Kinder Bueno

Product name: Kinder Bueno
Purchase details: £0.70 for a 43g bar or three for £1.20 (Tesco Superstore)
Calories: 122 per 21.5g finger (244 per bar)
Country of origin: UK

I’ve never met anybody who doesn’t like Ferrero’s Kinder Bueno – a light yet satisfying ‘milk and hazelnut’ chocolate bar.

Presented in the brand’s familiar milk-white and red packaging, there was also a nice image of the inner product which was divided into two individually-wrapped fingers. A portion was only supposed to be one of these but I can honestly say I’ve never saved the other one until later!

Each finger was divided into four segments which weren’t too dissimilar from the Cadbury Crispello pieces. These cubes of ‘milk chocolate covered wafer’ were much fuller of their ‘smooth milky and hazelnut filling’, though, and were finished with a nice drizzle of darker chocolate too.

The bar had a light nutty scent with a hint of milk chocolate and I thought its 10.5% hazelnut content seemed pretty good going. These nuts were present in the very pale beige filling which had been smooth to cut through and also proved to be incredibly soft – hence the little dent where I accidentally knocked it with my finger! In the mouth, its smoothness continued, and it was lovely and thick too. I could taste both the milk and the nuts and this combination dominated the product’s flavour.

 

Despite containing 31.5% chocolate, this aspect wasn’t very noticeable, although it did add something a little extra to the crispy wafer and filling. It was clear from each finger’s base that the coating wasn’t particularly thick but it did still manage to provide relatively strong cocoa flavours if left to melt. Sucking each piece also provided the added advantage of the three components dissolving together.

I hadn’t had a Kinder Bueno for a while but I was pleased to find it hadn’t changed – as well as the great taste, I particularly loved how the filling had a habit of sticking to the roof the mouth. Delicious! 

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

Kinder Mini Eggs

Product name: Kinder Mini Eggs
Purchase details: £1.00 for an 85g bag (Tesco Superstore)
Calories: 29 per 5g Egg (493 per bag)
Country of origin: UK  

Even though it’s designed for children, I love the milkiness of Kinder so these ‘delicious milk chocolate covered mini eggs with a milky hazelnut centre’ somehow jumped straight into my shopping basket.

The Kinder Mini Eggs were distributed by Ferrero and came in a cute bag, featuring an illustration of a farm and Easter Bunny, and an egg-shaped window through which the individually foil-wrapped eggs could be viewed. These wrappers were blue, green and yellow so I wondered if this was intentionally done to spice up an Easter egg hunt. 

The Mini Eggs had thick chocolate shells (45% of each one was ‘fine milk chocolate’) which felt a little greasy. Around the edge of each oval, where the two halves had been stuck together, the inner milky filling could be seen through the join. The product had a milky and chocolatey smell, with a slight hint of nut, but this aroma wasn’t very strong. 

The tiny pieces of nut provided a speckled effect on the inside of the Mini Eggs but they only accounted for 6.5% of the product. I found their crunch to be minimal but figured that their size was to reduce the risk of choking for the kids the eggs were aimed at. 

My initial reaction to the taste was that it had the great fresh and milky taste I’m used to from the mini Kinder bars. However, I then decided it actually tasted a bit more sugary and found the product a little too sweet in large quantities. I suspect that the reason for this was down to a thicker chocolate coating but this didn’t mean that the milky flavour had disappeared. Instead, I found it combined with the strong chocolate flavour to create a taste not too dissimilar from (although not as good as!) Galaxy chocolate. The bag had boasted ‘more milk’ and ‘less cocoa’ and the Mini Eggs contained 29.5% milk solids in comparison to just 14.5% cocoa solids so they certainly weren’t bitter! 

I felt it was a slight shame that the hazelnut taste wasn’t very powerful, although it was stronger when allowing the eggs to melt. However, whilst the chocolate melted pretty smoothly, I did find the centres quite stiff, so I tended to opt for a more comfortable texture over a more powerful nuttiness. 

I’m very glad I tried these Kinder Mini Eggs but I definitely prefer the With cereals and standard Chocolate bars. 

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

Kinder Chocolate: With cereals

Product name: Kinder Chocolate: With cereals
Purchase details: £0.52 for a 23.5g bar (Martin’s)
Calories: 131 per bar

I have a small Kinder Chocolate bar most days with my lunch so I was intrigued by this new product which came described as ‘fine milk chocolate with cereal and a smooth milky filling’.

This With cereals bar came in a wrapper that continued the white and red Kinder theme, with the white looking like spilt milk. It also contained an illustration of the chocolate bar, cereals and a glass of milk.

The bar was distributed by Ferrero UK and seemed to be the usual Kinder Chocolate concept with ‘a delicious milky filling’ and consisted of 33.5% chocolate and 7.5% cereals which were made up of barley, rice, wheat, spelt and buckwheat. It was these five cereals that made this product different, and the wrapper promised a ‘great taste’ and described how they had been ‘simply puffed and toasted’. In total, the product contained 30.5% milk solids and, since it had been designed for kids, the 23.5g portion size was relatively small.

 

The bar was divided into 10 pieces which each contained a cereal imprint. Although it was shallow, it did feel quite big, and so it did still feel like a treat. The cereal pieces were visible through the base of the bar and seemed similar in appearance to Sugar Puffs. The chocolate and milky filling looked like standard Kinder Chocolate but the filling’s smoothness was interrupted by the aforementioned cereal. Whilst I can’t say it looked as nice as the usual, plain bar, it did still look nice. I was also pleased that the usual sweet, milky aroma remained.

On tasting this snack, I was surprised that the cereal provided quite a strong flavour and actually did taste like Sugar Puffs! There was quite a caramelised taste which was very sweet and tasty but whether or not the cereal had been toasted in sugar, I’m not sure. Due to the strength of this flavour, the general Kinder Chocolate taste was weaker than I’d expected, although there was still a chocolate element there. I did think it was a shame that the milky flavour that I love wasn’t very strong, though.

Texturally, the cereal pieces were soft and fluffy but with crunchy edges. I found it to be similar to popcorn so, combined with the flavours, I thought the overall product was like a popcorn-filled chocolate bar, although creamier and with fewer puffy bits. It was possible to let the chocolate melt and chew the cereal afterwards but I preferred to chew the whole thing as this kept the slight crispiness from the cereal and also provided a more satisfying flavour.

This With cereals bar didn’t taste or feel how I expected it to but it did offer a really nice flavour that’s not present in the original Kinder Chocolate bars. I do prefer the smooth texture of the latter, but this was far, far nicer than I thought it would be and I would happily eat it again. 

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

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