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

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

Mrs. Freshley's Snowballs: Creme filled cakes

Product name: Mrs. Freshley’s Snowballs: Creme filled cakes
Purchase details: £1.99 for a 120g pack of two Snowballs (A Quarter of Sweets)
Calories: 210 per Snowball (420 per pack)
Country of origin: USA

These Mrs. Freshley’s Snowballs were recommended to me a while ago via the A Quarter of Sweets Twitter page but, since I’m not a huge fan of marshmallow-heavy products, I passed. I’d failed to notice the ‘Creme filled cakes’ part of the product name so, when I was recently told by a staff member in-store that they contained chocolate cake, my arm was twisted!

Distributed by Flowers Foods Speciality Group, these very pink and very squidgy coconut-covered Snowballs came in the usual style of Mrs. Freshley’s packaging and looked rather pretty on the outside, although I wasn’t convinced that this colour went very well with the dark cake within! The marshmallow looked a bit meringue-like, in that its inner edge was slightly golden, and the creme filling was also clearly visible towards the bottom of each cake. The bases of the Snowballs were left uncovered by the marshmallow coating but I ended up being glad of this.

The marshmallow was incredibly bouncy to the touch to the extent that it almost felt alive – a part of me was genuinely afraid it was going to move of its own accord! It was stretchy to bite into and, in the mouth, its spongy texture dissolved almost instantly. It didn’t really taste of anything but I did enjoy the strong coconut flavour from the bitty coating. This coconut also provided a mellow scent that mixed in the with slight chocolate cake aroma emanating from the centre.

The chocolate cake contained less than 2% cocoa, which seemed a shame, but it actually tasted pretty similar to the Mrs. Freshley's Fudge Bake: Brownie (candy topped). It had quite a crumbly texture, but was also moist, and I really enjoyed the lovely sweet and thick creme filling within it.

The flavours of the four elements worked well together and I found that the coconut had a surprising kick to it – almost tasting salty in comparison to the sweet centre.

Unfortunately, though, the texture of the marshmallow did spoil my enjoyment of the product as it almost felt as if I was foaming at the mouth. I definitely prefer standard marshmallows to the marshmallow part of this product but, as a whole, the overall Snowballs were a lot more enjoyable than I expected them to be when I first heard about them. They definitely would have scored more highly if they’d just been coconut-covered creme-filled chocolate cakes!

Appearance: 7/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 6/10
Overall score: 6.75/10