Cadbury Crunchums

Product name: Cadbury Crunchums
Purchase details: £0.99 for a 105g bag (Home Bargains)
Calories: 185 per 1/3 of a bag (530 per 100g)
Country of origin: Europe

I’ve been waiting to try these Cadbury Crunchums for a while. Served in a sharing bag, really, they’re ideal for a film night with friends. However, this is the sort of snack I prefer to use up spare calories on by having a few grams here and there.

Crunchums are pieces of maize cereal coated in Cadbury chocolate and on opening the resealable bag, the familiar Cadbury aroma was evident, but I also detected a hint of saltiness.

The image on the front of the packet depicted pieces of cereal that I would describe as ‘pillows’. However, I was surprised to find that the majority of the Crunchums in my packet had holes in the sides. I had thought that this aspect of the product image had been a cross-section, but apparently not. This wasn’t in any way an issue – just not what I had been expecting! Similarly, I thought the pieces would be more uniform in shape, but as the small selection I’ve pictured shows, there was quite a bit of variety.

Visually, the chocolate wasn’t as smooth I’d expect from Cadbury, and was rather dull but, I have to say, I was more interested in what the cereal looked like as it was a concept I couldn’t quite envisage. It turned out to be a yellow colour with a very bubbly texture, not too dissimilar to cornflakes, but with finer bubbles. This lighter shade contrasted well with the milk chocolate.

On tasting the Crunchums, I discovered that I hadn’t imagined the saltiness in the smell – this element was very much present in the maize and particularly noticeable towards the end of each bite when the initial chocolate hit had evaporated. The sweetness of the chocolate worked really well with this salty flavour, and the cool, creamy texture meant that the whole experience was like eating a chocolate-based cereal as the absence of milk wasn’t felt.

As you’d expect from the name ‘Crunchums’, these cereal pillows were very crispy, although it was still possible to let the chocolate melt before reaching the maize centres. However, when eating the product in this way, it was hard not to accidentally crush the cereal in the process of sucking the chocolate off!

On the whole, I feel a bit torn by this Cadbury offering. The Crunchums offered something different to other sharing bags currently available on the UK market, and they were certainly very enjoyable, but I’m afraid they just didn’t excite me as much as they could have done. However, I’d still buy them again. 

Appearance: 6.5/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 8.5/10
Texture: 8/10
Overall score: 7.63/10