Nestlé Lion: Peanut

Product name: Nestlé Lion: Peanut
Calories: 195 per 40g bar
Country of origin: Poland

It’s been a good couple of years or so since I last had a Nestlé Lion: Peanut and this bar was kindly bought for me by a colleague who said she thinks of me every time she sees something containing peanut butter. As it happens, the Lion: Peanut only contains actual peanuts rather than peanut butter, but that wasn’t exactly a problem!

 

This bar came in an orange wrapper that contained illustrations of a lion (the animal) and a Lion (the chocolate bar). The description given was of ‘filled wafer covered with caramel (29.9%), crisp cereals (3.3%) and peanuts in cocoa icing’ and, as suggested by the name, it was the peanuts that made this variety different from the standard one. I also thought it was interesting that the coating was listed an icing rather than chocolate!

The Lion was really knobbly on the outside, but had a neat appearance inside, with a central wafer surrounded by a layer of caramel and crisped rice around the edges. I’m not going to pretend it smelt as good as Reese’s products but it did have a nice nutty and chocolatey smell too.

Despite not being actual chocolate, the coating had a good flavour and was quite nutty. It had a thicker texture and was less smooth than ordinary chocolate but I had no complaints about it. Combined with the other ingredients, the bar had a great texture since it mixed crunchy, chewy and crispy elements really well. I did find it difficult to differentiate between the feel of the rice and the wafer, but this wasn’t an issue, and I also didn’t find it frustrating that caramel tended to be the last thing to disappear as its chewiness meant it took slightly longer to swallow.

Overall, the Lion: Peanut was sweet but had just the right level of nuttiness to it in order to tame it. These nuts also had a slightly toasted taste to them which was a nice additional flavour. What was even better, for me, was the fact that the layers between the wafers tasted like peanut butter even though this wasn’t listed on the ingredients list – winner!

I don’t think I’ll be leaving it so long next time... 

Appearance: 9/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 7.5/10
Overall score: 7.75/10