Milk Chocolate Archives - Page 3 of 23

June 6, 2021 Michael

Dairy Milk – Classic Milk Chocolate

Chocolate

How do you even review Dairy Milk? Just plain old regular Dairy Milk? The flavour of Cadbury milk chocolate is so fundamental that trying to describe it is like trying to describe the colour blue. I don’t know, it’s… Dairy Milk. It tastes like Dairy Milk. What do you want from me?

I will say that I think I accidentally bought a Greek version of the chocolate bar — like a lot of European confections, there are about a dozen languages on the packaging, but Greek is first. If it tasted any different from the usual Dairy Milk, however, I couldn’t tell.

The texture is a bit grainier than you’d like; a quick perusal of the ingredients reveals the presence of palm and shea oils, which is never a good thing. It’s still creamy enough, but it’s slightly off (this might be a Greek and/or European thing, because Canadian Dairy Milk doesn’t contain either of those oils).

Otherwise, it tastes how it tastes: it’s milky, chocolatey, and very sweet. It’s Dairy Milk. It tastes like Dairy Milk.

Manufactured by: Cadbury
Nutritional info (27.5 grams): 147 calories, 8.4 grams of fat (5.1 grams of saturated fat, unknown grams of trans fat), unknown mg cholesterol, 70 mg of sodium, 16 grams of carbohydrates, 0.5 grams of fibre, 15 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Milk, sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, vegetable fats (palm, shea), emulsifiers (E442, E476), flavourings.

May 26, 2021 Michael

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

Chocolate

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??

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.

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.

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).

May 23, 2021 Michael

Mars Bar – One of the Greats

Candy Bars

Mars Bar (A.K.A. Milky Way if you’re in the States) is an absolute classic. It’s essentially the platonic ideal of a candy bar: it’s chocolatey, substantial, chewy, sweet, and thoroughly satisfying. It’s always been one of my favourites — I haven’t had one in years, and it might have been even better than I remembered.

(In fact, I think I was so eager to eat it that I actually forgot to take a photo of the bar itself. Whoops.)

It’s extremely simple: it’s just nougat, caramel, and chocolate.

Everything here just works. The fluffy nougat and dense caramel are chewy, but not aggressively so (it’s not going to work out your jaw like some overly enthusiastic nougat or caramel bars). The nougat has malted milk powder mixed in, which might just be the bar’s secret weapon. It adds a delightfully malty flavour that brings some complexity and helps to balance out the intense sweetness of the bar. Mars Bar is very, very sweet, but it’s a well-tuned sweetness; it never tastes overbearing.

And then, of course, there’s the generous layer of decent quality milk chocolate, which is what you want it to be. Sometimes the chocolate on a candy bar is basically there for appearances only, or just to bind everything together, but the chocolate here adds a lot to the bar. It’s good stuff.

Manufactured by: Mars
Nutritional info (1 bar, 52 grams): 240 calories, 9 grams of fat (6 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg cholesterol, 70 mg sodium, 36 grams of carbohydrates, 30 grams of sugar, 1 gram of fibre, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugar, corn syrup, milk ingredients, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, hydrogenated palm and palm kernel oil, lactose, malted milk powder (malted barley, milk ingredients, sodium bicarbonate, salt), palm oil, soy lecithin, salt, dried egg-white, artificial flavour.

May 16, 2021 Michael

Reese’s Big Cup with Pieces – A Very Tasty Combo

Candy Bars

Though Reese cramming their Peanut Butter Cups with stuff has become old hat at this point, I’m pretty sure that Reese’s Big Cup with Pieces was the first time they did this. So basically, it’s the Neil Armstrong of putting stuff into a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Unless I’m wrong about it being first, in which case I guess it’s the Buzz Aldrin of putting stuff into a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup?

It’s easy enough to see why this thing kickstarted a trend — it’s delicious. The Big Cup itself is quite good, with a much more peanut buttery flavour than a standard Reese Peanut Butter Cup, and a very satisfying balance of sweet and salty.

The Reese’s Pieces bring a nice bit of crispiness that compliments the creamy cups really well. And they aren’t just there for texture; they add a decent amount of their very distinctive flavour. It all adds up to something that seems like it should just be a novelty, but is actually quite tasty.

Manufactured by: Hershey
Nutritional info (2 cups, 79 grams): 390 calories, 22 grams of fat (10 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg of cholesterol, 230 mg of sodium, 46 grams of carbohydrates, 3 gram of fibre, 41 grams of sugar, 8 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, milk ingredients, unsweetened chocolate, lactose, lecithin (soy), polyglycerol polyricinoleate), peanuts, sugar, dextrose, partially defatted peanuts, modified and hydrogenated palm kernel oil and hydrogenated soybean oil, corn syrup, salt, colour, corn starch, confectioner’s glaze, lecithin (soy) modified corn starch, corn syrup, THBQ, carnauba wax, artificial flavour.

May 9, 2021 Michael

Wispa – It’s Better than the Competition

Candy Bars, Chocolate

Wispa is basically Cadbury’s version of Aero or Mirage — it actually looks strikingly similar to Mirage, but Wispa is the original. According to Wikipedia, Wispa was introduced in 1981. Mirage, on the other hand, didn’t come out until 1990 (and that info doesn’t seem to be anywhere online, so I actually got in touch with Nestle to find out. Look at me, doing journalism like a regular Woodward and Bernstein — take note, Pulitzer committee).

I’m not crazy about the quality of the milk chocolate in either Aero or Mirage, but I still enjoy them both thanks to the unique texture you get from the bubbliness of the chocolate.

Wispa is clearly the superior of the three. It’s made from Cadbury milk chocolate, which is slightly too sweet, but is otherwise above average for mass-produced chocolate.

Which means that this is pretty much going to be great by default. If you start with good quality chocolate and then add the fun texture you get from the aeration, you’re pretty much guaranteed to wind up with a winner.

Manufactured by: Cadbury
Nutritional info (1 bar, 36 grams): 196 calories, 12 grams of fat (6.8 grams of saturated fat, unknown grams of trans fat), unknown mg of cholesterol, 90 mg of sodium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 0.8 grams of fibre, 20 grams of sugar, 2.4 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Milk, sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, vegetable fats (palm, shea), whey powder (from milk), emulsifier (E442), flavourings.