McVitie's Milky Way: Cake bars

Product name: McVitie’s Milky Way: Cake bars
Purchase details: £0.99 for a pack of 10 bars (Home Bargains)
Calories: 120 per bar
Country of origin: UK 

I was attracted to this great value pack of McVitie’s Milky Way: Cake bars as, unlike most other cake bars, the sponge wasn’t chocolate flavoured.

Containing no artificial flavours or colours, and no preservatives, the bars were ‘baked under licence for Mars UK’, and came in packaging that featured the usual Milky Way branding.

The ‘individually wrapped light sponge cakes, with a creamy filling covered in milk chocolate’ were of a decent size and, outwardly, didn’t look dissimilar from standard Milky Ways. The smooth chocolate coating with a drizzle design made up a surprising but impressive 42% of the product and, inside, the pale yellow sponge looked very neat, topped with a deep, white creamy layer.

At the risk of sounding daft, the bars smelt like...well, cake and chocolate! That’s not to be confused with chocolate cake, though, as whilst both elements were present, the aroma wasn’t exactly special or enticing.

Despite its large quantity, the chocolate shell was quite thin and bendy, allowing me to pick some off to sample the different parts of the bar on their own. The chocolate itself was milky and sweet, whilst the soft sponge tasted very much like standard cake, with a slight vanilla element. It was the topping that stole the show, however, with its whipped cream feel and a taste that was quite like a standard Milky Way’s nougat.

All in all, there was no doubting that these light Cake bars were aimed at kids since they tasted very sweet and innocent. However, although I enjoyed the individual components, I did find that when eating the bars properly, they had a slightly strange aftertaste that I couldn’t put my finger on. Unfortunately, this did detract from their standalone enjoyability.

On the plus side, I really loved their soft and moist feel. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that they had one of the best textures (if not the best!) I’ve ever had in a cake bar.

As far as the connection to the Milky Way brand goes, there was certainly an element of the familiar childhood taste there, but this definitely wasn’t as good as the real thing. Did I mention that I loved the texture, though?!

Appearance: 8.5/10
Aroma: 6.5/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 9/10
Overall score: 7.75/10