Lindt Creation: Fraîcheur acidulée (citron frappe)

Product name: Lindt Creation: Fraîcheur acidulée (citron frappe)
Purchase details: £0.99 for a 150g bar (99p Stores)
Calories: 394 per half bar
Country of origin: France

Traditionally, lemon isn’t my favourite flavour, but this Lindt Creation: Fraîcheur acidulée (citron frappe) caught my eye as something different and, since I trust the Lindt brand, I thought it would be worth giving a go.

The packaging of this Lindt & Sprüngli bar was in French so I couldn’t read most of it but there was a helpful English translation that told me it was ‘fine milk chocolate with ganache and concentrated lemon filling’ which included concentrated lemon juice (2%).

On getting the bar home, I had a quick look online for a couple of further translations and found that ‘Fraîcheur acidulée’ meant ‘tangy freshness’. This alarmed me slightly as I was hoping for something a bit more mellow, but I was still optimistic that I’d like what was described as a ‘new chocolate experience’. The wrapper also advised that this chocolate was best eaten fresh from the fridge. This went against all my instincts about not chilling the brown stuff so I decided to compromise and eat half at room temperature and half cold.

This bar had the same outer appearance as Lindt’s other Creation bars (such as the Coconut) but its very pale inside almost looked like Kendal mint cake. There was almost a hint of orange in the aroma but I could also smell a subtle lemon flavour – for me, its weakness was a good thing!

Starting with the room temperature half, I initially tried a couple of specks of the chocolate that had broken off and it definitely had a citrus element but, again, this was a bit like orange chocolate. On tasting it properly, though, I could tell that it was the usual Lindt milk chocolate, but a tang of lemon did remain on its surface when it was peeled away from the filling. This centre was a bit like fondant and very much had a lemon flavour but its strength was perfect and reminded me of what you get in a lemon meringue pie. It also balanced well with the creamy, sweet chocolate (although the lemon was the dominant flavour), and the quite thick, squidgy, gooey texture was very enjoyable. I can’t deny it was much nicer than I expected and a lot like a dessert. For some reason, it reminded me of Christmas, but I couldn’t quite work out why – I ended up concluding that I associated it with the kind of chocolates I find in gift boxes at that time of year! This was a lot nicer, though, and had enough of a tartness to the flavour that eating more than five squares at once would have been too much.

The chilled chocolate obviously didn’t melt easily (not helped by the large pieces meaning it had to be broken down a bit first!) but the lemon did seep out nicely when attempting this. The change in temperature made the lemon feel fresher, more concentrated and its acidity was a bit more ‘zippy’, but the main change was definitely the texture which had a much crunchier shell, and a slightly chewy centre.

Personal preference for unchilled chocolate meant that this was how I preferred to consume this bar of Lindt Creation but, either way, the variety was far nicer than I could have hoped and felt like such a treat.

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

Nestlé Le Chocolat: στρατσιατέλα

Product name: Nestlé Le Chocolat: στρατσιατέλα
Purchase details: £0.59 for a 90g bar (99p Stores)
Calories: 124 per 22.5g serving (498 per bar)

Every now and then I pick up an interesting-looking product and then wonder how on Earth I’m going to review it when its name uses characters which are foreign to me. Thankfully, the wonderful world of the internet has meant I’ve been able to properly name this Nestlé Le Chocolat: στρατσιατέλα, but how you pronounce that last word, I have absolutely no clue!

It was the shiny silver wrapper that caught my attention, adorned with images of what appeared to be cookies and cream chocolate and ice cream, so I took a guess that this bar would be along the same lines as Lindt Lindor: Stracciatella. Although the entire wrapper was in Greek, there a small English translation on an added label, and this told me it was ‘white chocolate with dark chocolate chips and crispies’. With it being white chocolate, I was happy to give it a go anyway, but I did later translate the Greek Nestlé website  which turned ‘στρατσιατέλα’ into ‘stratsiatela’ which Google seemed to think was the same thing as ‘stracciatella’ – boom!

I felt the bar was very good-looking with visibly wide spread dark chocolate chips (7%), as well as the rice ‘crisp pieces’ (2%) that could be seen through the base. Strangely, the dark chocolate seemed to have its own filling that almost looked like biscuit, but I couldn’t work this out. The white chocolate itself was divided into 28 small, slightly curved pieces that each featured a little decoration, and I later found their size to be just right with the level of flavour on offer.

Although there was an absence of a drifting scent, the bar did have a white chocolate smell up-close. It also had a good snap to it, although I found the texture to be quite unusual. The white chocolate seemed to separate out when chewing, but this was also broken up with splinters of dark chocolate, as well as the crispy pieces. Alternatively, the white chocolate did melt, but this was slow and not very smooth. Although the pieces left behind were a little bit uncomfortable, I didn’t find the bar to be too bitty, so this was a plus for me.

I found the melting flavour to be more like a milky vanilla ice cream rather than white chocolate and this was pretty nice. However, despite containing a minimum of 50% cocoa solids, the dark chocolate only seemed to add texture rather than flavour.

When chewing, the flavour was a bit more like white chocolate, although this still wasn’t majorly the case. Fairly early on, there was a familiar burn at the back of the throat and a hint that the bar was going to become too sickly to eat a lot of, but it actually turned out to be perfectly manageable. It was by no means amazing but it certainly wasn’t bad.

This Nestlé Le Chocolat: στρατσιατέλα was a nice little find but I’m not about to swap my favourite white chocolates for this one!

Appearance: 8.5/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 7.38/10

Ritter Sport White + Crisp

Product name: Ritter Sport White + Crisp
Purchase details: £0.75 for a 100g bar (99p Stores)
Calories: 536 per bar
Country of origin: Germany

I don’t know what’s up with my memory but this bar of Ritter Sport White + Crisp, like the White Whole Hazelnuts, was a variety I thought I’d tried before. As a result, I didn’t pick it up at the same time as the Espresso, so I had to make a special return trip to buy the bargain once I’d realised my mistake!

From the name, it would be easy to assume that this bar would be like an interesting white chocolate and higher quality version of the Nestlé Crunch and, in many ways, it was. However as well as containing 6% ‘crispy rice’, another 6% of the bar was ‘crunchy roasted cornflakes’. As usual, I was able to find the nutritional information on the Ritter Sport website.

The cream wrapper was similar to the White Whole Hazelnuts but lacked the cool effect of making the packaging look like the chocolate itself. The bar’s appearance wasn’t far off the Weisse Cocos, either, although there was an abundance of orange cornflakes in addition to the rice cereal. I particularly loved the strange sensation of breaking up the 16 squares since they had a solid snap, with a real crisp right in the middle, and this allowed pieces of cornflake to poke out at random.

The white chocolate had a rich and milky scent which was a little sickly but, in terms of taste, it was nothing short of beautiful and strong. It was so crammed full of bits that it had a really hard texture which, at times, made it feel like it contained more cereal than chocolate! I really did love the crispiness of it all, though, and it reminded me of a non-gooey version of the Chocolate crispy bites I made last year.

As usual, I tried sucking on some of the squares too, with limited success. The top of the chocolate melted nicely as this contained less cereal but the base was a bit painful so I found I had to keep shifting its position! I tended to give up after a while and chew on the remainder but this was totally worth it as the chocolatey cereal was still very enjoyable.

 

I never expect to not enjoy a Ritter Sport product but I couldn’t work out what it was about this apparently simple concept that made it so very special. Then it hit me...it reminded me of one of my long-term favourites – the Nestlé Kit Kat: Chunky (white choc).

Love, love, love, love, LOVE!

Appearance: 8.5/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 8.5/10
Texture: 8.5/10
Overall score: 8.13/10

Ritter Sport Espresso

Product name: Ritter Sport Espresso
Purchase details: £0.75 for a 100g bar (99p Stores)

Calories: 567 per bar
Country of origin: Germany

As much I don’t like to drink coffee, I love it in chocolate and cake, so I was delighted to find this absolute bargain bar of Ritter Sport Espresso.

Coming in a rich dark brown wrapper with images of chocolate and coffee, it was made ‘with robust Arabica coffee’ which, I’ve got to admit, meant nothing to me! The ‘milk chocolate with a coffee cream (45%) filling’ sounded a lot more up my street, though. There was no nutritional information provided but, thankfully, I was able to obtain this from Ritter Sport's website.

The bar had a very similar appearance to the Kakao-Mousse but it was split into 16 smaller squares instead of nine larger ones. The filling did look mousse-like, though, and this caused the bar to break apart softly too. It was also considerably darker than the chocolate shell despite the wrapper giving the opposite impression.

On peeling open the packaging, I was greeted with a scent that was just like opening a jar of instant coffee – it was very strong (I couldn’t smell the chocolate over it) but didn’t give me the headache that fresh coffee does.

The bar contained 4% espresso powder and I couldn’t believe how strong the coffee flavour actually was. I’ve tasted the odd granule here and there (as you do) and it tasted exactly like that. However, the chocolate (containing a minimum of 30% cocoa solids and 18% milk solids) meant there was no intense bitterness like in a real cup of coffee.

Texturally, the chocolate had an incredibly thick but soft melt that needed the tongue to spring into action in order to get each square to completely disappear. Eating the bar in this way allowed the almost dirty flavour to be eased into, having worked through the creamy and slightly sweet chocolate. Alternatively, chewing the bar weakened the power of the coffee, allowing the chocolate flavour to come out a little more.

No one could claim that this bar lacked flavour but, for me, it wasn’t my favourite kind. Its ‘coffeeness’ was a lot stronger than your average assortment box coffee creams but, equally, it was far better quality. I definitely liked this Ritter Sport Espresso but the emphasis was very much on the coffee rather than the chocolate and I would have preferred it to be the other way around.

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