Snickers Squared: Peanut butter

Product name: Snickers Squared: Peanut butter
Purchase details: monstersweets.co.uk
Calories: 250 per bar
Country of origin: USA 

I’ve mentioned in the past that as much as I love peanut butter, I’m not a huge fan of peanuts on their own. They’re fine in things but, if something’s too peanut-heavy, I’m not likely to particularly enjoy it. The original Snickers bar is an example of this – on paper, I should like it, but I just find there are too many peanuts in there. The peanut butter Snickers, though? Well, that’s another story!

Snickers Squared: Peanut butter is available for £1.25 on Monster Sweets' website but I was kindly sent this bar for free as part of their post-purchase website review scheme. The 50.5g pack contained two square pieces and came presented in an unusual yellow wrapper which, I suppose, hinted at the peanut butter theme – the Snickers logo remained unchanged and the product was ‘distributed by Mars Chocolate North America’.

Each ‘real’ milk chocolate coated piece contained peanut butter, peanuts, caramel and nougat. The squares were actually quite small in size but they were deep. The chocolate looked ok and quite thick but it did feel slightly waxy. The inside, though, looked amazing. The peanut butter filling was massive in comparison to the other components, with just a thin layer of caramel on the top and a thin layer of nougat underneath. The actual peanuts were mixed into the peanut butter but, thankfully, there weren’t too many of them. Whilst all of the layers were varying shades of brown, the contrast between them was really nice. However, I was slightly concerned by how pale the peanut butter was since this seemed to be unusual and I feared it may result in a weak flavour.

Smell-wise, the bar had a strong peanut scent, mixed with a little chocolate, and was easily recognisable as a Snickers. It did seem to be slightly different, though, in that it had a nuttier scent than normal, but I can’t say I associated this additional element with peanut butter.

The chocolate was quite flexible and didn’t have a very strong flavour, but it did provide some resistance before reaching all the different elements inside. The caramel had a rich, sweet flavour and provided a nice chewiness, whilst the nuts were very crunchy with an expected peanut taste. The peanut butter’s texture was thick but, disappointingly, it wasn’t the strongest of flavours and was a far cry from Reese’s. It did provide a little saltiness, though, and this went well with the additional sweetness that came from the nougat. I’d say it was the nougat that made this product unique since, whilst the Oh Henry! Peanut Butter and Reese's Nutrageous have the chocolate, caramel, peanut butter and peanuts, they don’t have this. On the flip side, I’m not sure it was really needed!

There is no doubting that, for me, this Snickers Squared: Peanut butter was preferable to the original Snickers – it wasn’t too bitty and there was certainly a lot going on with all the different elements. However, I did feel that the flavour wasn’t what it could have been. Considering the size of the peanut butter centre, I really think this should have had a bigger impact on the tastebuds. Even so, I have one simple response to the wrapper’s suggestion of twisting it closed to ‘save one for later’: ‘er...no!’. 

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 7.5/10
Overall score: 7.25/10