Swiss Peak Milch

Product name: Swiss Peak Milch
Purchase details: £0.39 for a 100g bar (Home Bargains)
Calories: 531 per bar
Country of origin: Switzerland

Always one for a bargain, I couldn’t help picking up this Swiss Peak Milch – a bar of ‘milk chocolate with honey-almond-nougat’ which was obviously based on Toblerone. I’d tried Marks and Spencer’s version before but this ‘Swiss premium quality’ brand was new to me.

The wrapper featured nice images of some of the key ingredients: the chocolate itself (containing a minimum of 30% cocoa solids and 14% milk solids), honey (2.5%) and almonds (1.4%) and the bar inside continued Toblerone's triangular theme. However, these pieces were diagonal in shape, and also thinner, so I presumed they wouldn’t be as satisfyingly chunky to chew.

In terms of aroma, the product just smelt like sweet chocolate, although this was no bad thing! It had a good, milky chocolate flavour, with hints of honey and almond coming through here and there. The chocolate was definitely the main taste but I did like the darker sugar element the honey provided.

Despite appearances, the triangles did still manage to provide a chunky texture, and the presence of crunchy nut pieces and chewy nougat (8%) was also noticeable. On the downside, the bar’s shape did make it difficult to break off each piece so I ended up having to bite it, and I also found the chocolate’s melting point to be a little higher than normal so it felt like it separated out in the mouth rather than melding together.

At £0.39, it won’t surprise anyone to learn that this product wasn’t of the same quality as Toblerone of Switzerland. However, it was still pretty tasty in its own right!

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

Snickers Bar: More choc

Product name: Snickers Bar: More choc
Purchase details: £1.00 for a multipack of four bars (Poundworld)
Calories: 240 for a 48g bar

  

I wasn’t intending to bother with this limited edition Snickers Bar from Mars, but the lure of the blue wrapper eventually won me over, and the ‘chocolatey nougat and chocolatey caramel’ did sound nice, even though I knew I’d probably find it too similar to the standard bars.

The image on the packaging looked really good but I somehow didn’t expect the reality of the caramel (27%) and nougat (15%) to look so much darker than the original. Unlike with the miniature Snickers found in Celebrations, the peanuts (23%) weren’t chopped, suggesting its texture would be on the chunky rather than bitty spectrum. Unfortunately for me, though, this wasn’t the case and I found the texture too gritty for my liking – the same issue I have with full-sized Snickers Bars.

The Bar had a salty peanut scent, as well as a strong peanut flavour, with an occasional toasted aspect still coming through as it had done with the Celebrations. I can’t say this UK and Ireland offering sounded quite as exciting as America’s Rockin' nut road, but the additional chocolate did seem to make a bit of a difference. The outer milk chocolate coating (containing a minimum of 14% milk solids) contributed to 35% of the product, so it was already pretty chocolatey, but I think this More choc variety was a bit less sweet and had a slightly stronger chocolate flavour than a standard Snickers – it certainly seemed to burn the throat more! What I’m not convinced about, though, is that I would have been able to identify what the difference was if I didn’t already know.

Whilst I did enjoy the flavour, I did miss the squidginess of the Rockin' nut road – the More choc was more chewy and quite stiff in places. As a result, it was the texture that stopped me liking this more than I did, but then that was an outcome that I’d expected due to my existing opinion of the Snickers Bar.

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 6.5/10
Overall score: 7.13/10

Snickers Bar: Rockin' nut road

Product name: Snickers Bar: Rockin’ nut road
Purchase details: £1.59 for a 49.9g bar (Mr Simms)
Calories: 230 per bar
Country of origin: USA

I’m not generally a fan of Snickers which is why, so far, I’ve only reviewed the mini version included in Celebrations. However, this Rockin’ nut road variety (based on rocky road) caught my eye on my first ever visit to Mr Simms. (That’s right – we have a Mr Simms now! I always wondered what this magical place was like and I can now report that it smells amazing!)

This bar consisted of dark chocolate, almonds, caramel and marshmallow flavoured nougat, and it was the change in nut type and nougat that got me so excited. I can usually take or leave marshmallow since I like the flavour but, in other things, I don’t tend to like its elasticity. As a result, having the flavour in a nougat seemed like a win-win situation, particularly since it’s the presence of marshmallows in real rocky road which tends to put me off eating it, usually.

Made by Mars Chocolate North America, the bar came in a striking black wrapper and was a very good looking specimen. The semisweet chocolate was nice and glossy and the pale nougat, large nuts and gooey caramel were all well-defined against this dark shell.

It may have contained artificial flavours but this Snickers Bar: Rockin’ nut road wasn’t bad at all. Its aroma was a simple but deep dark chocolate one and this ingredient was definitely the main one in terms of taste too – it made the product noticeably more bitter and it balanced well with the inner features, almost creating a saltiness by comparison. The downside was that the nougat and caramel weren’t as sweet as they could have been and the inside, generally, wasn’t very flavourful but, overall, the taste wasn’t miles away from an actual piece of rocky road.

The texture was the standout element for me, though. The inside was stringy but not too chewy, and I loved the softness of it, as well as the fact that it wasn’t overrun with nuts that got in the way. If anything, I’d say the feel was very much like a Mars bar but with the odd dull crunch here and there.

In conclusion, I would have liked the flavours from the nougat, almonds and caramel to be more prominent in this bar, but its squidginess was very enjoyable indeed.

Appearance: 8/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 8.5/10
Overall score: 7.63/10

Milky Way Bar: French vanilla and caramel

Product name: Milky Way Bar: French vanilla and caramel
Purchase details: £1.50 for a 48.8g bar (A Quarter of Sweets)
Calories: 220 per bar
Country of origin: USA

I always have to remind myself that American Milky Ways are the equivalent of UK Mars bars. Bearing that in mind, this limited edition French vanilla and caramel variety, with its ‘rich chocolate’, ‘creamy caramel’ and ‘smooth nougat’ didn’t seem quite as unusual a concept as it would have done if compared to a British Milky Way!

 

Still made by Mars, I really liked this Milky Way Bar’s packaging, with the colour scheme reminding me of the Nakd Banana Bread, as I’ve previously mentioned. The product image’s luscious caramel topping, and the vanilla flower, were also easy on the eye.

I’ve only reviewed the UK Mars bar in miniature form as part of my Celebrations post, but I’ve eaten a lot of them in my time! As a result, I knew that the Milky Way, on the outside, looked very similar. It was slimmer, and a bit scuffed, but the inside looked incredible. The white nougat was really clean and fresh, whilst the amber caramel layer looked silky smooth.

As for the scent, there was a milky chocolate element to this, but it also smelt recognisably American in terms of the chocolate itself. Unfortunately, the vanilla aspect wasn’t incorporated into the aroma.

For me, the chocolate used on this bar wasn’t as nice as the British version – I can only assume that it was a different recipe! Aside from that, the vanilla nougat tasted immediately of ice cream and was almost floral. Whilst the bar was very sweet, it wasn’t as chocolatey as I would have liked. I did feel that the caramel was improved, though – it remained thick and incredibly gooey, but it was also as smooth as it had looked.

The combination of the chocolate and nougat ended up reminding me of the Charleston Chew Vanilla, although the Milky Way Bar: French vanilla and caramel was definitely a superior product – aside from the very inclusion of the caramel, I loved the way the chocolate shell cracked against the fantastically squidgy centre with every bite.

I’m certainly glad I tried this product but, to be perfectly honest, I much prefer the traditional, rugged and more chocolatey Mars bar!

Appearance: 8/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 8.5/10
Overall score: 7.63/10