Cadbury Wispa: Gold

Product name: Cadbury Wispa: Gold
Purchase details: £0.29 for a 52g bar (Home Bargains)
Calories: 265 per bar
Country of origin: UK

I have a distant memory of preferring the Gold version of the Cadbury Wispa to the original but, the last time I tried one, I was oddly disappointed. However, I thought it was about time I tried the ‘textured milk chocolate bar with soft caramel’ again, so here we are.

Unsurprisingly, the Wispa: Gold came in a golden wrapper, looking like a classier Crunchie without the bold, red writing. Mine was clearly from an older batch since it was made by Kraft, and it contained 35% caramel, with the chocolate consisting of a minimum of 14% milk solids.

The bar was quite glossy and angular with a delicate ridged affect. On cutting into it, I couldn’t believe just how much caramel was in there – for some reason, I’d imagined it to be thin, so being greeted with a golden, gooey mass was a great treat, and the contrasting colours were very much like the Dairy Milk: Caramel. It had an immediately welcoming and strong chocolate scent too.

The caramel tasted very sweet and, although this and the chocolate were relatively basic, there was no denying the feel-good factor that the flavour combination provided. The texture was even better, though. The base wasn’t as aerated as it looked and actually had a bit of a snap to it, but the best bit was the thickness of both this and the outer shell. There was something about burying my tongue between the two layers and into the silky caramel that was very satisfying.

I’m thinking I must have had a ‘dud’, last time, because this Cadbury Wispa: Gold was very nice indeed!

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

Cadbury Dairy Milk: Marvellous creations (cookie nut crunch)

Product name: Cadbury Dairy Milk: Marvellous creations (cookie nut crunch)
Purchase details: £0.25 for a 50g bar or five for £1.00 (Home Bargains)

Calories: 245 per bar
Country of origin: Europe

I’ve had this Cadbury Dairy Milk: Marvellous creations (cookie nut crunch) before and, whilst I hadn’t bought it since (there are just so many other treats waiting to be tried!), I did really enjoy it. However, having heard a rumour that the variety is about to be discontinued, I couldn’t resist stocking up when I saw this fantastic offer.

 

The packaging featured the usual purple and circus-themed Marvellous creations branding and used a green border for the variety. There was also an illustration of the product within, and the word ‘new’, although I know this had been around for a while now – the wrapper even said it had been made by Kraft UK rather than Mondelez!

The ‘milk chocolate with pieces of biscuit (8%), crunchy almond caramel (5%), and chopped roasted caramelised hazelnuts (3%)’ came in a five-piece bar format that, whilst not quite as exciting as the 200g bar (see my review of cola pretzel honeycomb to see what I mean!), was still more interesting than standard squares of chocolate. The two-tone cookie pieces (white with dark brown speckles) were large so the bar wouldn’t sit flat – a good sign, I thought. Being a lot smaller, the nuts weren’t as visible, but you could see them if you looked closely.

The chocolate itself was the usual Dairy Milk, complete with the lovely, strong aroma, although there was nothing additional in the scent despite the extra ingredients. It had the fantastic creamy flavour that we’ve come to know and love but, again, I couldn’t say the other flavours were very prominent. I thought there was a slight added sweetness but this had more of a gummy sweets type of flavour rather than a sugariness. Every now and then, though, the cookie pieces did provide more of a biscuit flavour whilst, at other times, it reminded me more of honeycomb – weird but nice!

The biscuits were really rough so this did ruin the melt of the chocolate slightly but, before this got in the way, the chocolate itself was really nice and thick. When chewing, though, the crispy cookie and crunchy nuts provided a lovely bit of resistance. The chunkiness of the chocolate really helped fill the mouth with flavour, too, and the overall effect reminded me a bit of Dairy Milk: Fruit & nut. It was a shame the taste of the nuts didn’t come through but there is no denying that this was a very enjoyable bar of chocolate.

I can understand that this variety probably isn’t unusual or daring enough to feature in the Marvellous creations range but I really hope Cadbury don’t discontinue it completely!

Appearance: 8.5/10
Aroma: 8/10
Taste: 8.5/10
Texture: 8/10
Overall score: 8.25/10

Kraft Handi-Snacks: Oreo

Product name: Kraft Handi-Snacks: Oreo
Purchase details: A Quarter of Sweets
Calories: 140 per 28g pack
Country of origin: USA

 

I’d like to thank the lovely people at A Quarter of Sweets for providing me with this box of Kraft Handi-Snacks: Oreo in return for an honest review.

 

I’m a regular consumer of The Laughing Cow Cheez Dippers and these ‘cookie sticks’ with a ‘creme dip’ came in an almost identical format so it was a nice change for this dipping snack to be sweet and to not need chilling. I’m a huge Oreo fan too so I was generally very excited!

  

The Handi-Snacks came in a yellow and blue box (usually priced at £6.99 for a pack of six) that featured an illustration of the product. The inner plastic trays were very basic and simply featured transparent film lids with the Kraft Handi-Snacks logo but this did make it possible to view the dark biscuits and very white creme within.

There were six Oreo-branded biscuit sticks in each tub which were joined together in pairs. This did make eating them slightly messy as breaking them apart spread black crumbs about but I didn’t mind! I didn’t find they had as strong an Oreo scent as usual but they did smell of more standard biscuits.

 

The creme had a nice vanilla aroma and was incredibly soft. It tasted divine too – its sugary vanilla flavour was very much like a softer version of the usual cookie filling and almost like a warm ice cream. This extreme sweetness balanced very well with the slightly bitter cocoa flavour on offer from the incredibly crunchy Oreo sticks.

I’m not a creative person, so it never would have occurred to me naturally, but I saw on the back of the box that it was possible to ‘stack ’em’ to recreate the sandwich biscuit effect. This obviously wasn’t as convenient a method of consumption, as it involved a knife, but it did mix things up a bit! I did find, though, that the doubling up of the biscuit sticks made the texture a little bit too crunchy since the paste-like consistency of the dip didn’t provide the same resistance that is present in the usual sandwich cookies - it was also messier as the creme spurted out the sides.

As someone with a sweet tooth, I loved this alternative Oreo product and I wish this kind of snack was available in the UK. At least we have A Quarter of Sweets to import such excitement for us!

Appearance: 8/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 8.5/10
Texture: 8/10
Overall score: 7.88/10