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 

Galaxy Duet - Cookies & Cream

This is the second of the Galaxy Duet bars, the first you can find here. The Cookies & Cream flavour is the same format, one side with the cookie element, the other with the cream. 

As the two sides are only separated by a thin section of chocolate when I snapped a small part of the top off, they came apart so as before I tried each portion alone before tasting them as they are intended. 

The first side I tried was the cookie, compared to the shortcake before it seemed like there was a lot more of the cookie but the packet lists it at only 3.2%. Even so the cookie flavour was clear and went well with the chocolate. Besides the taste of the cookie the pieces bought some welcome crunchy texture to the smooth chocolate and I'd be quite happy if I'd picked up a bar with just this inside it. 

I then tried the cream side, it's described as a lightly whipped filling and in mouthfeel did bring a bit of creaminess to the already silky chocolate. I'm not sure if there was a proper cream flavour as I find Galaxy chocolate already quite 'creamy' and it was hard to distinguish between the filling and the chocolate. Although to be fair the packet only says lightly whipped filling - not a flavoured whipped filling so maybe it is only supposed to be the texture but either way the chocolate was the stand out flavour in this side. 

Both sides eaten together were OK. Neither flavour was dominant - that was left to the chocolate - but of the two, the cookie was stronger. It is a tasty bar of chocolate but really it tasted to me of a Galaxy bar with some cookies mixed in, it was kind of missing the cream part. I've had some really delicious cookies and cream bars in the past and this just fell a bit short, a bit disappointing really! 

Hopefully my version was just a dud so if you try one and find the cream to be different please let me know as I had high hopes for this! 

Of the two I definitely preferred the Caramel & Shortcake 

Rating 6/10 

Galaxy Duet Bars - Caramel & Shortcake

I reckon it's pretty hard working for a confectionary company at the moment, its probably quite hard finding a flavour or ingredient that hasn't been used and that includes caramel which has, to be fair, been added to every product imaginable. So galaxy seem to have gone a different route and rather than find new flavours they've gone for a different format with two new bars; two flavours in each, the first Caramel & Shortcake and the second Cookies & Cream and rather than combine them, they've filled half of the bar with each so you can have just one flavour at a time or both together - your choice. 

The Duets are your standard sized chocolate bar at 37g and are split into two long thin rectangles and the chocolate is the usual smooth milk. I'm not a huge fan of the Galaxy milk chocolate on its own, it's a bit too smooth for me, I prefer the original Cadbury Dairy Milk but there's no denying that it's a decent everyday chocolate bar. 

I snapped a section off to take a photo and so I had a chance to try each side separately before eating it how it was intended. 

Even though the bar only has 3.4% of them, the shortcake pieces add a lovely buttery flavour to the chocolate and although they're small pieces they bring a good crunch to the silky smooth chocolate. To tell you the truth I'd be happy eating a full bar with just the shortcake. 

There is a much higher amount of caramel in the bar at 18% and as you can see from the photo, even though I had to refrigerate it (after just two hours in my kitchen cupboard the bar had turned worryingly soft!) it's a gooey, runny caramel. This isn't the same caramel as the salted caramel bar sadly and it's quite mild compared but it does have a nice flavour which suits the Galaxy chocolate well. 

I wasn't sure how the two sides would work, my OCD likes me to eat things 'properly' - I could never just bite into a KitKat, the fingers have to be broken off one at a time obviously! Big bars of chocolate are eaten by the square and so this bar I would usually snap down the centre and eat one section at a time.

 The Duets are going to have to be my exception the rule though, both sides eaten together compliment each other and improve on what were already perfectly acceptable alone. The shortcake provides a nice texture change to the rich smoothness of the caramel side which for some reason seemed to taste stronger against the buttery biscuit. I like these, both flavours are nice enough and better than some other options about but together they make this a very enjoyable chocolate bar. 

Rating 8/10