Cadbury Dairy Milk: Oreo

Product name: Cadbury Dairy Milk: Oreo
Purchase details: £0.60 for a 41g bar or three for £1.20 (Tesco Superstore)
Calories: 225 per bar
Country of origin: UK

As much as I love Oreo cookies, I’ve only ever had Cadbury Dairy Milk: Oreo once before as it was originally only available in a large bar format which wasn’t convenient on my diet. As a result, I was delighted when Mondelez released this new individual portion size, although it’s taken me until now to eat one!

The ‘milk chocolate with a vanilla flavour filling (36%) and biscuit pieces (17%)’ came in the expected purple wrapper which also featured an Oreo logo and image. The bar was divided into six pieces which, unusually, didn’t feature the Cadbury logo, although the simple decoration it did have bore a striking resemblance to the Milka Leo. The cookie pieces gave a speckled effect to the chocolate (containing 23% milk solids) and, inside, the bar was full of the creme and biscuit pieces.

The Dairy Milk had the familiar scent but with a slight element of vanilla mixed in. The taste wasn’t quite as I remembered in that it wasn’t noticeably of Oreo at all – the filling wasn’t quite sugary enough and the biscuit didn’t have the hint of bitterness I’ve come to expect. However, it was still sweet and creamy with an added biscuit flavour, so a general cookies and cream theme was present within the chocolate.

Texturally, the bar was very crispy but soft too. As usual, the chocolate had a nice melt, although this was combined with the bitty biscuits. I found the size of these cookie pieces to be perfect as it provided a great crunch and the feel of eating proper biscuits, without losing the cushioned feel of the vanilla filling.

This bar was nothing short of delicious. I did struggle to connect its flavour with the Oreo brand but, nevertheless, it was a very enjoyable product which I’ll definitely be buying more often now it’s available in single servings!

Appearance: 8/10
Aroma: 8/10
Taste: 8/10
Texture: 8.5/10
Overall score: 8.13/10

Cadbury Dairy Milk: Freddo (caramel)

Product name: Cadbury Dairy Milk: Freddo (caramel)
Purchase details: £1.00 for a multipack of five bars (Poundworld)
Calories: 94 per 19.5g bar
Country of origin: UK

This review of Cadbury Dairy Milk: Freddo (caramel) from Mondelez will only be short since it was essentially an amalgamation of the standard Freddo and the Dairy Milk: Caramel.

Slightly sneakily, there were only five of these ‘milk chocolate with soft caramel (30%)’ bars in the pack, although I did quite like how the featured sport the frog was participating in on this wrapper was canoeing...in a river of caramel – yummy!

The bar was the usual Freddo shape but its thin design meant that the caramel filling wasn’t particularly thick or visible. However, this did mean that the Dairy Milk scent was as strong as if the caramel wasn’t there...every cloud!

As I’d expected, the bar tasted identical to the Dairy Milk: Caramel – the smooth caramel simply felt thin against the two comparatively thick chocolate layers. Furthermore, whilst allowing the product to melt on the tongue did make the caramel feel a little elastic, the different ratios meant that biting the bar didn’t provide the slightly chewy aspect I’d previously experienced.

All in all, another winning formula from Cadbury.

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 8/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 7.5/10
Overall score: 7.5/10

Cadbury Dairy Milk

Product name: Cadbury Dairy Milk
Purchase details: £1.79 for a multipack of six bars (Home Bargains)
Calories: 191 per 36g bar
Country of origin: UK

I’ve reviewed lots of Cadbury Dairy Milk products so far on my blog but, bizarrely, not the original – the nearest I’ve got is with the Freddo and Buttons but these different formats, understandably, provide different textural experiences. The majority of features of these Fairtrade bars from Mondelez were the same, though.

The scent was unchanged and the flavour and melt were as good as always.

I’m not quite sure when the shape of the six pieces changed again but the cylindrical bubbles had a nice depth to them which made the pellets a great shape for the mouth and seemed to release more of a milky taste.

As a final thought, I’ve really been liking Cadbury’s updated packaging recently. The wrappers all seem to feature different items that are made of chocolate. In this case, it was a milk urn...if only real life involved everything being made out of Dairy Milk!

Appearance: 7/10
Aroma: 8/10
Taste: 8/10
Texture: 8.5/10
Overall score: 7.78/10

Cadbury Dairy Milk: Freddo

Product name: Cadbury Dairy Milk: Freddo
Purchase details: £1.00 for a multipack of six bars (Tesco)
Calories: 95 per 18g bar
Country of origin: UK

I don’t usually buy the famous Freddo anymore on principle – I miss the days when they were £0.10 each! However, I was becoming aware of how many uneaten higher-calorie treats I currently have ‘in stock’ and, since I need (yes, need!) some chocolate every day, I thought I’d buy some smaller bars to help me get through the other non-chocolate goodies as accompaniments. Since Cadbury Dairy Milk is always good, I felt it wouldn’t hurt to pay more than I would have done ‘back in my day’ on this occasion!

The purple wrapper featured the brand’s frog holding a tennis racquet. Quite what that had to do with anything, I don’t know, but there you go. Having said that, I did wonder if there was meant to be a general sporting theme going on, since the Australian strawberry variety involved surfing.

I’ve already covered most of the bases of this Mondelez product in my review of the popping candy version so I won’t repeat myself here. This one obviously didn’t contain the bits, though, so it didn’t have the unattractive speckle when I opened it.

As I said in the popping candy review, I did enjoy the chunky, thick and slightly grainy texture more when I didn’t have the distraction of the crackly pieces and, as a result, this was another good way to serve this classic Cadbury recipe.

It’s just a shame about inflation...

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 8/10
Taste: 8/10
Texture: 8/10
Overall score: 7.88/10

Cadbury Dairy Milk: Mousse snowman (chocolate)

Product name: Cadbury Dairy Milk: Mousse snowman (chocolate)
Purchase details: £0.65 for a 30g bar or three for £1.20 (tesco.com)
Calories: 168 per bar

I may have only recently finished eating my stock from last Christmas, and I know it’s only September, but it’s time for my first review of Christmas 2014.

I could have sworn I’d had the vanilla version of the Cadbury Dairy Milk: Mousse snowman last year but, as I haven’t reviewed it, I must have just read so many other reviews of it that it felt like I’d tried one myself! Anyway, this chocolate variety is new so it’s the one I decided to buy. I did think it was expensive for the size but the multibuy made it better (although my third item was out of stock so it ended up being £0.40 by itself!).

I was pleased to see that the knitted theme had returned for this Christmas’ Cadbury packaging, and I thought the snowman on the front looked really cute in its scarf. The lovely and glossy ‘milk chocolate with a soft milk chocolate flavoured mousse filling (37%)’ was also shaped into an adorable snowman with a little hat and carrot nose.

Made using the usual Dairy Milk recipe, the snowman had a beautiful, deep and creamy scent and it tasted delicious. The inner mousse was a slightly paler colour and was richer than I expected but this tasted great against the sweeter shell. It was soft, smooth and melted well, reminding me more of a truffle than a mousse. The shape of the product really added to the overall experience, too, by providing variety in the ratio of chocolate to mousse – no mouthful was the same but each one was incredibly enjoyable.

I remember trying another snowman-shaped chocolate last year, in the form of The Snowman chocolate truffle in the Thorntons The Snowman and The Snowdog: Christmas selection box, and being a bit underwhelmed by the flavour. For me, this Dairy Milk alternative nailed the concept, in comparison, as there was a clear difference in taste between the chocolate and the mousse.

Thank you, Mondelez, for another tasty treat for us lucky people in the UK and Ireland!

Appearance: 9/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 8.5/10
Texture: 8.5/10
Overall score: 8.38/10