Cadbury Biscuit Assortment

It's the 8th of October and I have my first Christmas related review! The worst part about it is all the Christmas sweets and chocolates have been in the shops for a good month now as well.

Normally I wait until it's actually Christmas to start on the big boxes of chocolates and biscuits as I think the prices in relation to number of pieces is a complete rip off and I'll wait for someone else to buy them. This box however is a good portion size for one person with one of each biscuit rather than three or four and was a bit of a bargain (for Cadbury Christmas biccies) in Poundland.

I did read online that Cadbury have released some new biscuits into their assortment boxes, I'm unsure if any of these are new as by the time I get my turn with the biscuit barrel at Christmas, the plain ones are the only ones left!!

An assortment of biscuits covered in Cadbury milk chocolate and dark chocolate. 

Before I get any further into the post, let me just say the only dark chocolate in the box are the thin squiggles across three of the biscuits - I think - I didn't taste any dark chocolate so there won't be any mention. As is usual for a box of biscuits, they were in a plastic tray sealed inside a plastic bag and ripping it open revealed the deceptive Cadbury smell. It smells like the good stuff, but wether it still tastes like it is debatable! 

The assortment includes one of each biscuit, except for the Crunchy Ring, bottom left and top centre. The chocolate coating is nice and thick and tastes like Cadbury (not Dairy Milk). These are actually made by Burtons Biscuits rather than Cadbury and I think it shows as the actual biscuits are good quality rather than just an afterthought to the chocolate. The Crunchy Ring has a shortcake/shortbread like biscuit inside, it has a lovely, very buttery flavour but is crunchier and crisper than an ordinary shortcake or bread. It's a round, crunchier version of one of my favourite old school Cadbury bars, the Cadbury Snack. 

The biscuit inside probably stood out the least in the Lemon Crisp, bottom centre. It had a nice enough taste and texture but the thick, stronger flavoured chocolate was what I noticed most. The lemon is nice and quite sweet but I found it a little weird. It was like the opposite of a mint chocolate if that makes sense and I wasn't that keen on it paired with the milk. Like a lot of mint chocolates it would probably have suited a dark chocolate better. 

The chocolate that I was kind of dissapointed in was the Chocolate Pillow, top right. I thought pillow = soft, maybe creamy but it was just a plain milk chocolate coating a biscuit. The chocolate seemed slightly thicker, and the biscuit was softer than the two previously but it didn't have much flavour to it. Certainly not the lovely buttery flavour like in the first. A little boring really. 

Milk Triangle, middle right, was one that surprised me. I expected what I got with the Chocolate Pillow, a plain boring biscuit and while it was plainer it wasn't boring. The biscuit used here was my favourite amongst them all, it had the lovely buttery flavour of the Crunchy Ring but was nice and soft (without feeling stale) too. It's very sweet, especially with the sweet Cadbury chocolate on top but as there was only one it was no problem. Very nice. 

The Raspberry Oat Crunch, top left, was intriguing. The biscuit was very, very crunchy and crisp and at first all I could taste were the oats. The raspberry flavour was soon noticable though and was good, concentrated raspberry pieces made from purée are used so it has quite a strong, realer (than some chocolate bars) flavour too. This biscuit was a bit like a harder, crisper Flapjack. 

I didn't know (and still don't) what the Hazelnut Flavour Crispette, bottom right, was. What is a Crispette? It wasn't that much crisper than the Lemon Crisp or Raspberry Oat Crunch, whatever it was. It had a slight hazelnut flavour but it was pretty overwhelmed by the Cadbury milk chocolate. 

I left the Simply Shortcake, centre, for last as I thought it would be most like a Cadbury Snack bar. It fell short though, it had a soft shortcake biscuit which wasn't as buttery as the first but still did have a little flavour. It was tasty but another slightly boring biscuit. 

This assortment box was OK, as I've always been recently I was slightly dissapointed with the Cadbury chocolate. I know it's the typical Christmas chocolate they use and not Dairy Milk but it was very sweet and had a waxy, sticky feel. The biscuits used are nice and the redeeming feature. I think if I came across these at Christmas and hadn't tried them before I'd have been happy with just one - they aren't a box you can't help yourself from keep dipping into but they're tasty enough. 

7/10 

Mr Kipling Salted Caramel Swirls

Delicious shortcake swirls filled with salted caramel flavour buttercream 

This evenings review comes to you courtesy of Mr.1 Treat.. Kind of. The furthest he gets with computers are YouTube videos and FIFA so the thoughts and opinions are his - I've just typed them up.

We found these in Morrisons in the bakery aisle, I can't remember the exact price but I think they were around £1.90. I thought they seemed overpriced for four but Mr.1T was suckered in by the fancy packaging. I couldn't work out why they were in with the cakes but the filling of each whirl is made with buttercream and caramel sauce so only has a shelf life of about a month - nothing long like biscuits. Even though the description just says a salted caramel flavour buttercream there is actually a separate caramel sauce too. 

The biscuit was very soft and buttery, both biscuits are the same just the top/bottom one has the milk chocolate coating which I preferred as if both were chocolate coated it would have been far too much.

The two different fillings were intersting, I could feel the difference between the cream and the sauce but the normal caramel flavour overpowered most of the salted caramel buttercream. There were parts that didn't have the sauce and just cream though and I could taste the salted caramel there. Either way the flavour is delicious. 

I soon understood why there are only four, they're very rich and sweet and are just bordering on maybe a bit too much. They're lovely but I could manage 2 in one go - at most (he didn't he only had one, lightweight)

7/10 

Cadbury Dairy Milk Marvellous Creations Rocky Mallow Road

Another day another new product for Cadbury, the new bar is from the Marvellous Creations line and is replacing the banana bar and the cookie bar (I believe). The Marvellous Creations range seem to be Cadburys take on Willy Wonka and feature all kinds of strange mash ups in chocolate bars, bags and ice creams - please please please Cadbury bring the entire Australlian Marvellous Creations to the UK especially Rainbow Rockin' Bears!! 

This chocolate bar is Rocky Mallow Road, each country apparently has its own take on Rocky Road according to Wikipedia, the U.K ingredients are chocolate, marshmallow, biscuit, raisins and sultanas. Australia's are chocolate, marshmallow, desiccated coconut, glacé cherries, nuts, and Turkish delight(?). Finally the USA's are chocolate, marshmallows and walnuts or almonds. Cadburys Rocky Mallow Road has milk chocolate with marshmallow, strawberry flavour jellies and shortcake biscuit. Where the strawberry jellies came from who knows, but there you have it.

The bar looks identical from the outside to the previous Marvellous Creations bars, oddly shaped blocks and lumps and bumps where it's full of extra ingredients. The chocolate used is Dairy Milk and I think most people have tried that before so I'll skip describing that part. 

I fully expected the usual smell of Dairy Milk when I opened the wrapper so I was a bit surprised to first and foremostly smell strawberry and the sweet sugary smell of marshmallow. 

Taking a bite was the same case, sure I had the texture of chocolate in my mouth but even though visibly they seem the least in the bar, all I could taste was the strawberry jelly. It's very strong! I assumed the jelly pieces would be similar to jelly beans but they're actually little squares of jelly!! While this gives a stronger flavour it makes for a strange texture as once the chocolate has melted away you're left with a very sticky, chewy jelly that ended up stuck in my teeth. The marshmallows are also very chewy, the strawberry tended to drown it out a little but as there are more of the marshmallows in each bar, they did make themselves known soon enough. I didn't have that much biscuit in mine and while it didn't have too much of a noticable flavour they provided a very welcome texture change to smooth chocolate and chewy jellies and marshmallows.

The wrapper claims 7% marshmallows, 5% strawberry jelly and 5% biscuits but I found that hard to believe, it must be a low estimate because the bar I got was absolutely jam packed full of pieces, so much so I struggled to taste the chocolate at times! The strawberry jelly was by far the most dominant flavour and texture, it tastes nothing like other strawberry filled chocolate bars I've tried - it legitimately tastes like strawberry jelly. The flavours all went well with the Dairy Milk - I know there's a lot going on here and for some it might be a bit much but I really did like it, it's fun if that makes sense, I said on Twitter it's like a fairground in a chocolate bar! 

If you don't like strawberry, or you don't like chewy in a chocolate bar you won't like this. If you're into darker, more grown up chocolate you won't like this. But if you take it for what it is, a bit of fun, probably a bit too sweet and a bit weird all round you should enjoy it! 

Rating 7/10 

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