Reese's Nutrageous

Product name: Reese’s Nutrageous
Purchase details: Tesco Superstore
Calories: 260 per 51g bar
Country of origin: USA

Last week, I reviewed Oh Henry! Peanut Butter (see here) and thoroughly enjoyed it. Today, I’m bringing you the promised review of Reese’s Nutrageous – a bar that is an identical concept (even down to being produced by Hershey and containing Reese’s peanut butter).

I ate a lot of Nutrageous bars a couple of years ago when they could regularly be found for the bargain price of 29p in Home Bargains. It’s been a while since I’ve had one, though, and this bar was kindly bought for my by a colleague who knows me very well. As a result, I don’t know how much it cost, but I do know it was purchased in a Tesco Superstore.

I loved the glossy orange wrapper this Reese’s bar came in, and the product inside looked very appetising. At 51g, the bar was slightly shorter than the Oh Henry! alternative but, aside from that, its outer appearance was very similar. Although both bars are covered in a ‘chocolate flavoured coating’, I was pleased that the Nutrageous bar didn’t feel ‘melty’ between my fingers and so it seemed to be of a better quality. Inside, the peanuts looked slightly smaller than the ones present in the Oh Henry! bar, and I also noticed that the caramel was gathered at the base of the bar rather than encircling the peanut butter core.

  
As I’d expect from a Reese’s product, this bar smelt fantastic with a strong, nutty scent which was actually creamier and richer than I remembered. I couldn’t wait to taste it once again.

Whilst the sweet chocolatey coating wasn’t greasy to hold, it did melt nicely in the mouth, and the crunchy peanuts beneath its surface were a nice size. What I did find was that the strong nuttiness of the bar came from the peanuts themselves rather than the peanut butter. Unfortunately, I found it really hard to pick up on the peanut butter which, for me, is the key ingredient. Its saltiness was detectable but not overly powerful.

As for the texture, I actually found the Nutrageous to be slightly dry. Surprisingly, the caramel made a bigger impact than it did with the Oh Henry! Peanut Butter bar as it was particularly chewy and stringy. Together with the peanuts, these were the most noticeable ingredients. What I would have loved is for the crumbly peanut butter to have played a larger role in the bar, and with a real chocolate coating to add some extra creaminess.

If you’d told me a couple of years ago that I’d find a bar to rival the Reese’s Nutrageous, I wouldn’t have believed you, but now I’ve tried them both, I have to say that the Oh Henry! Peanut Butter is my winner. I think the ratio of ingredients is very similar, if not the same, but by having the caramel layer spread more evenly around the peanut butter, a better and less chewy texture is achieved and the flavour from the peanut butter isn’t as diminished.

That said, I do still love the Nutrageous and will no doubt continue to buy it!

 
Appearance: 8.5/10
Aroma: 9/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 7.5/10
Overall score: 8.13/10