Lindt Hello My Name Is: Salted caramel

Product name: Lindt Hello My Name Is: Salted caramel
Purchase details: £0.60 for a 39g bar (tesco.com)
Calories: 199 per bar
Country of origin: Germany

Back in my early blog days I reviewed the new (at the time) Lindt Hello My Name Is range (Caramel brownie, Cookies & cream, Crunchy nougat and Strawberry cheesecake). Having really enjoyed them, I was please to find out about this new addition: Salted caramel.

To my memory, this was the first time I’d had a mainstream salted caramel product, so I was interested to see what Lindt & Sprüngli had come up with.

The overall branding was the same for this bar and I noticed that the wrapper was actually identical to last year’s Caramel brownie – it just featured a puddle of caramel rather than a brownie image. The shape and design of the bar was also unchanged but the inside looked phenomenal and was full of a gooey, viscous caramel.

The bar was described as ‘filled milk chocolate with caramel (45%) and a touch of salt’ and, as much as I like the idea of salted caramel, I was glad of the suggestion that the saltiness would be mild as I prefer sweet flavours! The chocolate contained a minimum of 30% cocoa solids and 14% milk solids and produced an immediately noticeable and strong milky Lindt scent on opening.

As usual, the thick chocolate shell didn’t disappoint. It had a voluptuous melt and a sweet, milky flavour. The caramel popped out of this with ease and provided a soft, smooth and thick sensation, as well as adding to the richness of flavours. The salty aspect almost felt like an afterthought, if I’m honest, but it was still recognisably different to standard caramels.

I would never class caramel-filled chocolates as my favourites, and I definitely prefer sweet tastes to salty ones, so this bar didn’t absolutely astound me in terms of flavour. However, there was no denying its excellent quality, and it did look and feel amazing.

I wonder when we’ll get a peanut butter variety?! 

Appearance: 9/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 9/10
Overall score: 8.25/10

Lindt Hello My Name Is: Caramel brownie

Product name: Lindt Hello My Name Is: Caramel brownie
Purchase details:  £0.60 for a 39g bar (Sainsbury’s Local)
Calories: 214 per bar
Country of origin: Germany

It’s time for the last of my Lindt Hello My Name Is reviews and this one is for the orange-tipped variety: Caramel brownie.

Before reading the product description, and having glanced at the image on the wrapper, I’d assumed this would be a brownie/biscuit base topped with caramel and covered in the usual Lindt milk chocolate. However, the bar actually came described as ‘Filled milk chocolate with caramel (13%) and brownie cream (28%) with dark biscuit pieces (3%)’. I had no idea what brownie cream was but I couldn’t wait to find out!

The aroma of this bar was mainly of milk chocolate, although there was a slight cakey element which fitted the brownie theme. I was expecting the caramel to be really stringy and messy, especially as some of it had leaked out of the bar, but I was pleasantly surprised when my knife cut straight though the chocolate without ruining the appearance (although it was slightly more gooey when breaking the bar!). The colour of the brownie cream was only a subtly different shade of brown to the outer milk chocolate, and the golden caramel sat nicely on top of this. 

This bar had the strongest cocoa flavours of the Hello collection and I felt that the overall taste was probably about right for a brownie, with a slight bitterness but predominant chocolatiness. However, I did find this hard to judge when the main thing I associate with brownies is the texture rather than the taste. The caramel was less noticeable than I thought it would be but it definitely provided a slight sweetness.

I’ve already mentioned that, for me, the texture is the most important part of a brownie, and this obviously couldn’t be replicated exactly in a chocolate bar. However, I thought Lindt did a great job of reflecting the main qualities in this product. The caramel added a gooeyness that mirrored a brownie’s squidgy centre, whilst the biscuit pieces were the right consistency for the slightly crispy shell that a perfectly baked brownie has. The great thing, though, was that this bar was still very much a chocolate bar. The brownie cream had a truffle-like texture, and the caramel was really silky. This Caramel brownie flavour offered a slower melt than the other varieties in the range, but the biscuit pieces were also less bitty and so allowing the chocolate to melt was more worth the wait.

I did think that Lindt Hello My Name Is: Caramel brownie was the least innovative of the Hello range since it was effectively a fancier caramel chocolate but, as usual, Lindt did a good job in producing a great-tasting product. Whilst this was my least favourite of the four bars, I think it would be the safest option for a lot of people who are unsure which variety to try as it wasn't too sweet and it was certainly tasty. 

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

Lindt Hello My Name Is: Strawberry cheesecake

Product name: Lindt Hello My Name Is: Strawberry cheesecake
Purchase details: £0.60 for a 39g bar (Sainsbury’s Local)
Calories: 215 per bar
Country of origin: Germany 

Next up in my reviews of the Lindt Hello My Name Is range is this Strawberry cheesecake variety which is the one I was most intrigued by. Having recently tried a couple of yoghurt-based fruity chocolates (see Ritter Sport Himbeer-Cranberry Joghurt and Ritter Sport Erdbeer Vanille-Waffel), I wondered if this would be a similar experience or if it genuinely would taste like cheesecake.

The sophisticated presentation continued with this bar, with the Strawberry cheesecake flavour being indicated by the red tips on the black wrapper. I only had to open this a tiny bit to be greeted by a beautiful fruity smell. Whilst I wouldn’t say this smelt of real strawberries, I immediately associated the scent with the strawberries and cream Campino sweets I loved as a kid, and thought this boded well for a creamy taste.

 

Once again, when cutting into the soft chocolate to reveal its pale pink centre flecked with a darker shade of pink, the knife met with resistance – this time, from biscuit pieces which were obviously intended to replicate a cheesecake base.

Like the Cookies & cream and Crunchy nougat varieties, the milk chocolate was smooth and creamy and melted well on the tongue. The ‘strawberry cream cheese’ filling made up 45% of the bar (although only 1% was ‘cream cheese powder’, and real strawberries, respectively!) and was very sweet, making the cocoa taste almost bitter in comparison. It was a really nice combination and gave the chocolate shell more prominence compared to the role it played in the other flavours I’ve tried in the range. 

As for the 3% biscuit content, whilst the crunch was nice, I felt it didn’t provide the digestive base element I’d hoped for. Furthermore, I found there were a few too many pieces of biscuit in each square since, when letting a piece melt in my mouth, I nearly choked on the bits of biscuit that were left behind! However, this wasn’t a problem when chewing on the bar.

I really enjoyed this bar, on the whole, and thought the ratio of chocolate to strawberry was spot on. If I’m honest, the filling seemed more yoghurt- than cheesecake-like, but I also acknowledge that the presence of chocolate may have distracted from any cheesecake similarities.

I think that if the flavours of this bar were combined with the texture of the Cookies & cream bar (with the slightly larger biscuit pieces), this Strawberry cheesecake bar would be close to perfection!

 
Appearance: 8.5/10
Aroma: 8.5/10
Taste: 8/10
Texture: 8/10
Overall score: 8.25/10

Lindt Hello My Name Is: Crunchy nougat

Product name: Lindt Hello My Name Is: Crunchy nougat 

Purchase details: £0.60 for a 39g bar (Sainsbury’s Local) 

Calories: 215 per bar
Country of origin: Germany

Out of the new Lindt Hello My Name Is range, I was least excited about trying this Crunchy nougat variety. I’ve always associated nougat with a white or pale brown chewy and/or fluffy mass and, whilst I don’t dislike it, it’s not my favourite thing in the world. However, I still wanted to give this bar a go and was intrigued by the wrapper’s depiction of a darker brown filling.

The presentation of this bar was identical to that of Lindt Hello My Name Is: Cookies & cream (see here) except with blue tips on the wrapper instead of yellow. The contrast between the outer chocolate and the filling was also on a lesser scale but the product still looked very inviting.

I was taken aback by the smell of this chocolate as, whilst not strong, there was a definite praline element which I put down to the bar containing 3% hazelnut brittle. Another 3% was made up of wafer pieces and the crunch of these two ingredients were immediately felt when cutting into the chocolate, although I can’t say they were particularly visible.

As for the taste, I was very confused since 38% of the bar was made up of nougat, but all I could taste was the praline that the aroma had hinted at! I absolutely love praline, and the nuttiness here contrasted wonderfully with the milk chocolate, but I just couldn’t work out how this was nougat. Therefore, I headed over to the wonders of Wikipedia and discovered that there is a German kind of nougat made of a chocolate and nut praline, and where was this bar made? Germany. There you go – you learn something new every day!

As with the Cookies & cream bar, this Crunchy nougat version melted well in the mouth. However, I did find that that the hazelnut and wafer pieces made it a little bit too ‘bitty’. The chocolate and nougat were so lovely and soft but the praline just seemed to be full of these crispy pieces. However, I did really enjoy the flavours each ingredient contributed and found that the combination of the creamy praline and wafer, particularly, created a taste very similar to another favourite of mine: Ferrero Rocher.

I really did love the flavour of Lindt Hello My Name Is: Crunchy nougat but, as much as I can see that it’s important for the product name, I would have liked slightly less crunch. I didn’t dislike the bar’s texture, but I did find its bittiness slightly spoilt what was, otherwise, a fantastic product.

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