Ferrero Hanuta: Haselnuss-schnitte

Product name: Ferrero Hanuta: Haselnuss-schnitte
Purchase details: £0.89 for a pack of two wafers (monstersweets.co.uk)
Calories: Unsure – estimate 119 per wafer (238 per pack)
Country of origin: Austria 

Tonight’s review is of Ferrero Hanuta: Haselnuss-schnitte and, to be honest, I’d never heard of it before Monster Sweets came along!

According to Wikipedia, ‘Hanuta’ is an acronym for ‘Haselnusstafel’ which is the German word for ‘hazelnut bar’. From the foreign wrapper, I could just about work out that the product contained 13% hazelnut, and Monster Sweets described it as a ‘hazelnut chocolate wafer sandwich’ – just my kind of butty!

This packet contained two 22g square sandwiches that contained ‘a thick layer of rich hazelnut chocolate with hazelnut bits’ which were presented in a typically European wrapper. There was no nutritional information provided so I obtained the estimated calorie count from MyFitnessPal. 

Inside, the lightweight wafers were housed in little foil trays which I wasn’t expecting, and thought was a nice touch. There was an instant hazelnut smell which immediately reminded me of the Hanuta’s relative, Ferrero Rocher – yummy! The product itself was quite plain looking since it essentially consisted of standard wafers and the only colours were different shades of brown. The relatively thick chocolate filling looked dark and appealing and, on cutting into it, it was clear that there were many pieces of hazelnut inside.

 

Since I’d dissected one of the sandwiches for my photographs, I ate the first one in two halves. Alone, the wafer was very crispy and quite thick, and wasn’t actually sweet, which is what I’d expected. I then tried the other half of the wafer which contained the filling and found that the chocolate tasted pretty dark and nutty. Although there were lots of little pieces, it was easy to bite through, and I loved the Nutella-like flavour. I found the combination of the crispiness from the wafers, softness from the chocolate, and crunchiness from the nuts, worked really well together.

On trying the second sandwich, whole, there was still plenty of flavour, but I found it a bit dryer as there was more wafer. For me, this made the chocolate layer a bit less enjoyable so I think the product could be improved by removing the upper wafer layer and making it an open sandwich instead.

Minor criticisms aside, this was another enjoyable product from Ferrero and I appreciated the way that the nuts used were just the right size – they were big enough to add a crunchy texture but small enough that they didn’t get in the way and ruin the overall experience.

Appearance: 7/10
Aroma: 8/10
Taste: 8/10
Texture: 7.5/10
Overall score: 7.63/10

Milka Schoko Drops

Product name: Milka Schoko Drops
Purchase details: £1.09 for a 42g box (monstersweets.co.uk)
Calories: 125 per 25g portion (210 per box)
Country of origin: Austria

Last week I was very excited to receive my latest delivery from Monster Sweets and the first product I’m reviewing was a late addition to my order: Milka Schoko Drops.

Of all the Milka products I’ve ever seen and/or tried, these seemed the most different and were similar in shape and size to Galaxy Minstrels and Nestlé Vice Versas, but with unusual purple and white coloured shells that were unique and fitted the Milka brand perfectly.

The word ‘schoko’ is German for ‘chocolate’ and whilst these Drops did contain Milka’s famous Alpine milk chocolate immediately beneath their candy shells, the main filling was, in fact, a milk cream. This was another difference between Schoko Drops and their Minstrels and Vice Versas equivalents and so I was intrigued to try them.

I absolutely loved the box these Drops came in since, as well as being attractively presented, it had a really cool and easy opening mechanism which I felt deserved its own picture! My only criticism is the box contained 42g when a portion is specified as 25g – surely it wouldn’t have been hard to fit an extra 8g in there to neaten things up a bit?

Unfortunately, these Schoko Drops had absolutely no smell, but they did look pretty and the layers on show when looking at a cross-section looked particularly neat and attractive. The candy shells were lovely and smooth, and not too sweet, and they were nice and crispy to chew. I felt that the three layers worked really well as each section was slightly more flavoursome than the last.

I eat a 72 calorie Kinder Chocolate bar most days with my lunch and, as a result, I’m really familiar with its milky filling. To me, the cream inside these Schoko Drops was very similar and equally milky, although it had a slight added creaminess from the chocolate layer. However, aside from this, I didn’t think the chocolate actually made a huge impact on the product.

Since the main filling was the milky cream rather than chocolate, the texture was softer than if the shells had contained solid chocolate centres. I noticed, as well, that a couple of the pieces had a slightly unusual (and verging on unpleasant) taste, but I think this may have been a defect as the majority of the Drops were very tasty.

Once again, I was generally impressed by this Milka offering. Although the only difference between the white and purple pieces was the colour, I still felt the concept provided some extra variety for the candy market. If I’m honest, I would have preferred these Drops to contain more (or only!) chocolate, but these were definitely a good alternative to the other products out there.

Appearance: 8/10
Aroma: 5/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 6.75/10