Cadbury Layers Of Joy: Caramellionaire

Product name: Cadbury Layers Of Joy: Caramellionaire
Purchase details: £1.00 for a pack of two desserts (Tesco)
Calories: 205 per 90g dessert
Country of origin: UK

I’ve tried a few Pots of joy from Cadbury in my time but this is the first time I’ve tried a new Layers Of Joy, with this brilliantly named ‘Caramellionaire’ being the variety I couldn’t wait to get stuck into.

The purple packaging featured an image of the product that looked like a trifle in style and that was the name it was given in the small print too. Made by Müller Dairy for Mondelez, the full description sounded mouth-watering: ‘shortcake biscuit at heart surrounded by delicious layers of Cadbury milk chocolate mousse, rich caramel dessert and white chocolate mousse’. You probably won’t be surprised to know that it was the white chocolate that particularly caught my eye!

The clear pot made it nice and easy to see three distinct layers of white chocolate (1% of the product was white chocolate powder), caramel, and milk chocolate (another 1% was milk chocolate but the pot also contained cocoa powder). However, despite accounting for 11% of the dessert, the shortbread wasn’t visible.

The dessert smelt of chocolate mousse (possibly as it was at the top!) and the latter aspect was also the key texture throughout. The chocolate layer was deep and provided quite a rich cocoa flavour and this went nicely with the caramel which was the same as my memory of Cadbury Dairy Milk: Pots of joy (caramel) and had quite a butterscotchy flavour to it.

Despite appearances, there was a definite biscuit layer next, with a buttery shortcake taste which was delicious. Rather than being hard and crumbly, this was soft and soggy, but very enjoyable!

I initially struggled to sample some of the white chocolate on its own, and it was hard to notice it against the other flavours, but it was possible to try it in larger quantities at the end of each pot. It was beautifully sweet and tasted a little like vanilla ice cream.

All in all, this was a really good dessert and, although I’d prefer a real piece of millionaire’s shortbread, the combination of layers did produce a satisfyingly authentic experience. To my surprise, it was the biscuit that made it, but every layer made its own unique and tasty contribution.

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 8/10
Texture: 8/10
Overall score: 7.63/10

Cadbury Fingers: Fabulous (honeycomb)

Product name: Cadbury Fingers: Fabulous (honeycomb)
Purchase details: £1.00 for a 110g box (Tesco)
Calories: 35 per finger
Country of origin: UK

Despite not being new, I’ve never bought Cadbury Fingers: Fabulous (honeycomb) before, although I vaguely recall trying one a while ago – not that I could remember what they were like!

These biscuits featured the usual Fabulous branding but had an amber carpet with a honeycomb design to symbolise the flavour. The box contained an average of 16 biscuits (with a serving intended to be two) and mine ended up being particularly good value since Tesco had kindly sent me a Clubcard voucher for £0.50 off!

I’d assumed that the Fingers, made by Burton’s Biscuit Co., would have featured a honeycomb cream layer like with the Fox's Velvety: Caramel & honeycomb cream but it turned out that the pale layer beneath the ‘velvety smooth’ milk chocolate (41%) was still white chocolate (31%). Instead, the flavour came from ‘honeycomb flavour biscuit’ which looked a bit more amber in colour to normal. However, I did also think the white chocolate looked a bit less white and a bit more yellow, but that was probably wishful thinking!

 

The very crispy Fingers had a sweetened scent which, whilst very nice, wasn’t strong. To melt, the outer experience was unchanged from the other varieties, but I was surprised to find that the inside tasted like a Crunchie that had been mixed with a bit of biscuit! I didn’t find this honeycomb aspect to be quite as noticeable when chewing but the overall feel was more sugary and the biscuits definitely did taste different to the standard Fingers: Fabulous.

I may not have purchased these before but I most certainly will again!

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 7.25/10

Nestlé Le Chocolat: στρατσιατέλα

Product name: Nestlé Le Chocolat: στρατσιατέλα
Purchase details: £0.59 for a 90g bar (99p Stores)
Calories: 124 per 22.5g serving (498 per bar)

Every now and then I pick up an interesting-looking product and then wonder how on Earth I’m going to review it when its name uses characters which are foreign to me. Thankfully, the wonderful world of the internet has meant I’ve been able to properly name this Nestlé Le Chocolat: στρατσιατέλα, but how you pronounce that last word, I have absolutely no clue!

It was the shiny silver wrapper that caught my attention, adorned with images of what appeared to be cookies and cream chocolate and ice cream, so I took a guess that this bar would be along the same lines as Lindt Lindor: Stracciatella. Although the entire wrapper was in Greek, there a small English translation on an added label, and this told me it was ‘white chocolate with dark chocolate chips and crispies’. With it being white chocolate, I was happy to give it a go anyway, but I did later translate the Greek Nestlé website  which turned ‘στρατσιατέλα’ into ‘stratsiatela’ which Google seemed to think was the same thing as ‘stracciatella’ – boom!

I felt the bar was very good-looking with visibly wide spread dark chocolate chips (7%), as well as the rice ‘crisp pieces’ (2%) that could be seen through the base. Strangely, the dark chocolate seemed to have its own filling that almost looked like biscuit, but I couldn’t work this out. The white chocolate itself was divided into 28 small, slightly curved pieces that each featured a little decoration, and I later found their size to be just right with the level of flavour on offer.

Although there was an absence of a drifting scent, the bar did have a white chocolate smell up-close. It also had a good snap to it, although I found the texture to be quite unusual. The white chocolate seemed to separate out when chewing, but this was also broken up with splinters of dark chocolate, as well as the crispy pieces. Alternatively, the white chocolate did melt, but this was slow and not very smooth. Although the pieces left behind were a little bit uncomfortable, I didn’t find the bar to be too bitty, so this was a plus for me.

I found the melting flavour to be more like a milky vanilla ice cream rather than white chocolate and this was pretty nice. However, despite containing a minimum of 50% cocoa solids, the dark chocolate only seemed to add texture rather than flavour.

When chewing, the flavour was a bit more like white chocolate, although this still wasn’t majorly the case. Fairly early on, there was a familiar burn at the back of the throat and a hint that the bar was going to become too sickly to eat a lot of, but it actually turned out to be perfectly manageable. It was by no means amazing but it certainly wasn’t bad.

This Nestlé Le Chocolat: στρατσιατέλα was a nice little find but I’m not about to swap my favourite white chocolates for this one!

Appearance: 8.5/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 7.38/10

Lu Glico: Mikado (white chocolate)

Product name: Lu Glico: Mikado (white chocolate)
Purchase details: £0.69 for a 70g box (Tesco Superstore)
Calories: 11 per 2.3g biscuit
Country of origin: UK

Ah...Lu Glico: Mikado (white chocolate). Regular readers won’t be surprised to know that I’ve always preferred these to the milk chocolate version.

These ‘biscuits coated with white chocolate’ (55%) were made by Mondelez and came in a cream box. The overall concept was the same as the milk chocolate but, in terms of appearance, the ‘wonderfully creamy white chocolate’ provided a much paler colouring, particularly against the inner biscuit.

The aroma combined a mild but creamy white chocolate with rich tea biscuits, and the resulting taste was basic but delicious – the pretty thick chocolate was really sweet and milky but the biscuit’s flavour was also stronger than normal, and this was lovely too.

The texture was also as crispy and smooth as ever and so I thoroughly enjoyed this guilt-free snack.

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