Cadbury Dairy Milk: Marvellous creations (banana caramel crisp)

Product name: Cadbury Dairy Milk: Marvellous creations (banana caramel crisp)
Purchase details: £1.00 for a 200g bar (Asda)
Calories: 128 per 25g serving (510 per 100g)
Country of origin: UK

I was really excited to pick up this new and great-value bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk: Marvellous creations (banana caramel crisp) by Mondelez UK. The product featured the usual Marvellous creations branding but, unsurprisingly, had a yellow border to reflect the flavour. I also really liked the image of a chocolate cannon shooting out bananas and caramel cubes.

Whilst I’d had a banana-themed chocolate before in the form of Amadeo Solo (chocolate-banana), this Cadbury bar was a very different offering and came described as ‘milk chocolate with banana flavour candy pieces (8%), caramel pieces (5%), and malted cereal balls (3%)’.

The bar had the same design (attractive but hard to evenly divide!) as the cola pretzel honeycomb variety but was packed full of different ingredients. Yellow blobs of banana candy were visible through the chocolate’s surface and large, brown cereal balls bulged out of the bar’s base. As for the caramel, these little cubes looked a lot like fudge and weren’t immediately obvious. Whilst there didn’t appear to be a shortage of excitement in the bar, I was slightly relieved to see a less bumpy surface than the cola pretzel honeycomb as I hoped this would result in a texture that wasn’t as busy.

The milk chocolate, unsurprisingly, was standard Dairy Milk. As a result, it had the usual creamy smell, although I was a little disappointed there was no hint of banana in this. However, there was an additional sweetness that was a bit like the cola pretzel honeycomb bar.

The flavours on offer were very much dependent on what additional goodness happened to be in each piece of milky chocolate. The banana candy had a slightly artificial taste and, whilst not subtle, wasn’t overpowering either. Rather than being foam sweets, these pieces were more like sugary beans – they were very sweet and reminded me a bit of the ‘banana medicine’ I had as a kid. As a result, they were a bit harder than I thought they’d be, but they were still crumbly.

The extremely crisp cereal tended to take me by surprise when I hit a piece! It had a slight but noticeable malted taste, as promised, but its rough texture did ruin the otherwise wonderful melt of the bar. As for the caramel cubes, these made more of a difference than I thought. Their flavour was pretty weak but they did provide a bit of a fudgy taste and their soft texture made a significant impact on the overall chunky chew by providing extra resistance and making the chocolate feel more crumbly.

I thought the different elements in this bar worked really well together – it was like having a sweet shop in the mouth after the chocolate had melted! Whilst the caramel wasn’t very powerful, it did seem to mellow the sweetness of the banana. I also quite enjoyed how the flavours weren’t evenly distributed as it provided a bit more variety, whilst always filling the mouth with some kind of deliciousness.

I’m not convinced Cadbury Dairy Milk: Marvellous creations (banana caramel crisp) is about to become the next big thing but it certainly seems to fill a gap on the mainstream market and I’d definitely buy this again.

Appearance: 9/10
Aroma: 8/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 7.88/10

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

Cadbury Dairy Milk: Marvellous creations (cola pretzel honeycomb)

Product name: Cadbury Dairy Milk: Marvellous creations (cola pretzel honeycomb)
Purchase details: £1.50 for a 200g bar (Sainsbury’s Local)
Calories: 125 per 25g serving (505 per 100g)
Country of origin: UK 

Like with any new products, I was really excited when Cadbury launched the Dairy Milk: Marvellous creations range a few months ago. I tried the first two varieties as soon as they were released and, whilst I particularly enjoyed the cookie nut crunch, I didn’t find either bar to be incredible. For that reason, I wasn’t that bothered when this cola pretzel honeycomb version was announced since the combination just seemed bizarre. I spend my life drinking Pepsi Max but I’ve never had the desire to combine the flavour with my precious chocolate! Even so, I felt I should try it and, having come to the realisation that there’s been absolutely no sign of a single serving bar, I finally caved in and bought the 200g slab which even I wasn’t going to attempt to eat in one go.

The bar came in a familiar, quality purple wrapper which contained the white stripes that are unique to Marvellous creations. Inside, it took the creative shape of the other large bars in the range. I don’t really ‘do’ random but I did find this visually appealing. I found it frustrating, though, since it made it difficult to break off the correct portion size. I could see dark flecks in the milk chocolate which appeared to be the ‘chewy cola flavour nuggets’ that filled 8% of the bar, whilst the ‘salted pretzel’ that made up 4% of the product was clearly visible in its lumpy base, although I was surprised to see that these pieces looked more like nuts.

The chocolate had the standard Dairy Milk aroma but there was also an extra sweetness present which seemed to be from the cola pieces. I still wasn’t sure what to expect though, particularly when I hadn’t enjoyed the chewy texture of the jelly popping candy shells bar – I was worried that this would deliver a similar experience, particularly as I could feel the cola bits stretch as I broke the chocolate apart, and it looked like there was a lot of them inside! At least I knew from Cadbury Choc Full Of...: Pretzels that the salty pretzels would work well with the chocolate (plus, it’s a flavour combination I associate with some American peanut butter products – yay!).

On finally tasting the chocolate, I was met with the usual creaminess of Dairy Milk but with a sweet tang from the cola and a saltiness from the pretzel. Unfortunately, I couldn’t detect the honeycomb (3% of the bar) in the flavour at all, but I was just relieved that the main flavour was still chocolate.

Of course, I tried letting a couple of pieces melt on the tongue and, in doing so, found that it allowed the cola flavour to be introduced with a slight tang at the end of each piece. Whilst I did find this slightly odd, it worked far better than I expected it to. Unfortunately, the pretzel pieces were quite sharp and painful to suck on and it wasn’t really worth persevering with as the end result was a mouthful of random shaped ingredients after the chocolate had melted away! Of course, what this did do, was make me realise just how much had gone into the bar...and there wasn’t actually as much cola as I’d feared.

The best way to enjoy this bar was obviously by chewing it. The cola pieces were like cola bottles but, thankfully, weren’t as chewy as the jelly pieces had been in the other variety. I think the fact that this was offset by the crunch of the honeycomb really helped. The pretzel also provided a lot of interest with a dull, crispy texture. I actually couldn’t believe how enjoyable the overall experience was.

On the back of the wrapper the following question was posed: ‘Who knew golden honeycomb, cola and crunchy pretzel pieces could perform so marvellously with delicious Cadbury Dairy Milk?’.  Well, I certainly didn’t! Cadbury, I’m sorry for doubting you. 

Appearance: 9/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 6.5/10
Overall score: 7.63/10