Aero Mousse - Caramel

Last year Nestle released the Aero Mousse, I think I was alone in my enjoyment of it but I did say at the time a flavoured mousse would be nice - maybe mint, orange or hazelnut. Nestle have taken the safe route with caramel but I'm not complaining! 

Smooth milk chocolate filled with bubbly milk chocolate and a layer of aerated caramel flavour chocolate mousse. 

There is no visible difference between the plain Aero Mousse and the Caramel but the latter had a delicious caramel scent from the off. Both bars contain the same amount of mousse filling but unlike in the plain it's clear as day in the Caramel. 

For someone like me, who enjoys eating my chocolate slowly, the bar is separated into easily snappable squares.  

The fact I'd snapped it all apart affected the taste a little. I noticed the 2 squares on either end had less mousse inside, for some reason I ate these first (blame the OCD) and the unmistakable taste of Aero chocolate was nearly all I could taste. I could certainly feel the creamy mousse - the textures at play are lovely in this bar regardless of the flavours: the thick snap of the chocolate casing, the light and almost melting aerated chocolate inside and a thick creamier mousse, lovely! 

The middle four squares had more mousse and the change in flavour was immediate. The Aero chocolate was more of an after taste and the caramel was stronger. It's very nice, quite sweet but it has a strong caramel flavour. It was actually a bit strange eating it without feeling the gooey stickiness of usual caramel! 

I do think one litte change could make an improvement though, the whole time I was waiting for a saltiness that never came. I know, I normally moan everything is salted caramel flavour and I'm asking for it here! Maybe I've just got too used to it - Mr.1T looked at me like I was mad when I said it to him so that's a disagreement from him - I also just realised I wanted salt in yesterdays review too, maybe I'm deficient! 

Rating:

Very nice, improvement on the original. 

7/10 

Galaxy Duet - Toffee & Popcorn

There's a new chocolate bar on the block! Galaxy have added Toffee & Popcorn to its Duet line. You won't find many Galaxy chocolate reviews on my blog, I was, until recent years, a Cadbury girl but Cadbury are sadly pants now and I'm a sucker for new and 'strange' flavours. 

The bar itself looked the same, same shape as the other Duet bars and the same distinctive sheen of Galaxy chocolate. Things didn't start off well as it smelt sickeningly sweet - even by my standards - paired with a not too pleasant toffee scent. 

The toffee is actually a toffee flavoured caramel filling, so no lovely chewiness but that thick gooey caramel isn't a bad consolation! The bars are on the narrow side anyway, sectioned in to two separate fingers make things even smaller but they'd managed to pack a fair amount of each in. 

As with the previous two bars I tried each finger individually before eating it how it's intended.

The 'toffee' side which smelt a lot like toffee but looked a lot like caramel thankfully was bang in the middle of both. A lovely toffee flavour that was nowhere near as sickeningly sweet as it smelt with the thick luxury feel of a caramel. Pleasingly the toffee is still strong enough to distinguish from caramel though - it doesn't taste like the other Galaxy caramel flavours at least! 

The popcorn side wasn't quite as good. I enjoyed the crunchy texture as I knew I would but there was nothing really 'popcorn' about it - it could well have been crisped rice or bland nuts for all I could tell, I didn't notice any popcorn flavour at the time anyway. Some pieces did have a softer chewier bite like proper popcorn but the majority were crunchy.

I wish I could say that both flavours eaten together improved, any slight popcorn flavour that might have been there was overwhelmed by the strong toffee until half way through I realised I wasn't getting much popcorn at all... 

... Thanks for that Galaxy! It did return eventually but to tell you the truth the gooey sticky caramel and the thick smooth chocolate really diluted what crunch there was. 

Apparently there are toffee pieces included somewhere in the bar, which side I couldn't tell you! I didn't notice any toffee flavour in the popcorn side and there were no harder pieces inside the caramel so who knows where mine got to, maybe it was hiding wherever my section of popcorn went! 

Rating:

It's O.K. The toffee flavour was nice but I think the popcorn side would benefit from being in a larger bar to squeeze in some bigger pieces. I said I didn't taste the popcorn alone and that didn't change throughout but I am left with a slight saltiness in my mouth afterwards, a bit more of that and they could well be on to a winner! 

7/10 

Marks & Spencer Soft Caramels

These were one of the many goodies I picked up in M&S recently. Caramels are a perfect Saturday night treat, they're so easy to mindlessly shove in my mouth in front the telly and that is exactly how this Saturday night went down - which explains my fabulous Liquorice Allsort spare duvet cover providing the backdrop. As I've preached to everyone, don't bother with throws and blankets just get a cheap duvet and use it just for on the sofa, it is so cosy and comfortable! 

The M&S Soft Caramels aren't new but they do have a new recipe. Not that I'd tried the old recipe, if I've said it once, I've said it a million times - I'd spend a hell of a lot more money in Markses if they put their products on the website, I can never be bothered to wander round on the off chance there might be something I want to buy.

Underneath the bright pink wrappers the chocolates are up to Marks & Spencer's usual standards. I barely looked at the actual chocolate after I'd unwrapped them and it would have been easy to just stick a lump of chocolate with some caramel inside but they looked as nice as they would have had they been displayed in a box of chocolates rather than hidden inside some foil. 

Initially I could only smell chocolate. Again M&S high standards play a role, in other bags of wrapped caramels it's not unusual to find a couple of broken chocolates where the caramel has oozed out but as always these were in perfect condition and the thick chocolate shells had sealed the caramel and any scents away. 

The caramels only contain 30% caramel centres to a decent 70% milk chocolate shell and with those sorts of ratios I'd expect to taste even a hint of chocolate but that was not the case at all. It might not take up even a third of the overall product but 99% of the taste was the caramel. 

It's thick, runny and gooey - I went to brush my teeth after eating these and my chin was covered in caramel - I'm not usually that messy of an eater! A perfect consistency for soft caramel in my opinion but the flavour let it down somewhat. It's a very tasty caramel flavour but it's soon overpowered by a burning, sickly sweetness. I hadn't even finished one mouthful when I said to Mr.1T "wow these are sweet aren't they?" and in fact the word sickly came from him, not me - and that's saying something! 

The caramel was thick enough to be scooped out, Creme Egg style, so I got a good taste of the unadulterated chocolate too. I've had a few M&S milk chocolates recently and continue to be surprised at the quality. Even when used in flavoured bars or bags where the chocolate isn't a predominant flavour they don't fob you off with the cheap stuff. It's milky yet still has a proper chocolate flavour and is really quite good quality stuff. There was still a lingering sugary sweetness though and due to the overpowering nature of the caramel I'm unsure if this was a left over from that or the chocolate was on the sweet side too. I think I'll give M&S the benefit of the doubt, none of the other milk chocolates have had that problem, and blame it on the caramel. 

Rating:

Overall I think I'd give them a 6/10 but if we pretend I wasn't a greedy guts and only had 1 or 2 it'll be 

7/10 

Leonidas Dark Chocolate Assortment Part 3

Today's post is the third from the Leonidas Dark Chocolate Assortment I got for Valentines Day.

Part One and Two have got things off to a very impressive start. 

I'd made a serious dent in the assortment already, eating 7 each time and these were all doubles which Mr.1T very "helpfully" tried with me. This left me with 10 singles in the 550g box, don't get me wrong I was surprised with just how many little chocolates were included but there was no way on Earth he was trying any of the singles I had left! 

Alexandre Le Grand

Moving away from flavoured creams and pralines for a moment the first I tried this time round was a caramel. Caramel is seen as a bit of a fail-safe and done well it can be amazing but it it so easy to ruin too. 

The chocolate shell was very crisp with a decent snap and the same rich dark chocolate flavour I'd enjoyed in every other chocolate. The caramel inside was gorgeous; thick and almost gritty with a wonderful caramel flavour, it was extremely sweet - especially compared to the deeper darker flavours of the rest of the assortment but balanced beautifully against the outer chocolate. A caramel well done! 

Marron

The box included very common flavours, found in most boxes of chocolates but they all have a slightly different twist on them.

Although it doesn't look it, the chocolate seemed much thicker on the Marron, giving a much more intense dark chocolate flavour. The praliné had a delicious hazelnut flavour and included small crunchy (what I'm guessing were) hazelnut pieces. Lovely. 

Bretagne 

I mentioned this specific chocolate previously without realising I actually had one in my box. Salted Caramel - sure, I don't think I've tried a salty butter flavoured caramel though! 

The outer chocolate seemed quite thin so it didn't take much for the runny caramel to ooze out. Of course, this is a dark chocolate box but I couldn't have cared less what it was all encased in - the caramel was incredible. It's thick and sticky and has a deliciously buttery flavour, I didn't taste any salt but I really didn't care. Quite possibly the nicest caramel I've ever eaten. 

Noisette Masquee

You may be aware of my enjoyment of nuts... So I was pleased to find a couple of chocolates which included whole hazelnuts. Stick a hazelnut or an almond in it and I'm pleased! 

The chocolate had suffered a slight bloom but it hadn't affected the delicious flavour at all. The praline was very thick, smooth and almost like a mousse. I'm not sure if it was supposed to but it had a very slight hazelnut flavour to it as well. The hazelnut on top was the icing on the cake, very crunchy and I was surprised to find I actually noticed the individual flavour of the nut - too often small, crappy nuts are used more for texture than flavour but it was clear and very tasty in the Noisette Masquee. 

Eve 

Oh yes!! Another butter cream chocolate - if you've read the previous two reviews you'll see they went down very well. Mr.1T exceeded my expectations with the Dark Chocolate Assortment but I'm debating buying myself a Milk Chocolate box now just to try that version of the Eve - Banana butter cream, yes please! 

I knew the second I read the description this would be a winner. In all seriousness in my top 3 things I've ever eaten in my life number 1 is Kobe Beef, number 2 is a Risotto I had in Greece of all places and number 3 is the vanilla butter cream inside this chocolate. It's sweet, very rich and creamy and has a super strong vanilla flavour - but proper vanilla none of this artificial crap. Incredible. I actually forgot about the chocolate but I'm sure it was just fine!! 

Manon Cafe Dark

I struggled finding this chocolate as the photos on the menu only show the white varieties but the last chocolate in this sitting was the Manon Café Dark. 

I'd done well with the other chocolates, considering Mr.1T had had them delivered for me they were all in a pretty good condition and this one was the only one that had taken a bit of a battering. 

Included once again was that butter cream, supposedly coffee flavour this time round. In all fairness it is described as a light coffee but against the rich dark chocolate I didn't notice it at all. It still had the creamy flavour of the actual butter cream so I was more than happy and that with the thick dark chocolate and crunchy hazelnut was still lovely but I'd have liked a stronger coffee flavour. 

So far, the only moan I have with the box is that two of the coffee flavours weren't as intense as the first I tried! Out of 34 chocolates I don't think that's bad going at all! 

Leonidas Dark Chocolate Assortment Part 2

Following on from last weeks review, today's is another 7 chocolates from my Leonidas Dark Chocolate Assortment. 

Confession time, I might be putting the review up a week later but I only managed to hold out 24 hours before going back for more, my excuse - they're made with fresh cream, they might go off if I don't eat them all. Now. 

It was difficult choosing which ones to have, I knew from experience that about 7 would be my limit before they became too rich and the menu provided has literally every single product Leonidas sell, not only what is included in the box in front of me. Donning my tin foil hat, I'm telling you it's a conspiracy, now I can see what else they sell I just know that I'll be buying some more before this box is polished off!! 

Floranger 

This chocolate was nearly identical to the Noir De Noir from last weeks review, right down to the Leonidas moulded in the chocolate. The only difference is the slightly curved edges of the Floranger so a word of advice to anyone with a mixed assortment like this - look very carefully, especially if you have allergies or are avoiding particular ingredients. 

I purposely went for the Floranger first as chocolate orange is far down my list of preferred flavours however this isn't orange flavoured as we know it. The chocolate uses orange blossom which is a far more delicate and subtle flavour, so subtle in fact I could only just about taste it. The ganache feels almost like jelly and the texture paired with the light flavour went well with the rich chocolate. 

Fine Orange

I went for another orange flavoured next, figuring I'd get rid of the ones I least wanted to eat first. This chocolate is one of the best looking in the box and is one of Leonidas "Pearl Truffles". 

The centre is made with chocolate cream and orange flavoured praline and the combination made for a very thick texture. It was softer than I expected, almost runny like a caramel but thick enough to scoop out like a Creme Egg if I'd been feeling particularly skanky! 

The orange flavour is much stronger and I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. The chocolate has the same rich, dark tones as all the others previously but the white drizzle sweetens things up just a little. Lovely. 

Poesie 

Alcoholic chocolates are another I'm not keen on, preferring to actually drink my booze rather than disguise it in chocolate and keeping with the theme of the previous 2 chocolates the Poesie contains ganache and Cointreau - an orange flavoured liqueur. 

The chocolate shell was noticeably thinner than the last few and snapped away quite easily leaving the gooey sticky centre poking out. Because of the thickness the ganache filling was the stronger flavour and unlike the rum filled chocolate of last week this tasted extremely alcoholic. I didn't notice any specific orange flavour but it had the familiar alcohol taste which normally I'm not keen on but it worked really well with this particular chocolate. Surprisingly nice. 

Palet D'or

Now this is more my type of chocolate, one of the very few in the box containing any colour other than almost black. I had to Google Sao Tomé, apparently it's an African island country who were once a leading cocoa producer. There aren't any details on this particular chocolate but I'll go out on a limb and guess this is where the chocolate used comes from. 

The chocolate shell was a little thicker and I'm unsure if its confirmation bias but the chocolate itself did have a slightly different flavour to the rest. That also could have been down to the thick ganache filling, it's soft and mousse like with a very slight bitter edge to it but the good kind of bitter! 

Louise

The U.K could learn a thing or two from Belgium. This is only the 2nd caramel flavour in my assortment so far and not a hint of salted caramel anywhere! Looking on the menu they have a salty buttered flavour caramel and a green tea flavoured caramed (?!?) But no salted, it's nice to have a break! 

The chocolate was as good as ever but the praline centre was incredible. Quite possibly the most delicious caramel flavour I've eaten in a long time. Caramel centres usually have a more liquid feel to them but this was thick and much more solid. I didn't feel any nut shards but there was a hazelnut flavour blended in that was subtle at first but became stronger. Amazing. 

Mystere 

When I first glanced over the menu I thought this would be a sort of roulette mystery chocolate but it's not.. Leonidas are far too grown up for that! It was the only chocolate so far where the picture on the menu didn't match up to real life, but the reality was much more what I'd expect from the description. 

The photo truly doesn't do justice to how green the pistachio centre is! Initially I couldn't taste the pistachio but my God it didn't matter. The fresh butter cream filling is ridiculously good. I'm beginning to understand why these are so expensive now! It is so soft and light, fluffy with a whipped like texture, the fact a delicious pistachio flavour soon appeared was just a bonus. Delicious. 

Lingot

I was blown away by the espresso flavoured chocolate in last weeks review so I left what I thought would be the best till last this time round. The flavour is coffee rather than espresso so I didn't expect it to be as strong but the first had set the bar high. 

Once again a fresh butter cream is used but it is mixed in with a praliné so it wasn't quite the same as the Mystere filling. It's still heavenly though, in fact I've decided if I'm ever on death row my last meal request is bowls and bowls of fresh butter cream. Sadly this was the first chocolate that I was somewhat disappointed by, it's not that it wasn't good - trust me, it was - it's just that after having a coffee flavoured chocolate that not only met my ridiculously high expectations previously but exceeded them, this was a bit of a damp squib. The coffee flavour just wasn't strong enough for my liking. 

I've not got many left and I'm going to try and take my time with them but I have a feeling they aren't going to last much longer! 

Elizabeth Shaw Christmas Creations

When you think of Christmas chocolates it's normally Roses, Heroes, Celebrations and Quality Street that come to mind. It's just me and Mr.1T at home, we bought a massive tub of Quality Street last Christmas and I swear to God there are still some left. So this year we decided we'd go for quality over quantity (but we're still poor mind you) and got this small box of Elizabeth Shaw Christmas Creations. 

Inside are 32 chocolates but annoyingly the two square chocolates, there are nine of each. I hate it when companies do this - make them an even number please! The box was reasonably Christmassy and I'm quite surprised they got away with that shade of purple, I'm sure Cadbury trademarked it! 

First up I tried Milk Amaretto Neapolitan - Smooth and silky Amaretto flavour milk chocolate squares. I started with what I assumed would be the plainest and most boring, I was wrong. Silky and smooth just as they said with a slight nutty almond flavour and deliciously creamy. 

Next was Smooth Orange Crème - Rich dark chocolate with a fragrant orange infused fondant centre. I'm never keen on fruit flavoured chocolate so didn't expect much from this one. What Elizabeth Shaw claim is fragrant, I say is ridiculously overpowering. I can't tell you how the chocolate was as all I could taste was the incredibly strong artificial orange fondant. 

Dark caramel Neapoliton - Deliciously creamy caramel flavour dark chocolate squares were next. Too often milk chocolate is used with caramel, of course using a dark could end up too rich but done properly has the potential to be amazing. This fell into the latter. It's not a particularly dark chocolate but the richness of the caramel made it taste it. I didn't get any real creaminess from the squares but I don't think that matters too much with a dark. A very enjoyable contrast between sweet caramel tones and deeper dark chocolate. 

Finally the one I was looking most forward to and the reason I chose this box, Dark Gingerbread Crisp - Delicious gingerbread flavour dark chocolate with crisp honeycomb pieces. The chocolate itself is amazing, it has a lovely authentic, strong gingerbread flavour. The small crunchy honeycomb pieces just improve on an already very tasty square, adding not only texture but a sweetness to the rich, spiced chocolate. My overall favourite. 

What I really liked about this box, was that which combination of the chocolates I ate affected the flavours. For instance the Amaretto Neapoliton tasted creamy and indulgent alone but when I ate one after an Orange Créme, it tasted light and refreshing. 3/4 ain't bad and at half price in Tesco I'm pleased! 

7/10 

Asda Nutty Bites

Today's review is an Asda own brand product, so this should be the part where I go on about the usually trustworthy blue 'New!' signs. Well they failed. Again. I nearly let two new bags of chocolates slip by me, thank God I could probably navigate most supermarket confectionary aisles with my eyes closed and spotted a couple of sneaky new additions. 

I previously reviewed Asda's bag of mini Mars bars - Caramel Bites and they got the thumbs up. I hoped this Snickers version - Nutty Bites would too. 

There weren't as many in this bag as I remembered before but I think they're slightly larger, I imagine it would be harder to fit all the different parts to a Snickers (or Nutty Bite) into a truly bitesized piece. As expected this is a filled milk chocolate with peanuts, nougat and caramel. 

The main thing I noticed was the nougat and the caramel. There was a slight peanut flavour, nothing too strong and thankfully just the taste - no claggy feeling at all! 

While I could taste the peanuts and 22% of the total ingredients are actual peanuts, I couldn't feel them too much in the bites. If I let the chocolate, nougat and caramel melt away in each mouthful, I was left with small peanut pieces on my toungue so they were definitely in there but to eat each bite properly, any crunchy texture was lost amongst the chewy nougat and thick sticky caramel. I actually think I prefer these bites to proper Snickers because of this. I like peanuts alone but I'm not too keen on them in chocolate weirdly - any other nut is fine! The peanut flavour is kind of diluted here, enough to set it apart from other chocolates but not overwhelm and make it exclusively peanutty, if that makes sense!   

I also liked that this wasn't very sweet at all unlike the caramel bites, of course there was a sweetness - it wasn't bitter or anything - but the empahasis was on the actual flavour of the nougat, chocolate, caramel and peanuts. 

Another 

7/10 

Keep your eyes peeled for my review on the Whirly Bites bag squeezed in between the coming Christmas posts! 

Marks & Spencer Chocolates

Marks & Spencer have released a number of new chocolates, they've been out for a while but I've been so distracted by the amazing looking Christmas products I missed them until now. There are a few new small, one portion bars and three 100g bars; A caramel filled milk chocolate, a bar made up of milk, dark and white chocolate and a milk 'bubbly' bar. 

I skipped the Bubbly, aerated bars don't give me enough of a chocolate hit to enjoy them and got myself one of each of the other two. 

Caramel Filled Milk Chocolate 

I find sometimes when caramel is included with chocolate, that all I can smell is the caramel but the sweet milky chocolate was all I noticed to begin with.

It looked good, still sectioned into easily snappable small squares but more interesting than a normal block. 

I managed to drop mine before I'd even opened it and this led to the discovery that the chocolate shell is quite thin - one of the corner squares completely shattered. 

Hidden inside each square is a thick pocket of caramel. The top half of the chocolate as I mentioned, is quite thin so although percentage wise there's a lot more chocolate than caramel, it didn't feel or taste like it. The caramel is delicious - smooth and sticky with a lovely rich caramel flavour. 

The chocolate was a bit of a pain to eat as it melted very quickly and combined with the thin, easily breakable texture, I made a total mess of my hands, face and clothes! Still, it's of a good quality - creamy with a strong chocolate flavour that combines with the sweet rich caramel and rounds it all off nicely. 

It's quite a sweet bar but the sugary sweetness is countered by the richness of the caramel and the creaminess of the chocolate. Good all round! 

7/10 

Milk, Dark & White Chocolate 

This was the bar that caught my eye initially. It's such a good idea and I'm not sure why it's not more popular, I know I've been stuck deciding between the three types of chocolate before! 

I like how it looks, if three differently coloured chocolates didn't grab your attention straight away then the weird way it's all sectioned out will. It made it hard to snap blocks off but I never planned on this lasting more than one sitting anyway. The bar didn't have a predominant scent - just a general chocolatey one, nothing too sweet and pretty tempting. 

The way it's sectioned meant it was near enough impossible to break a clean square of just one type of chocolate but I suppose that is the whole point of this bar. I managed to nibble corners off to try each flavour individually and was pleased with what I found. I managed to split my wrapper right through the ingredients but I'm 99% sure the dark chocolate says 50%. That's not quite dark enough for me normally but I appreciate lots of people don't like dark chocolate, still it has a decent dark chocolate flavour that actually seems a little richer and deeper than it probably should do against the white and milk. The white was quite sweet alone as I expected but it had a good flavour too, like a better quality Milky Bar. The milk chocolate was fine too, quite creamy and smooth - another nice quality chocolate. 

All three flavours blended well, even though they are in blocks it tasted as though they were all swirled together and all combinations of the three were delicious. I liked the idea of the bar but I thought that Marks & Spencers might have cut corners - essentially it's a bit of a novelty bar and most companies would just shove any old chocolate in there. I was very pleased to find this wasn't the case with M&S though and I was impressed with the quality of the chocolates they used. I'd be perfectly happy with any of the three alone but the mix of all three is one I think I'll go out of my way to buy again in the future. 

8/10 

Asda Giant Pinwheel Buttons

Milk chocolate and white chocolate buttons with a sticky caramel suprise

Asda's blue 'New!' signs failed me this week. I know these Giant Pinwheel Buttons are new, I went out of my way to find them but there were no signs or displays pointing them out so I actually had to use my eyes for once! 

For the sake of the review I'll pretend I didn't know what the suprise was going to be.. 

The buttons smelt unexpectedly caramelly and quite sweet. 

I was impressed with the size and amount of buttons in the bag. They aren't as big in diameter as Cadbury Giant Buttons but they're twice the thickness, they're also about double the size of Cadbury Caramel Nibbles too. 

The sticky suprise hidden inside is a thick pool of runny, gooey caramel. It's very sweet but does have a nice caramel flavour to it too. 

Of the two chocolates, although there are exactly the same amounts of both, the white chocolate has the stronger flavour. Both chocolates take a backseat to the caramel but aren't overwhelmed by it, the buttons have a nice blend of all three. I was worried that these would go the same way as the Caramac Buttons - a few in and the sugar starts burning my throat - but it never happened. Although the milk chocolate is the least noticable flavour it plays an important part in adding a milkiness and kind of 'diluting' the overload of sugary sweetness found in both white chocolate and caramel. 

As it stands there are two kind of similar products about; Cadbury Caramel Nibbles and Caramac Giant Buttons. I would take a bag of these over either of those any day. The milk and white chocolate mix improve on the Cadbury format of buttons with a real caramel filling and are a mainly caramel flavoured button, like Caramac Buttons, but my thoughts were focused on the flavour rather than how sweet they were.

7/10