No, seriously.
Maybe it's just because I have a soft spot for the country and its food because I spent a definitive few months of my childhood there, but whenever I visit Germany, it feels a little like coming home, food-wise. That's why I've been slack with the blog, by the way. On a weekend trip to Berlin, I consumed so much in the way of Spätzle, Spargel, Currywurst, the best ice cream in Berlin, Hanuta, and Laugenbrötchen to even THINK about reviewing chocolate.
But thankfully I planned ahead and packed two German candy bars to bring back (along with the 'real' stuff, including chocolate covered marzipan....mmmm.
The first one I tried was a Wunderbar, which really was a no-brainer to pick out. Perhaps not as whimsically named as a Plopp or Tronky, but certainly more appetizing. The Wunderbar, let me tell you, is wunderbar indeed. It's shaped like a log, with a nice peanut-y filling, a thin layer of caramel around this, and all covered in a thick-ish layer of milk chocolate.
I really like this bar! The peanut filling is somewhere in between the cream you get in a Reese's cup and what a Butterfinger would taste like if it was soft. It also appears to have crunchy cookie bits and pieces of peanuts in it (kinda like chunky peanut butter), which appeals to my love of 'goodies' in the chocolate bar. The caramel surrounding this layer gives it a nice gooiness, and the chocolate is thick enough to be substantial. It occurred to me that it was a little weird to find a peanut-based snack in Europe, but then a closer inspection of the wrapper showed that it was produced by Cadbury's - in Canada! Authenticity fail, but a bar that almost gave the double decker a run for its money - four bars!
To atone for my Cadbury-abroad sins, the second bar I tried was an honest to goodness East German chocolate bar, produced by Zetti in Saxonia-Anhalt. According to articles across the web, this is one of the 'nostalgia' brands that people still buy regularly, looking for a taste of their DDR childhoods. :P I picked up a Zetti Fetzer, swathed in a characteristically communist low-key wrapper. While this one also has a somewhat less exciting name than other foreign bars I've tried, this is definitely in the running for my German drag queen name, should I ever need one.
The Zetti Fetzer is basically a communist Milky Way (much in the way Vita Cola subs in for Coca Cola), with a milk chocolate exterior and a layer of caramel over a slightly thicker layer of what the wrapper describes as 'candy creme'. It's not quite nougat, but has much of the same consistency. I think it was slightly too insubstantial for me - it had a nice and creamy texture, but it wasn't as satisfying as bars with crunchier fillings, and it barely survived the journey back to London. What I liked best about this bar was the balance of flavors - the caramel was slightly salty and the creme filling wasn't overly sweet, which matched it well with the nice milk chocolate on the outside. Nice - three bars.
Even better (and weirder) were the small chocolate snacks that Morgan picked up from the same producer - Knusper Flocken. These are little milk-chocolate covered bit of rye crispbread. Think of the chocolate-covered pretzel concept, and substitute Ryvita instead. Weird, but oh so addictive - 3.5 bars.
So, an average of 3.5 bars for German candy bars - not bad! Of course, the 'real' German chocolate scored way off the charts, but that stuff is too fancy for this blog. I'll just satisfy myself with a secret stash to tie me over until my next Friday candy bar fix!
Maybe it's just because I have a soft spot for the country and its food because I spent a definitive few months of my childhood there, but whenever I visit Germany, it feels a little like coming home, food-wise. That's why I've been slack with the blog, by the way. On a weekend trip to Berlin, I consumed so much in the way of Spätzle, Spargel, Currywurst, the best ice cream in Berlin, Hanuta, and Laugenbrötchen to even THINK about reviewing chocolate.
But thankfully I planned ahead and packed two German candy bars to bring back (along with the 'real' stuff, including chocolate covered marzipan....mmmm.
The first one I tried was a Wunderbar, which really was a no-brainer to pick out. Perhaps not as whimsically named as a Plopp or Tronky, but certainly more appetizing. The Wunderbar, let me tell you, is wunderbar indeed. It's shaped like a log, with a nice peanut-y filling, a thin layer of caramel around this, and all covered in a thick-ish layer of milk chocolate.
So, an average of 3.5 bars for German candy bars - not bad! Of course, the 'real' German chocolate scored way off the charts, but that stuff is too fancy for this blog. I'll just satisfy myself with a secret stash to tie me over until my next Friday candy bar fix!
Bar-o-Meter
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