked up a Cookie Nut Crunch and Jelly Popping Candy Shells (?) bar.

The first bar is basically standard Cadbury milk chocolate surrounding an array of brightly colored candy, including some very tiny looking M&Ms. Having a taste, I discover the bar is actually filled with what tastes like a combination of stale Haribo and overactive Pop Rocks inside it – it kept making little explosions in my mouth long after I ate it, and left an unpleasant sensation in my mouth that completely overshadowed the taste of the chocolate. This is a good example of gilding the lily – the Cadburys milk chocolate is absolutely serviceable – moderately tasty, even - but it’s too hard to notice that when the inside of your mouth feels like it’s being bombarded with shells launched by an impossibly tiny army.

The next bar is a substantial improvement over the first, but that isn’t actually saying much. Again, this is a bog standard Cadbury milk chocolate bar with some random-ness thrown in – but this time the filling is absolutely stingy. There are miniscule bits of nuts and what purports to be ‘pieces of biscuit’ but what would better be described as ‘really, really tiny pieces of biscuit.’ Seriously, these fillings are so small they feel like an afterthought – instead of something that promises to be packed with delicious goodies, it turns out tasting like there are just hard pieces of the chocolate, like it’s been left in the cupboard too long.

These bars are far from Marvellous – in fact, they’re downright disappointing. It just goes to show that there might be a reason there are no new candy bars....

No bars.

Bar-o-Meter

:(



Chunky Kit Kats - an addendum

So after irresponsibly missing one of the new Chunky Kit Kats in my last review, compromising the integrity of my taste test, I managed to secure the elusive missing bar - a Double Fudge.

The Double Fudge appears to be the best variety yet, with a really solid layer of fudge on top of the wafer, and some kind of lighter chocolate cream between wafer layers. This gives the bar a really nice texture that goes well with the milk chocolate on the outside. It's like a KitKat, supersized - the same successful original, but what would happen if you added yet more chocolate to it.

It was so good I wolfed most of it down, sparing only a small piece for Sally. I'm not sharing on this one!

This is the clear winner – 4 bars! This pulls the average up to a much more respectable 3.5 bars (almost - but I don't have facility to show a quarter of a bar!).

Now I’m really going to go on Facebook and vote. Seriously this time.

Bar-o-Meter



Variety Makes a Friday Afternoon Interesting

The combination of Christmas, a new year's diet, and general busyness has kept me from eating chocolate (and blogging about it), but never fear - I am back! Having exhausted all the unique candy bars in the stores near work, I have decided to embark upon the variations. Very exciting stuff, let me tell you. This week, being a slave to marketing and spotting a large ad on a bus on my way to work, I decided to review the different varieties of Chunky Kit Kats. The Chunky Kit Kat, for the uninitiated, takes one of the four original Kit Kat fingers and supersizes it, blowing it up to normal candy bar size. There is a thick layer of chocolate covering a hefty amount of wafer, and in some variations, a layer of caramel, hazelnut, etc. atop the wafer layer, enclosed in the chocolate.

There are currently eight varieties of Chunky Kit Kats on the market (including original flavor).  and in the grand UK tradition of flavor competitions, people are currently being encouraged to try a whole bunch of new varieties and rate them on Facebook. Personally, I wouldn’t be so eager to advertise my gluttony to my entire online social network, but then again, as I link to this blog on Facebook pretty much every other week, I probably shouldn't be talking.

Today I'll be reviewing six of the varieties - only six because I nixed the white chocolate version and missed the chocolate fudge version (which will be rectified, I assure you). I cut a small piece of each (what, do you think I can consume 6 whole candy bars at once??) and offered up the rest to my eager co-workers. In the informal office tasting, hazelnut and peanut butter seemed to duke it out for the top spot, although mint also received high praise.

Without further delay, the reviews:

Regular – to start, the classic. I wanted to establish a standard here, and the regular Chunky Kit Kat doesn’t disappoint. There is a nice flavor combo here – the crispy, just slightly savory crunch of the wafer with the not-too-fancy milk chocolate on the outside. Kit Kat still beats other wafer bars dead in that it's not at all dry. However, I’m going to be picky here and say that the chunkiness ruins the simple proportions of the classic Kit Kat – an issue that extends to all of the varieties, to be honest. I think it’s the chocolate to wafer proportions that makes the original skinny Kit Kat so good, and the chocolate surrounding the Chunky version of this isn’t exactly nice enough to be enjoyed in such a thick layer. Still tasty, though. 3.0 bars.

Hazelnut – This has an inferior hazelnut flavor, with a texture like Nutella but not as good. In fact this is Tronky-quality hazelnut, not the oh-so-chic-circa-1993 Ferraro Rocher. Despite the positive reviews from co-workers, I find the first filling cheap-tasting and unsatisfying. The wafer and outside chocolate are tasty, though – 2.0 bars.

Coconut – Oooh, now this is actually nice! I had the lowest expectations for this one, but it actually works, with a fairly subtle taste that's almost refreshing, without being too sweet. This is kinda like a Bounty (Mounds for you Americans) fused with a Kit Kat. The coconut flavor actually seems to be layered in among the wafer, not all glooped on top. 3.0 bars.

Peanut Butter – This is nice, as the classic combo of peanut butter and milk chocolate usually is, not surprisingly. Unlike a Reese’s Cup, the layer of peanut flavor in this bar has more of a peanut-butter-like consistency than a grainy one. Yum. The peanut works well with the sweet, slightly melty milk chocolate. 3.5 bars.

Mint – This is really nice, like a milk chocolate After Eight. The mint flavor is actually in the outer layer of chocolate on this one, rather than in the bar. (I have to appreciate the ingenuity of the different approaches to making the bars taste different – I think the bars work because it's not quite a one-size-fits-all approach). But as my co-worker Sally rightly pointed out, this is nice for one or two bites but way too sweet for a whole bar. Points off for that. 2.0 bars.

Caramel – The layer about the wafer in this one veers towards the toffee end of the caramel spectrum, with a soft and yielding texture. However, there's no gooey caramel here, which is a total disappointment. This could have reached Wispa Gold levels of deliciousness, but instead it just falls short. 2.0 bars.

In the end, I probably consumed about a whole Chunky Kit Kat in total. And the truth is, I’m feeling a little ill. I don’t know if I should blame this on the mix of flavors, but I don’t think I could eat one of them straight through (probably except the classic one). Keeping this in mind, the different variations on the Chunky Kit Kat get a somewhat disappointing overall score of 2.5 bars.

Sally's hippo gets in on the act

I have to say this approach was fun - I got to try every variety and I was also the big Friday afternoon hero at work for my hordes of hungry co-workers who helped me eat up the leftovers. Now, off to do my civic duty and vote! But should it be peanut butter or coconut....?

Bar-o-Meter