Droste Holland: Pastilles – A Decent Mix of Milk and Dark Chocolate

About the size of a large coin, these Pastilles feature a mixture of half milk chocolate, and half dark chocolate, split down the middle. It’s a pretty simple product, so I’ll keep this review brief.

Droste Holland: Pastilles

The chocolate has a nice snap to it, and both sides are of an above average quality. This isn’t simply a case of the two sides having a different colour but tasting the same – the milk half is quite creamy and sweet, while the dark half has a nicely rich cocoa flavour. There’s no indication on the packaging as to the cocoa content of the dark side, but if I had to guess I’d say sixty or seventy percent. The two halves work together quite well, resulting in a nice balance between the creaminess of the milk chocolate and the more intense flavour of the dark chocolate.

Droste Holland: Pastilles

It’s not the best quality chocolate I’ve ever had, but it’s above average and makes for a pretty good snack.

3 out of 4

Manufactured by: Droste Holland
Calories (8 pieces, 40 g): 220

Chocolate +Plus: Milk Chocolate Tiramisu Crisp – A Suprisingly Tasty (and Maybe Healthy?) Chocolate Bar

I have to admit, my expectations for this were pretty low. Healthy chocolate seems like an oxymoron to me, and the thing that supposedly makes this bar healthier than the average chocolate – “bifidobacterium longum” – certainly isn’t one of the more appetizing-sounding ingredients I’ve seen in a candy bar. So colour me surprised that it actually tastes pretty good.

Chocolate +Plus: Milk Chocolate Tiramisu Crisp

According to MicrobeWiki (now there’s an exciting web site), Bifidobacteria “promotes good digestion, boosts the immune system, and produces lactic and acetic acid that controls intestinal pH.” So that’s good, I guess…? I’m really not too concerned about how healthy this is, what I really care about is how it tastes.

Chocolate +Plus Milk Chocolate Tiramisu Crisp features creamy milk chocolate with a smooth, truffle-like centre. The bar has a pleasantly sweet, coffee aroma, and with the letters “+PLUS” embossed on the individual segments, it’s one of the nicer looking bars I’ve seen in a while. The bar is also slightly crispy thanks to little bits of puffed rice, though I’m not sure why as Tiramisu is probably one of the least crispy desserts you’ll find (it’s not crispy at all).

Chocolate +Plus: Milk Chocolate Tiramisu Crisp

It’s good. The milk chocolate kind of reminds me of a slightly creamier version of Cadbury’s chocolate, and the truffle centre has a mild coffee flavour and is pretty tasty. I’m not sure how much it tastes like Tiramisu, but it’s good nonetheless. It definitely doesn’t have any kind of strange taste or unpleasant aftertaste that you might imagine, given that it’s a “health” bar, which leads me to believe that it probably isn’t very healthy at all. But healthy or not, it tastes good, and I’m curious to try some of the other flavours.

3 out of 4

Manufactured by: Smart Confections
Calories (50 g bar): 290

Terry’s Chocolate Orange: Mini Segments – A Fun Twist on a Classic Flavour

Terry’s Chocolate Orange are those fun, baseball-sized chocolates that you get to slam onto the counter in order to separate all the little segments. They are surprisingly delicious (I say surprisingly because, though the combination of chocolate and orange doesn’t exactly sound like a slam dunk, it actually works a lot better than you’d imagine).

These minis are pre-separated and individually wrapped, so you don’t need to slam them on anything (unless you want to, I guess). They all feature that classic combination of creamy chocolate and fruity orange that have made Terry’s so famous, with a bit of a twist. They are:

Puffed Rice: The puffed rice really doesn’t add much here – there’s not much of it, and the rice itself isn’t particularly crispy. It’s still good, but only because the chocolate is good; I normally like the combination of chocolate and puffed rice, but here the somewhat soggy rice is completely superfluous, and if anything, detracts from the chocolate. Definitely the weakest of the bunch.

Terry's Chocolate Orange: Mini Segments

Milk Chocolate: This is just the standard Terry’s Chocolate Orange, no frills. The milk chocolate is nice and creamy, and it strikes a good balance between the chocolate the and orange. Good stuff.

Cornflakes: This is definitely a big improvement over the rice; the flakes add a satisfying crispiness to the chocolate, and along with that, they contribute a surprisingly pronounced corny flavour.

Dark Chocolate: This is about a half-and-half split between the milk and the dark chocolate. If you’re not necessarily a fan of Terry’s signature chocolate/orange taste, this is probably the one for you – the dark chocolate doesn’t seem to be orange flavoured, giving this one a much more subtle orange flavour. It’s also, not surprisingly, much less sweet than the standard chocolate orange.

Terry's Chocolate Orange: Mini Segments

Crunchy Honey: The description of “sweet, crunchy honey flavoured bits” made me think of Toblerone, however the honey bits are larger and crunchier than the ones found in that bar, and they give this a fairly strong honey aftertaste. Another winner.

Aside from the somewhat anemic puffed rice flavour, these are all quite good an a definite must-buy if you’re a fan of Terry’s Chocolate Orange. However, with the possible exception of the dark variant, these all definitely have that specific Terry’s flavour, so if you’re not already a fan then these aren’t going to change your mind.

3.5 out of 4

Manufactured by: Terry’s
Calories (for 5 pieces, 39 g): 200

Kinder Bueno – Crispy, Creamy, Hazelnutty Goodness

Though Ferrero are rather one-note as far as their product line goes (with a few exceptions, everything they sell has hazelnut in it), they’re probably one of the more reliable candy makers – I don’t think I’ve ever had a Ferrero product that I outright did not like. So it shouldn’t come as a big shock that I enjoyed this treat quite a bit.

Kinder Bueno

Kinder Bueno consists of two individually wrapped bars (which is nice if you just feel like having a small snack and saving a bit for later). The bars are made up of a crispy wafer shell, filled with a “smooth milky hazelnut filling” and enrobed in a thin layer of milk chocolate.

The hazelnut filling (which is similar to the stuff inside the Ferrero Raffaello) is very creamy, and has a pronounced hazelnut taste. It is perhaps a bit too sweet, but that’s a minor complaint. The wafer shell adds a pleasing crispiness to the mix, and also has some flavour of its own to add complexity. The whole thing is coated in a thin layer of milk chocolate which, despite its thinness, contributes a definite chocolately taste (unlike, say, Cadbury Fudge, in which the chocolate is completely negligible).

Kinder Bueno

It’s probably not the best thing that Ferrero makes (which is – and will likely always be – the classic Ferrero Rocher), but it’s still pretty tasty.

3.5 out of 4

Manufactured by: Ferrero
Calories (2 bars, 43 g): 240

Kit Kat Chunky – Might Even Be Better than the Original

Generally speaking, I haven’t been the biggest fan of the “Chunky” line of candies – they’re fine, but not really a big improvement over the original bars, and the addition of sickly-sweet caramel or peanut butter in some of them tends to feel unnecessary. Kit Kat Chunky is, however, an exception. A sweet, sweet exception.

Kit Kat Chunky

A standard Kit Kat bar comes with four separate chocolate covered wafers; the “Chunky” variant (known as Big Kat in the States) is essentially an oversized version of one of those bars. There are a few differences: the chocolate to wafer ratio seems to be a bit higher here than in a standard Kit Kat. Also, I think the wafer is slightly crunchier and a bit more substantial.

Kit Kat Chunky

What’s good about this is that it strikes a good balance between the chocolate and the wafer; the wafer adds a lot of flavour, but not so much that it’s overpowering. The milk chocolate is fairly sweet, but it never crosses the line into “too sweet” territory. I actually think I prefer this to the original Kit Kat, but I’d have to taste them side-by-side to give a definitive answer on that.

3.5 out of 4

Manufactured by: Nestle
Calories (50 g bar): 260