Maltesers Malteaster

Product name: Maltesers Malteaster
Purchase details: £0.60 for a 29g bar or three for £1.20 (Tesco Superstore)
Calories: 156 per bar

My willpower must be better than I thought since I bought this Maltesers Malteaster bunny as soon as they were available (months before Easter) but it’s only now we’re in August that I’ve eaten it! You’ll just have to believe me when I say I was genuinely excited that they were back on sale.

As a big fan of Maltesers, as well as the Teasers bars and Celebrations, it’s only right that I’d be a fan of this milk chocolate treat filled with a ‘crunchy’ and ‘creamy Maltesers centre’.

The snack was made for the UK and Ireland by Mars and came in a glossy red wrapper that featured a picture of a chocolate bunny poking out of a hole with part of its ear bitten off. I thought this was a bit cruel but it did say it was suitable for vegetarians, and it even stated that ‘no actual Maltesers were hurt during the making of this bunny’ – thank goodness for that!

The shape of the actual chocolate gave the bunny quite an active pose but, apart from that, it wasn’t very detailed. I must also confess that I cut the ears off, myself, to reveal the pale brown ‘creamy malt filling’ (31%) that almost looked like nougat but without the squidgy or airy texture. Within this were ‘crisp, light honeycombed pieces’ (5.5%) that were presented as lots of tiny balls.

The cleverly-named Malteaster had a sweet, malted chocolate scent, although I would have liked it to be stronger. Taste-wise, it was very sweet with a creamy, Galaxy-like chocolate, and I thoroughly enjoyed the soft, thick texture with added crisp too.

Hurry up, please, Easter 2015!

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 8/10
Texture: 8.5/10
Overall score: 7.75/10

Cadbury Creme Egg

Product name: Cadbury Creme Egg
Calories: 180 for a 40g egg
Country of origin: UK 

I didn’t think I’d get a chance to review the wonderful Cadbury Creme Egg this year but then I found a friend of mine, who doesn’t like them (shock, horror!), had been given some that she didn’t want. She kindly gave one to me so, weeks after Easter, here it is!

There was no nutritional information provided on the red, yellow and purple wrapper of this Mondelez product so I obtained this from Cadbury's website. However, the packaging did provide the description of a ‘milk chocolate egg with a soft fondant centre (47%)’ which, I noticed, was 2% more filling than the mini version I’ve previously reviewed.

This larger egg had an almost identical appearance to the minis – it simply had stars on both sides instead of just on one. There was something about the bigger size, though, that made it even more mouth-watering to look at! The Creme Egg emitted a fantastic ‘Easter’ scent of chocolate combined with the famous sweet, sweet, fondant, and I found the incredibly chunky shell (just look at it!) was surprisingly hard to cut in half. However, doing so revealed the wonderfully gooey mass within, although I apologise for the flecks of stray chocolate that got mixed up with this egg-inspired centre.

Due to the way I cut this egg, I sacrificed my preferred method of consumption (biting the top off and licking out the middle), but I could still tell that the ratio of chocolate to fondant worked much better on this larger scale. The sugary centre oozed out of its chunky shell and it was thoroughly enjoyable.

The taste was also pretty much the same as the mini eggs but I did think the chocolate tasted less sweet. I re-checked the wrapper and saw it contained a minimum of 14% milk solids whereas the mini variety's minimum was 20%. I’m not sure if this is what my tastebuds were detecting but, either way, I thought it was bit odd to use a different type of chocolate for what was essentially the same product!

Anyway, it didn’t matter, because I loved having this little reminder of Easter in June!

Appearance: 8/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 8/10
Overall score: 7.75/10

Cadbury Creme Egg (minis)

Product name: Cadbury Creme Egg (minis)
Calories: 50 per 11.5g egg (400 per 89g bag)
Country of origin: UK

Can you believe I only had one Cadbury Creme Egg this year? I didn’t even get to review it as I had it on Easter day at my brother’s house! Thankfully, though, the Easter Bunny decided to get me an egg that came with a bag of eight mini ones.

Made by Mondelez UK, the bag contained the familiar red and purple colour scheme with a yellow splat – I do love this branding as it’s so instantly recognisable and gets me excited about the time of year. Inside, the ‘mini eggs of fun’ were individually foil-wrapped, and these could be viewed through a window on the bag.

The ‘milk chocolate eggs with a soft fondant centre (45%)’ used chocolate that contained a minimum of 20% milk solids. These shells were a bit matt in appearance so they didn’t look incredible and, due to the fondant having a tendency of making them a bit sticky, they didn’t feel great either. However, the eggs were decorated with the Cadbury logo and some stars, and there was no denying the gooeyness of the glossy fondant within. I must say that the novelty of the egg whites and yolk appearance never gets old for me either.

I loved the sugary sweet fondant smell that combined with the chocolate aroma of these eggs. The very viscous fondant provided a sugary hit which was unsurprising, really – you could tell it contained a lot of sugar from where the knife had made contact with the fondant and created a more crystallised appearance. (Per 100g, these Creme Eggs contained 67g of sugar!)

The chocolate melted relatively nicely but wasn’t totally smooth. However, I did like the cooling effect of the fondant as the two elements merged. This did also result in the fondant’s taste having less of an impact. This wasn’t an issue for me, but I do understand how some people (my own mother included!) find Creme Eggs too sickly, so sucking these smaller eggs may help.

When chewing, the fondant provided a liquidy burst through the chunky chocolate. However, there was no doubt in my mind that I prefer the regular-sized Cadbury Creme Eggs. My answer to the famous question ‘How do you eat yours?’ would be biting off the top of an egg and scooping out the middle with my tongue. However, this wasn’t an option here.  Size was the main issue but I also found that the fondant seemed thicker and a little less gooey so, even when trying to lick out an egg that had been cut in half length-ways, it was really hard to get it to budge.

In summary, then, I liked the flavours on offer from these mini Creme Eggs but, for me, the different ratio of chocolate to fondant made the overall experience a little less enjoyable than a standard Creme Egg.

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 7.38/10

Recipe: Chocolate salted caramel marble cake

Recipe: Chocolate salted caramel marble cake
Source: Heat (Issue 776, 5^th–11^th April 2014)

Growing up, a feature of Easter day in our family was always my Mum’s Springtime marble cake. This was a marble effect ring-shaped cake that was coated in chocolate icing, and filled in the centre with mini chocolate eggs, giving the impression of a nest. It’s been a few years since we’ve had this, now, so when I stumbled across this recipe in Heat magazine (of all places!) on a Stork promotional page, I just had to make it our Easter dessert this year.

The Chocolate salted caramel marble cake was always going to be a richer option than my Mum’s more traditional recipe. The white part of the sponge contained white chocolate rather than being plain, it had an inner salted caramel sauce, and it was topped with truffles. I couldn’t wait to ‘make this Easter marble-ous’ (Stork’s words, not mine!).

 

Although I followed the recipe printed in my magazine, a version of it can also be found on Stork's website where there is also a useful video (I did watch this prior to baking but not immediately before so I may well have done things differently!).

 

The only change I made to the recipe was using two types of caster sugar. About half of the quantity I used was the normal kind but I did mix golden caster sugar in to make up the amount as that’s what we had in stock.

 

The recipe for the cake itself was very easy – so much so that there’s nothing to really say about it! I followed all the instructions in the magazine and ended up with a decent cake. It did take five minutes longer to bake than had been suggested but that was the only issue at this stage. Once cooled, I did get someone else to slice the cake in two – I struggle to even cut a loaf of bread so I didn’t want to ruin my creation!

At the final stages of assembly, things did start to go a little wrong. When I added the inner caramel layer, it began too ooze out of the sides which made me nervous of adding too much. As a result, I think I used less than the recommended half of the mixture. This had implications on the truffles since the recipe said to make them from the left over ganache and caramel (the video on the website didn’t mention using the caramel in the truffles but this was part of the cake’s novelty for me so I just had to!). Since the caramel was runnier than the ganache and there was more of it, I didn’t want to mix everything in together and end up with a liquid mess that I couldn’t use. Instead, I tried chilling a teaspoon of the chocolate mixed with a teaspoon of the caramel and seeing how it worked...it didn’t!

By this stage, it was late on Saturday night and I needed the cake to be sorted ready for the next day (Easter!) so I didn’t have time to be patient. I’d left the separate bowls of ganache and caramel to chill so they were relatively firm so I decided to just go for it. I made a ball shape with the chocolate, drizzled some caramel over the top, rubbed the ball a bit more, and then plunged it into cocoa powder as I kept rolling the truffle. This was extremely messy as the mixtures were too soft, really, to be working with, but I did manage to get some kind of truffles out of the process. Ok, they looked a mess as they were squidgy rather than round (my family decided they looked like boulders!) but by the time they’d chilled in the fridge overnight, they were the perfect consistency! If I’d had the time to deal with them on Easter morning, I would have made them then instead, but that just wasn’t an option for me, unfortunately.

The main thing was that everyone absolutely loved the cake. I was told it was ‘a bit special’ and it was well received by all. Despite containing a lot of chocolate (particularly dark), it wasn’t too heavy, and the balance with the salted caramel was spot on. I always use my three year-old nephew as an indicator of the overall verdict and he ate the whole of his slice without problem...and this was straight after our roast lamb dinner!

The good thing about my caramel filling going, perhaps, a little wrong, was that I had a jug of the sauce left over which we could then pour over the top of the cake. This worked really well and, again, lifted the flavour to prevent it being too dominated by chocolate.

 

It may have looked a bit of a mess but this was a big hit and I’ve even been asked for the recipe. I’d definitely be happy to give it another go when I have a bit more time on my hands!

 

Ease of recipe: 9/10
Finished product: 8.5/10
Overall score: 8.75/10
Bake again? Yes