Nestlé Yorkie: Peanut

Product name: Nestlé Yorkie: Peanut
Purchase details: £0.60 for a 43g bar or three for £1.20 (Tesco)
Calories: 248 per bar
Country of origin: UK

Well this is one exciting, new and limited edition product that nearly passed me by! I hadn’t (and still haven’t) heard a thing about the Nestlé Yorkie: Peanut but saw them mixed in with a stand of other Yorkie bars in Tesco. Once I’d convinced myself that the unusual jet black wrapper wasn’t an indication of Hallowe’en or dark chocolate, it went straight into my basket!

Choosing to ignore the typically sexist slogan of ‘man fuel for man stuff’, this bar was described as ‘chunky milk chocolate with peanuts (25%)’ which were roasted. The chocolate consisted of a minimum of 25% cocoa solids and 14% milk solids and was part of Nestlé’s Cocoa Plan.

The bar was the same in style as the Raisin & biscuit and was divided into five pieces that were full of dark-centred peanuts (the fact the chocolate splintered when I cut into it demonstrates how full each piece was!). These produced a really strong nutty scent that actually smelt a lot like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

The Yorkie’s chocolate itself was unchanged from the usual kind and it tasted nice and sweet against the nuts – I particularly loved the roasted aspect of these. It had a nice yet chunky melt but the bar was also really satisfying to chew as the nuts were really crunchy. To my amazement, the flavour was very similar to peanut butter, and the overall product reminded me of a simpler Reese's Nutrageous.

I genuinely didn’t expect this bar to be as good as it was but it was such a delight to eat. I’m gutted it’s only a limited edition...please don’t take it away from me!

Appearance: 8.5/10
Aroma: 8/10
Taste: 8.5/10
Texture: 8.5/10
Overall score: 8.38/10

Nestlé Kit Kat

Product name: Nestlé Kit Kat
Purchase details: £1.00 for a multipack of four four finger bars (Tesco Superstore)
Calories: 233 per 45g bar
Country of origin: UK

I ate a lot of two finger Kit Kats growing up but the four finger kind has always been a much rarer treat. I definitely prefer the depth of chocolate on the Kit Kat: Chunky, these days, but I figured I might as well review the original.

This bar contained the famous red branding and a nice image of the bar, but I did find it a bit strange that the fingers on the wrapper were completely smooth, rather than containing an imprint of the product logo – not very realistic! The packaging also followed suit with the other varieties by being made of glossy plastic rather than the paper and foil of my childhood.

Like most (if not all?) Nestlé products these days, the ‘four crispy wafer fingers covered with milk chocolate’ contained no artificial flavours, colours or preservatives. As well as this, the chocolate (66%) was part of their Cocoa Plan, and the cocoa, sugar and vanilla used in the recipe were all Fairtrade.

The rectangular bar was uniform in appearance but I did notice that the chocolate was a lot thinner on the base, where the wafer was clearly visible. What made me smile to myself, though, was the way that I’m now so familiar with the Chunky bars that I see these standard ones as a smaller version of them rather than the other way around!

Understandably, the sensory experiences on offer were largely unchanged from the Kit Kat: Chunky. The aroma was identical and the flavour was also the same, although I found it had a slightly metallic element to it. As for the texture, the wafer remained incredibly crispy but I found myself missing being able to bite off the chocolate layer on its own. However, this thinner outer lay didn’t detract from the overall chocolatey flavour, so I was very pleased about that.

You’ve got to love a classic like the Nestlé Kit Kat. Just do me a favour and make sure you eat them properly (finger by finger) – none of this, please!

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

Nestlé Smarties

Product name: Nestlé Smarties
Purchase details: £1.00 for a multipack of four tubes (Tesco)
Calories: 88 per half tube (176 per 38g tube)
Country of origin: UK

Back in my day, Nestlé Smarties came in a smooth, cylindrical tubes with different coloured plastic lids that had a different letter of the alphabet on the inside...I loved them! In my opinion, they’ve never been the same since the packaging became a hexagonal cardboard tube with a flip lid. Things have changed even more for my Mum, though, as apparently she used to buy them loose when she was a girl!

 

 

As for my childhood, I always loved sucking on the sugary shells of each sweet until they became soft, and almost papery, on reaching the chocolate centres. The last time I had Smarties, though, they just didn’t taste the same.

On this occasion, the ‘milk chocolate (65%) in a crisp sugar shell’ featured the same fun branding as the Sharing block, and the packaging also boasted the ‘best taste ever!’...I wasn’t convinced.

I’d never realised before that Smarties actually come in all the colours of the rainbow. I remember being gutted when the blue ones were discontinued for making kids hyper, a few years ago, as they were my favourite. Thankfully, they’ve since been brought back, and I was impressed that, as well as containing no artificial flavours, colours or preservatives, the wrapper listed the natural colourings that had been used instead. For example, the blue ones now contain spirulina which, apparently, is a seaweed.

The positive aspect of the newer tube opening mechanism was that it prevented too many sweets falling out. However, I did sometimes have to shake it a bit to get any out at all! What really gutted me, though, was that the Smarties had absolutely no smell – they used to have a lovely aroma. At least they didn’t smell bad...

On eating the Smarties, I was pleased to find that things improved. The texture was the same as it used to be – to suck, they were initially a little rough, but the shells then became smoother and released more of a sweet flavour before reaching the milky chocolate that was part of Nestlé’s Cocoa Plan. They were enjoyable to chew too, with the shells having a nice, dull crisp, and the chocolate being surprisingly chunky.

The aforementioned flavours were also how I remembered from childhood – yay! I’ve often wondered, as I’ve got older, if I’d imagined the orange flavour in the orange coloured sweets, but there was definitely an element of this there too, although it wasn’t strong enough to be detected when eating with the other colours. Whatever colour was being consumed, the Smarties were all really sweet, and they were great on their own and in handfuls. They were more hard work to eat when eating a few at a time, due to the increased quantity of shell, but it also made the chocolate more enjoyable as it felt like it was melting amid the crispiness.

As much as I enjoyed this bit of nostalgia, I’m fully aware that Smarties aren’t exactly a superior confectionery product. However, these were so good, addictive and really satisfying – a tube may only have weighed 38g but the bite-sized pieces meant they took a lot longer to eat than a bar of a similar weight, so it automatically felt like a larger snack.

I think I’ll stop snubbing Smarties. I’m not convinced they taste the best they ever have, but they’re certainly a lot better than the last time I tried them.

Appearance: 8.5/10
Aroma: 5/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 8/10
Overall score: 7.25/10

Nestlé Smarties: Sharing block

Product name: Nestlé Smarties: Sharing block
Purchase details: £1.00 for a 120g bar (tesco.com)
Calories: 106 per three piece serving (637 per bar)
Country of origin: UK

This new Nestlé Smarties: Sharing block was launched a couple of months ago and, although I was of the majority opinion that it wasn’t the most exciting concept in the world, I snapped a bar up quickly as I had enjoyed the American M&M's Chocolate Bar so I wanted to see how a British version compared.

Made as part of Nestlé’s Cocoa Plan, this ‘milk chocolate with mini Smarties (14%)’ contained no artificial flavours, colours or preservatives, and it came in a colourful wrapper that I loved – it featured lots of chocolate and Smarties imagery that took me back to my childhood and reminded me of an illustration in one of my old Topsy + Tim books. I also liked the clever way the portion sizes were indicated on the reverse of the packaging...even though I didn’t pay any attention and scoffed the whole bar (I chose to ignore the word ‘Sharing’ in the product name!).

The chocolate was fairly flat but divided into 18 pretty big squares that alternated between displaying the full Smarties logo and one letter from the name. The multicoloured circles of the ‘milk chocolate in a crisp sugar shell’ were visible through the bar’s upper surface but they weren’t really obvious through the base, and the chocolate was by no means awash with the candy pieces. On breaking into the bar, I felt a bit disappointed by just how sparse these Smarties were.

In contrast, the chocolate’s strong smell was very pleasing, greeting me with quite a creamy aroma as soon as I opened the wrapper. Its texture wasn’t smooth, and to the taste, the chocolate was like the Kit Kat kind when melting on the tongue. It was much nicer to chew, though, with a really milky flavour coming to the fore. The Smarties didn’t add anything additional to the taste as it was essentially chocolate on chocolate, but they did provide a dull crisp to what was a thick texture.

This bar was nice enough but didn’t scream ‘quality’ or ‘excitement’. I also found, eating the larger serving, that the chocolate burnt my throat a little and the sugariness also caused a bit of tooth sensitivity. I probably wouldn’t bother buying the Sharing block again but I’m glad I gave it a go.

Appearance: 7/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 7.5/10
Overall score: 7.25/10