Various Christmas, forgotten and a new(ish) treats

I really let blogging slack over the Christmas period, I had lots of lovely chocolates thanks to family members travelling well this year but sadly none made it to Boxing Day! Here are a few bits I've eaten and remembered to photograph! 

Lidl J D Gross Dark mousse au chocolat bars

   

I picked these up a while ago under the mistaken idea that it was one big bar of dark chocolate and I wasn't too impressed when I opened it up and found 15 tiny ones! However the makers  clearly know what they're doing as this would be far too much in an ordinary or sharing sized block. 

The bars are pretty long, narrow but still quite deep and have a nice thick shell of dark chocolate. Inside however is the good stuff, a lovely whipped chocolate mousse which goes perfectly with the outside casing. 

These really are delicious little bites, they are extremely rich though which is why the size is perfect. They were just right with my afternoon coffee, the richness gives a lovely chocolate hit without wanting more and I can keep telling myself they're so little I don't have to feel bad about eating them all! 

Rating 8/10

Chips Ahoy Popcorn Candy Chip 

I've previously reviewed the other cookie in the 2 we in the UK are provided by Chips Ahoy and really enjoyed it, about time I got round to this one. 

I wasn't really too excited to try this cookie, it seems a bit strange - a chocolate chip cookie with smartie like pieces and popcorn in it? But I bought them anyway in the name of blogging (yeah OK!) and 'forced' myself to have one. 

They are pretty much identical in size and shape to the other cookie, albeit with more bits sticking out, quite small in diameter but nice and thick and I did notice my cookie seemed to be lacking in the pieces department! 

Then I turned it upside down.. 

The cookie itself is good - as usual, the chocolate chips are good, the crunchy candy pieces are fine as is the popcorn and they make for an interesting mouth feel. But I really can't say I'm too impressed by these, don't get me wrong I didn't dislike them it's just maybe a bit too much in one cookie for me, I prefer the stronger flavours in the other version. I'll eat these again because they really aren't bad but I won't moan if my fiancée manages to eat all of them. Again. 

Rating 6/10 

Toffee Penguin 

I'm not sure how new these toffee penguins are but I certainly haven't tried them and toffee is a favourite of mine so I grabbed these as soon as I saw them. 

There's probably not much point in describing the basic penguin bar, I'm sure everyone's tried one - and both the packaging and the actual bar look like your basic penguin bar, although the wrapper is orange (a colour I normally associate with toffee for some reason). 

The outer chocolate is the same, a pretty tasty thick chocolate shell, the texture is the same as well but the creamy filling inside is where all the flavour is. As promised its definitely toffee - and a good toffee at that. To me this is actually nicer than a standard penguin and asking as its on sale I'll be buying! For such a simple change it makes a big difference, good stuff! 

Rating 8/10 

Hershey's Cookies 'n' Creme Holiday Bar 

I've tried the Hershey's cookie and Creme bar before but looking back I can't seem to find my review! I don't mind it to be honest, I find it the only enjoyable bar Hershey sell the rest seem a bit off to be honest! 

I only bought this because the front promised that the same creepy picture that is printed on the wrapper would be printed on the bar but as you can see it didn't really turn out that way! 

I forgot to photo the back of the chocolate and you can't really see from the front just how many chocolate chips are in this. The 99g bar was actually nicer to me as it is a much thicker bar than the single serving version, which is longer and thinner. The extra thickness added a nice crunch and chew and I did enjoy this. That said I bought this in the reduced section, I wouldn't pay the extortionate import prices for this, there are much nicer home grown cookie filled or flavoured bars available. 

Rating 6/10 

World Foods Part 2

Dairy milk tiffin (Ireland)

This is another Irish cadbury bar I got from Tesco. Its dairy milk chocolate with raisins and biscuits and as you can see mine had quite a lot of biscuit in it.

The bar itself is your usual dairy milk chocolate - which is delicious, I'm not sure if the Irish bars are a little different or my imagination is playing tricks on me because it's still square but this tastes better to me than our dairy milk.

Anyway I love raisins in chocolate, fruit and nut is probably my favourite of our standard, non limited edition cadbury range and the raisins in this bar are no exception, however I'm not sure if my bar was old or stale but I couldn't really taste the biscuit. I got the texture - which was fine I love chewy and crunchy together as I say over and over and over (woops) again but I really didn't get any biscuit flavour which was a shame as I really enjoyed the other Irish bar and had high hopes for this one. 

Rating 6/10 

Cadbury Caramello (Ireland)

I decided to look the ingredients up after wondering about them in the previous review and interestingly the English version Cadbury Caramel has Glucose syrup as the 3rd ingredient and no cocoa mass that I can see listed and the Irish Cadbury Caramello has no glucose syrup listed as far as I can tell and cocoa butter and cocoa mass as the third and fourth ingredient. So maybe I wasn't imagining the taste difference. Also English Cadbury Caramel has a 40% caramel filling and the Irish Caramello has 26% filling.

I actually prefer less caramel, it doesn't overpower the bar and you get the taste of

the actual chocolate aswell as the delicious caramel flavour and I didn't end up with melted caramel all over my fingers which is always a result.

I really enjoyed this bar and I would take this over our version of the caramel bar any day. Lovely. 

 Rating 8/10

E wedel mleczna toffi

This is a polish 50% milk chocolate with toffee flavoured filling bar according to thesmall part in English on the back. That's all I can really tell you about it as all the google results are in polish and the translate button seems to have disappeared.

This comes in a 100g bar, and I actually bought this as part of an offer in Asda but Ive seen it in all the big supermarkets and lots of newsagents.

I was quite surprised that for such a big bar it only had 10 squares ( there goes my willpower) -  it doesn't feel like you're  eating a bigger "sharing" bar when there's so few squares and so I ate the lot in one go.

The chocolate is nice and creamy, I'm in the chocolate in the fridge camp, especially as my only cupboard is above the fridge so everything put in it that can, will, melt and almost immediately this had started. I'm not too sure what that says about the quality of chocolate, if anyone knows but this is nice.

The filling disappointed me a bit, it was quite mild. I had expected quite a strong overpowering toffee flavour and while the toffee was there it didn't stand out to me very much.

I'm  not sure if I'd buy this bar again, for price value (75p as standard in tesco) it's good chocolate but for taste over all others, I think I'd probably choose something else.

Rating 6/10

Hershey's special dark mildly sweet chocolate (USA)

Before I start this review I'll say I looked at the ingredients for this bar after the dairy milk bars and even though this is a "dark" semi sweet bar the first and main ingredient is sugar! Actual chocolate came in second…

Anyway this bar is OK, a bit on the thin side but it had a nice snap to it once I took it out of the fridge. I couldn't taste any of the sick taste that lots of people outside of the US associate with Hershey's but this was far too sweet for me to consider as a dark bar - nowhere even near Bournville or any of the other low percentage dark bars. It was nice though, nicer than Hershey's plain milk chocolate.

Rating 6.5/10

World food aisle part one

Hershey's Symphony Bar (USA)

First up is the Hershey's symphony bar. I saw this bar in B&M, I enjoyed the cookie bar when I'd tried it before so thought why not… I then read another review about this bar which wasn't good so I was pretty nervous about trying this! It wasn't awful - I like the toffee and almond pieces but they were pretty overwhelmed by the fact this bar just tastes to me like cheap Easter egg chocolate - not even the cheap supermarket ones - but the ones you get from the pound shop with a random celebrity/TV show/any old crap on the front of it. 

That really is the best way I can describe this bar. So if you don't mind that type of chocolate (I know some people do really enjoy it!) then you'll probably like this bar but if you're like me and think that stuff should only be eaten well after easter when it's been forgotten at the back of the cupboard but you reeeeally fancy chocolate then I'd probably avoid it!

Rating 4/10

Cadbury Dairy Milk Golden Crisp (Ireland)

I've had my eye on this bar for a while, I got it from the world foods aisle in Tesco but I'm pretty sure it's quite common now. 

It's described as the usual Dairy Milk chocolate with honeycomb pieces and as you can see it's pretty packed out! I'm disappointed Cadbury or whoever it is who owns/produces/distributes these, why aren't they a standard bar over here! 

This is a really nice bar of chocolate which I think would sell really well, but were just getting random limited edition crossover bars. I'd gladly buy this bar again the honeycomb gives such a nice flavour and texture I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Rating 7.5/10