Cadbury Dairy Milk: Marvellous mix-ups (Oreo)

Product name: Cadbury Dairy Milk: Marvellous mix-ups (Oreo)
Purchase details: £1.00 for a 111g bag (Asda)
Calories: 561 per bag

Cadbury are making new products faster than I can eat them these days! Still, I try, so here’s my review of the Dairy Milk: Marvellous mix-ups (Oreo).

This bag was made by Mondelez for the UK and Ireland market and, like the Marvellous creations range, had a purple and white striped circus theme. What I particularly loved was the gorgeous aqua colour but the packaging also contained illustrations of the pieces inside.

The ‘assortment of milk chocolates, white chocolates, and chocolate flavour sandwich biscuits’ consisted entirely of existing products but in a brand new combination. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d think because, although I knew I loved all the individual components, I don’t tend to like mixing my foods – give me a roast dinner and I’ll always eat the vegetables, then the meat, then the potatoes, and then the stuffing!

There were four separate ‘ingredients’ in this bag. First up was Dairy Milk: Buttons (giant) which were, believe it or not, the same as the Dairy Milk: Buttons I’ve previously reviewed – they were just a bit bigger! This larger size did provide a better melt but, with this product, it hardly mattered.

There were also regular-sized white chocolate Buttons. These emitted a lovely white chocolate scent and had a sweet and milky taste that made for a decent version of my favourite ‘colour’ of chocolate. It also had a thick and slightly grainy melt.

Providing a completely different flavour and texture was the inclusion of Nabisco Oreo: Mini. I’m a big fan of these ‘chocolate flavour sandwich biscuits with a vanilla flavour filling (29%)’ although, so far, I’ve only reviewed the Peanut butter creme version, as well as the Kraft Handi-Snacks. I used to have a bit of an addiction to this miniature variety which is why I don’t tend to buy them anymore so I was pleased to be reunited with them. Containing 4.6% reduced fat cocoa, the biscuits had a slightly bitter chocolate taste, and the sweet vanilla creme was delicious. Texturally, the creme was soft and a little grainy, whilst the biscuits had a great crunch.

Finally, the bag contained purple and yellow Dairy Milk: Pebbles which added colour as well as an additional crispy texture.

Combined, these elements looked great together. Dust from the Oreos did transfer onto some of the other pieces but this didn’t make too much of a difference to the appearance and I was pleased to see a variety of shades. The aroma of the united components was also lovely – a decent mix of cocoa and creamy vanilla.

I did have to delve a bit to get a good variety in each handful since the Oreos had a tendency to gather at the top of the bag. However, this was totally worth it, and the result was a lovely mix of thick textures, and a great creamy taste. The product felt like a great novelty and I enjoyed how she stronger flavours were mellowed by the creamier ones. Even better was the way that even the white chocolate’s taste didn’t get lost in the mix – every element brought something noticeable and different.

The packaging hadn’t suggested what a recommended serving was and, since I figured it wouldn’t be the easiest product to measure anyway, I went ahead and ate the whole bag. As a result, its resealable element seemed completely unnecessary, although any really self-restrained people may find it useful! If I’m honest, I hadn’t thought the bag looked very full at all, but it did take longer than I expected to polish off its contents. Thankfully, this didn’t result in a sickly feeling either – the only negative was the coating of Oreo dust over my fingers!

I have to say that these Marvellous mix-ups lived up to their name. Bravo, Cadbury!

Appearance: 8/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 8.5/10
Texture: 9/10
Overall score: 8.25/10

Cadbury Dairy Milk: Pebbles

Product name: Cadbury Dairy Milk: Pebbles
Purchase details: £1.49 for a 140g bag (Home Bargains)
Calories: 175 for a 35g serving
Country of origin: UK 

I love a good sharing bag (well, I love the bag – I don’t do the sharing!) so I was looking forward to trying these Cadbury Dairy Milk: Pebbles for the first time.

The bag in question was attractive and glossy in appearance with a deep Cadbury purple border, and an image of demonstrating Pebbles carrying placards saying ‘joy for all’, ‘delicious chocolate’ and ‘all natural colours’, on a sky blue background with clouds – I’m not sure if this was Mondelez’s way of suggesting it was a Heavenly product? The fact that one of these Pebbles was actual size was a nice touch too. I did wonder why the bag was so big, though – there was no shortage of content but there was a stupid amount of plastic left over!

The Pebbles themselves were solid Dairy Milk chocolate in ‘crisp’ sugar shells. I did think the wrapper’s depiction was slightly bizarre in that the edges of the Pebbles appeared to be ridged and, therefore, resembled flying saucer sweets. However, this turned out not to be the case, with the unusually coloured purple, yellow and brown oval shapes being smooth all around. Really, they were like flattened Mini Eggs without the dusting and with smoother, though still matt, shells. 

The sugar coatings seemed pretty thin and, as a result, quite a lot of the Pebbles were chipped. However, this didn’t prevent them being attractive, and the purple ones actually reminded me of Milka Schoko Drops.

The chocolate filling was thick in appearance and contained a minimum of 20% milk and cocoa solids each. It also provided the main smell which was strong, chocolatey, and the same as the Mini Eggs aroma.

The sugar shells were really sweet and reminded me a lot of Nestlé Smarties. Despite their thin appearance, they were also very crispy and crunchy. The different colours didn’t seem to provide different flavours.

The Dairy Milk was as sweet, milky and chocolatey as ever and was nice and solid to chew on. It also melted nicely having allowed the sugar shells to dissolve first.

As much as I enjoyed these Pebbles, I don’t think their flat shape was ideal as, when chewing, the ratio meant there was a lot more shell mixed up in the chocolate and I found this got in the way a bit. That’s not to say they were texturally bad – I just don’t think they worked quite as well as Mini Eggs. They did taste great, though, and it’s nice to have this kind of product available all year round. 

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