Kinder Happy Hippo – Kinder Meets Ferrero Rocher

Kinder Happy Hippo is kind of like a Kinder Surprise and a Ferrero Rocher had a baby.  A delicious, delicious baby.  It’s got the crispy wafer exterior and creamy interior of a Ferrero Rocher, and the white/milk chocolate combo of a Kinder Surprise.

Kinder Happy Hippo

This is a European import (the one I bought seems to be German) and I’m going to have to insist that they bring this to North America ASAP, because it’s surprisingly delicious.

Kinder Happy Hippo

It’s everything you like about Kinder Surprise and Ferrero Rocher crammed into one delicious package.  The interior is delightfully soft and creamy, featuring a nice balance between the chocolatey layer and the milky layer, and the wafer exterior features a nice crispiness and a subtle wheaty flavour that helps to balance out the sweet creamy filling.  I wasn’t expecting much from this thing and it kind of blew me away.

3.5 out of 4

Manufactured by: Ferrero
Nutritional info (100 grams): 593 calories, 38.6 grams of fat (17.69 grams of saturated fat, unknown grams of trans fat), unknown mg of cholesterol, 26.4 mg of sodium, 53.6 grams of carbohydrates, unknown grams of fibre, 45.1 grams of sugar, 6.7 grams of protein.
Ingredients (Google translated from German): Sugar, vegetable fats (palm, shea), wheat flour (8.5%), whole milk powder (7.5%), low-fat cocoa (5%), skim milk powder (4.5%), hazelnuts, sweet whey powder, semi-dark chocolate (sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, emulsifier: lecithins (soya), vanillin), wheat starch, emulsifier: lecithins (soya), sunflower oil, milk protein, raising agent: ammonium hydrogen carbonate, sodium hydrogen carbonate: salt, vanillin.

Dairy Milk: Peanut Butter Cookie – As Delicious As You’d Hope

There are some chocolate bars that you can tell are going to be good just by looking it.  Peanut Butter Cookie Dairy Milk is one of those bars.  Dairy Milk: delicious.  Peanut butter cookies: delicious.  Chocolate + peanut butter: delicious.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is probably going to be delicious.

And hey, what do you know: it’s delicious.  Who could have predicted that??

Dairy Milk: Peanut Butter Cookie

The wrapper describes this as “milk chocolate with cookie pieces and peanut butter chips.”  The biggest surprise here is that the cookie pieces aren’t actually peanut butter cookies — all of the PB flavour comes from the peanut butter chips.  This works out fine, however, with a nice combo of crunch and peanutty flavour.  It’s not as peanut buttery as something like a peanut butter cup, but the flavour is there and is unmistakable.

Dairy Milk: Peanut Butter Cookie

The sweetness is surprisingly restrained, mostly thanks to the crispy cookie bits, which aren’t as sweet as you’d expect, with a fairly distinct wheaty flavour.

And of course, the milk chocolate is classic Dairy Milk, and is as tasty as always.

3.5 out of 4

Manufactured by: Cadbury
Nutritional info (10 squares, 42 grams): 200 calories, 12 grams of fat (7 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg of cholesterol, 55 mg of sodium, 25 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fibre, 22 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Milk chocolate (milk, sugar, cocoa butter, skim milk, whole milk powder, unsweetened chocolate, butter oil, soy lecithin, artificial flavour), Cookie pieces (wheat flour, sugar, palm oil, natural and artificial flavours, glucose syrup, corn flour, salt, soy lecithin, baking soda, com starch), peanut butter chips (sugar, modified oil (palm and palm kernel), peanut flour, modified milk ingredients, peanuts, dextrose, salt, soy lecithin, lactose).

Hershey’s Cookies ‘N’ Creme – An Oreo Transformed into a Candy Bar

Do you like Oreo cookies?  If you do, you’re almost certainly going to like Hershey’s Cookies ‘N’ Creme; it’s basically an Oreo in candy bar form.

(And if you don’t, what is wrong with you??  Go jump into a volcano so you don’t inflict your weird defective taste buds onto the next generation.)

Hershey's Cookies 'N' Creme

The bar features something resembling white chocolate that’s studded with a whole bunch of chocolate cookie pieces.  Sadly, it’s not actually white chocolate — a quick perusal of the ingredients reveals a whole bunch of oil and zero cocoa butter.  But in the context of this particular bar, it doesn’t really matter.  There are so many cookie pieces here that the fake chocolate’s lack of creaminess never particularly feels like an issue.  The chocolate is almost just there to bind the cookie bits together.

Hershey's Cookies 'N' Creme

It’s quite tasty.  It’s very, very sweet, but like with an Oreo, the pronounced cocoa flavour helps to balance out the sweetness — and because there are so many cookie pieces, that’s the primary flavour.  The white mockolate basically tastes like a slightly more solid version of the creme in an Oreo cookie.  It’s a delightful combo.

3 out of 4

Manufactured by: Hershey
Nutritional info (1 bar, 43 grams): 220 calories, 11 grams of fat (7 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg of cholesterol, 100 mg of sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fibre, 20 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugar, modified palm oil and modified vegetable oil (shea, sunflower and/or safflower), modified palm kernel oil, modified milk ingredients, corn syrup solids, wheat flour, lactose, cocoa powder, lecithin (soy), high fructose corn syrup, unsweetened chocolate, baking soda, salt, natural and artificial flavours, polyglycerol polyricinoleate.

Kit Kat Cookie Crumble – Tasty, but a Downgrade from the Original

The problem with a lot of these Kit Kat varieties is that the original Kit Kat is basically perfect, so there’s really nowhere to go but down.  The original still exists and it’s so damn good, which means it’s hard not to wonder what the point is of so many of the new flavours that they keep churning out.

Kit Kat Cookie Crumble

This is less of an issue with out-there varieties like Birthday Cake or Apple Pie, which bring enough of their own unique personality to justify their existence.  But with something like Cookie Crumble — which is tasty, no doubt about it — it kinda just made me crave a standard Kit Kat.

Kit Kat Cookie Crumble

Still, there’s nothing wrong with it.  Featuring chocolate wafers and bits of cookie crumbs, it has a cocoa-infused chocolate cookie flavour that’s fairly satisfying.  The hint of bitterness you get from the cocoa goes nicely with the other flavours in the bar, and while the whole thing is a bit too sweet, it’s pretty tasty.  But it’s not hugely different from a standard Kit Kat, and everything about it that is different is inferior.

3 out of 4

Manufactured by: Nestle
Nutritional info (4 pieces, 40 grams): 200 calories, 10 grams of fat (6 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg cholesterol, 35 mg of sodium, 25 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fibre, 20 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugars (sugar, glucose syrup), milk ingredients, wheat flour, cocoa butter, unsweetened chocolate, modified palm oil, palm, palm kernel and vegetable oils, cocoa powder, sunflower lecithin, baking soda, salt, sodium carbonate, natural flavour, protease, xylanase, tocopherol, citric acid.

Time Out Wafer – Does this Count as a Candy Bar?

Time Out Wafer is tasty for what it is, though I think calling it a candy bar might be a bit of a stretch.  If you’ve ever tried Loacker — those wafer cookies that come in a rectangular block — then you’ll know what to expect here.  This is basically like that, but coated in a thin layer of chocolate and individually packaged.

Time Out Wafer

And that layer of chocolate is thin; you can tell just by looking at it.   It’s so thin that it’s semi-transparent, partially revealing the wafer underneath.

But then the bar weighs in at a scant 112 calories, so if you’re looking for something that isn’t too substantial (which would make it the opposite of the Reese Peanut Butter Oh Henry I recently reviewed), this should fit the bill.

Time Out Wafer

It’s enjoyable enough, with an airy crispiness along with a mild sweetness and nice chocolatey flavour.  But despite being composed of roughly the same components as a standard Time Out bar (wafers and chocolate), its connection to that one is fairly tenuous.  It isn’t much of a substitute if you’re hoping for a lighter version of a Time Out.

2.5 out of 4

Manufactured by: Cadbury
Nutritional info (1 bar, 21.2 grams): 112 calories, 6.1 grams of fat (3.4 grams of saturated fat, ? grams of trans fat), ? mg of cholesterol, 70 mg of sodium, 13 grams of carbohydrates, 0.4 grams of fibre, 9.6 grams of sugar, 1.4 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Milk, sugar, wheat flour, vegetable fats (palm, shea), cocoa butter, whey powder (from milk), cocoa mass, reduced fat cocoa powder (1%), emulsifiers (E442, soya lecithin, E476), potato starch, rapeseed oil, salt, raising agents (E500, E503), skimmed milk powder, milk fat, flavourings.