Review: Kit Kat Dessert Delights from India

The ‘Kit Kat’ is somewhat of a global superstar; created in York, England in the 1930’s it has since developed into a cultural and flavour sensation in Japan, expanded its range to include exotic ingredients, has numerous countlines branded to seasons, themes and events, has grown up into large 10-finger bars and chunky formats, has a dedicated ‘Chocolatory‘ where customers can create their own custom Kit Kats, and is currently enjoyed in over 80 countries.

This humble, yet exceedingly tasty, layered chocolate wafer has a following all of its own in the confectionery world with many fans avidly trying as many flavours, varieties and forms from around the world and soley collecting Kit Kat wrappers and memorbilla.

Now most of the Kit Kats I have tried have come from the its original home, the UK, as well as the USA, Australia and a selection of miniatures from Japan – but this week I have two ‘Dessert Delight’ Kit Kats from India to sample!

‘Dessert Delight’ Kit Kats, India

‘Divine Choco Pudding‘ and ‘Heavenly Brownie Kubes’ come in these rather smart embossed, cardboard boxes and are made in the four-finger format with four snapable portions on each finger. Despite having endured a bit of an arduous journey to get here (note the slight melting and bloom) they are perfectly edible…and tasty!

A little bloom never hurt anyone: bloom occurs when chocolate has been exposed to high temperatures (or hasn’t been tempered properly). This can cause fats and/or sugars to begin to separate.

‘Divine Choco Pudding‘ is described as a ‘cream caramel flavoured dessert inspiration’ and includes a caramel flavoured milk chocolate along with the signature crispy layers. It is very sweet, pretty much like caramel and with notes of honey. Perhaps a little too sweet to eat all four fingers in one go, however the milk chocolate is milky and rich and makes for a tasty (sharing) break.

Made with ‘luscious‘ dark chocolate the ‘Heavenly Brownie Kubes‘ is essentially just a dark Kit Kat. Despite the packaging and themes being centred around classic desserts, there isn’t anything to separate this bar with a typical dark chocolate Kit Kat wafer. I was somewhat hoping for a thick, sickly, fudgy type chocolate or chocolate cream to make this break even more ‘heavenly’ and indulgent, but, it’s not to be found here.

That being said, the plain chocolate is nice, but very dry…although this could be down to the bloom.

I’d certainly like to try more global Kit Kat varieties in the future – does anyone out there have any recommendation for me? Which country does the Kit Kat best?

Review: Bumbles Original Candy Honeycomb

Honeycomb, cinder toffee, hokey pokey, sponge toffee, seafoam candy, puff candy…whatever you call it, can we all agree that it is delicious? And up for review I have an Australian version of this carbonated sugar toffee – ‘Bumbles Original Candy Honeycomb‘.

‘Bumbles’ Original Candy Honeycomb, Menz, South Australia

Produced by established confectioners Menz, of South Australia (est. 1850), this big bag of chunky honeycomb blocks has only carried the (somewhat adorable) name of ‘Bumbles‘ since 2019. Prior to this re-brand, the ‘chocolatly‘ coated confection was marketed as ‘Menz Choc Honeycomb‘.

This bee-themed re-brand was an attempt to provoke a sense of nostalgia in the Australian public as it is more reminiscent of old fashioned, homemade candies: one that ‘radiates the cosy brand values‘. 

It is Australia’s biggest selling chocolate honeycomb brand. However Menz also now produces the famous ‘Violet Crumble‘ – a honeycomb chocolate bar, invented by Abel Hoadly, which pre-dates the British ‘Crunchie‘ by a whopping 16 years (made in 1913)!

Like the ‘Violet Crumble‘ and ‘Crunchie‘ bar, the star of the this confection is the honeycomb. Made from sugar and baking soda, ‘Bumbles‘ honeycomb is very light and airy, extremely crunchy and rapidly dissolves on the tongue. It’s a heavenly and dangerously addictive sensation. As quick as a flash the sweet toffee has melted in your mouth leaving a substantial portion of thick, ‘candy’ coating (they’re not calling it chocolate).

Chunky, crunchy blocks of cinder toffee

And it doesn’t quite taste like chocolate either, which is the only real downside to this sweet in my opinion. Had the cinder toffee/honeycomb/sponge been enrobed in a generous layer of milky, silky real milk chocolate then this would be an even better product. Because the toffee melts away so quickly I can’t help but analyze the taste of the remaining ‘candy‘ in my mouth, and the more I chew, the less like cocoa it tastes and more like ‘something else’.

That being said, I demolished this big bag in a relatively short amount of time because the taste, texture and big ol’ size of these chunks are too tasty to resist. You can’t simply eat one…you have to eat eleven at least.

Have you tried ‘Bumbles‘, ‘Violet Crumble‘ or ‘Crunchie‘? How do they compare to you? Also, what do you call ‘honeycomb‘ where you live?

Wrapper Wednesday: Kasugai Pineapple Gummy

It’s Wrapper Wednesday! And even though the days are now darker, and the temperature is now colder, I’m feeling warm with this tropical flavoured wrapper of pineapple gummies from Japan.

Japanese confectioners Kasugai created a wide range of fruit flavoured gummy snacks back in 1990; many of which are made with real fruit juice; orange, strawberry, peach, melon, grape, mango, apple, lychee, kiwi and in this case, pineapple.

This pocket sized ‘attractive small bag‘ contained individually wrapped, plush, squishy, little yellow gummies. The detailed photographs of tropical pineapple assist any none-Japanese speaking buyers in interpreting the packet and are extremely eye catching (and the brief English description helps that too).

Big. Bold. And beautiful.

Review: Kit Kat vs. Kit Kat

Ding ding ding! We’ve had ‘Rolo’s, and we’ve had Cadbury ‘Mini Eggs‘…now it’s time for Kit Kat vs. Kit Kat – who does it best? Britain or America? Well, let’s find out…

(top) British Kit Kat (bottom) American Kit Kat

Like with many European-made chocolates, here in the United States Hershey seems to have the monopoly on licencing rights. The Hershey Company produces American-made ‘Rolo‘ (originally made by British ‘Toffee King’ Macintosh in 1937, now produced by Swiss-based Nestlé) and all American-made Cadbury products, including the Easter staple ‘Mini Eggs‘ – both of which I have reviewed side-by-side.

In 1970 Hershey bought the rights to produce the Rowntree ‘Kit Kat‘ (which originated in 1935) for the American market. So lets see how they stack up!

Aesthetics; both wrappers are very similar. Use of red as the main colour (as it always has been, aside from during WWII when British ‘Kit Kat’ wrappers turned blue) similar font, encircled logo and an image of the wafer finger snapped in half. Both even use the memorable tagline ‘Have a break, have a Kit Kat‘ – which was first used in 1957.

Even unwrapped, apart from the British version using the ever cool hashtag motif, the four-fingered chocolate wafers look very similar. The biggest difference is that on the British chocolate the imprinted logo is closed in ‘brackets’, and the US one is not.

The chocolate colour is a little darker on the European bar…but Hershey have produced a pretty slick copy.

Spot the difference…

Where they begin to differ is in the taste!

As I find with most Hershey chocolate products, the initial taste is fairly yummy…but then an ashy taste begins to form in the back of my throat. The cocoa isn’t as chocolatey as Nestle’s Kit Kat, and I don’t feel like the thin, layered wafers have the same snappy crunch.

The British Kit Kat has a noticably sweeter taste over all when eaten next to the US version, and the slightly malty taste of the wafers is much more distinguishable. Hershey’s Kit Kat is more dense, with a heavier mouth feel, but is still provides a good crunch.

Hershey does Kit Kat

Sigh…once again I find myself preferring the chocolate I grew up with. A two-fingered Kit Kat in my packed lunch at school has perhaps screwed my preferences…and that’s ok. My American husband prefers the American Kit Kat all for the same reasons.

Does anyone out there prefer the ‘foreign’ version of a homeland candy? Are you a Brit who prefers Australian Caramilk? Or are you an American who prefers the Nestlé Kit Kat or Rolo?

It looks like I’ll be sticking with the British versions…unless someone can persuade me otherwise!

Review: La Vaquita Milk Toffees

We’re south of the border for today’s sweet review! Sampling the dangerously rich and moreish ‘La Vaquita‘ natillas flavoured milk toffees by Canel’s, Mexico.

Canel’s have been producing confectionery in Mexico for almost a century. The business began in 1925 in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, as a confectioners and producers of high quality gum and chewy candies. Canel’s has since developed into a giant all-Mexican corporation that also has dealings in hotels, has its own fleet of airplanes and are sponsors to numerous sporting events and disciplines such as basketball, cycling and motorsports.

Canel’s ‘La Vaquita‘ (‘Little Cow’ in Spanish) soft candies come in a small range of flavours and formats, including lollypops. These particular sweets are ‘natillas‘ and pecan flavoured – natillas being a type of ‘Spanish custard’ which is made with milk and eggs.

Canel’s ‘La Vaquita’ milk toffees

They smell, and taste, like a rich combination of heavy condensed milk and buttery toffee. The taste grows ever sweeter as you chew your way through the semi-soft tanned rolls. And since they give quite a long chew, just a couple of sweets is about enough for me before they turn a little sickly.

‘Little Cow’ toffees with lots of caramel, nuts and natillas flavour

There is an ever so slight, nutty undertone, but equally, if you had told me that they didn’t contain a ‘rica nuez’ (or ‘rich nuts‘) pecan flavour, then I would have believed you. The predominant taste is that of a creamy, full bodied milky toffee chew…and that’s alright by me!

If you’re the type of person to chew on a lump of toffee all afternoon, or sip sweetened condensed milk from the tin, or take your custard warm over a toffee pudding, this sweet might just be right up your alley!

Review: Midwest Chocolate

Following a trip to Kansas City, Missouri, I picked up a couple of locally produced chocolate bars as tasty souvenirs; a peanut butter and toasted corn milk chocolate bar by KC-based Christopher Elbow Chocolates, and a dark chocolate and sunflower seed bar produced in my new home of Kansas.

Christopher Elbow is a renowned chef and chocolatier. A KC native, his highly skilled confections were in such high demand that in 2003 Christopher Elbow Chocolates was launched. They are the creators of beautifully sculpted bonbons and a delectable range of bars – the one that intrigued me most was the peanut butter and toasted corn.

Hang on…toasted corn in chocolate I hear you say? Well, if you like classic sweet and salty combination snacks like chocolate dipped pretzels or salted caramels, why not?

That is exactly what this bar is – a delicate dance of the two. The 38% milk chocolate is so smooth and so thin it melts in the mouth so quickly (it very much reminds me of Swiss chocolate) and as it melts the peanut butter is drawn out. Then you are left with the popping crunch of small pieces of toasted corn and a salty aftertaste.

Christopher Elbow milk chocolate

I love eating salted and roasted corn nuts of an evening, so this bar, despite being a little cautious at first, was a great eat for me. Simple, quality ingredients and so much more refined than the chocolate pretzel!

‘Bar Du Soleil‘, distributed by the Sunflower Food Company of Kansas, is a chunky bar of semi-sweet chocolate interspersed with sunflower seeds. Kansas is the ‘sunflower state’ and so it’s a fitting inclusion for a locally made candy.

I really enjoy nibbling on chocolate coated sunflower seeds (when I can find them), and that is what this bar reminded me of. Like the Christopher Elbow bar, this one is a mix of sweet and earthy flavours, although the result is more subtle.

Bar Du Soleil, Kansas

Dark chocolate with seeds in it…it’s simple, and nice, but that’s about it. As fussy as I am when it comes to milk chocolate, I think it’s much more difficult to make ‘bad’ dark chocolate – and this one was just ‘nice’. I would have liked to have more seeds providing a bigger crunch and contrasting tone against the sweeter chocolate, but it was tasty all the same.

In summary, here are two tasty small-scale chocolate bars that are representing the neighbouring states of Kansas and Missouri through local flavours and honed home skills.

Review: Japanese Snacks

I have carelessly allowed my snack suitcase to get rather full, so today I’m sampling a little assortment of sweet snacks from Japan – rapid review style!

A selection of sweet Japanese snacks

My favourite of the selection is the ‘Everyburger‘. ‘Everyburger‘ sandwich cookies/biscuits by Bourbon (1924) are both visually and edibly amazing! The biscuit buns are unevenly golden to give the appearance of toasted bread, and the faux sesame seeds (millet puffs) even add a little crunch. There is a thick layer of milk chocolate ‘patty’ with a smaller white chocolate layer pretending to be burger sauce. The whole concoction is super kawaii! A little tray of biscuit burgers and amazing graphics to boot – there’s nothing I dislike about these buns!

‘Everyburger’ burger biscuits

‘Caplico‘ by Japanese confectionery giants Glico (1922) typically comes in an ice cream cone format – and here we have cream flavour and chocolate flavour examples (they also come in strawberry)! A sugar-wafer cone filled all the way down with a soft and light cocoa filling. Simple. Tasty. An ideal summer snack.

‘Caplico Amata‘ (‘amata‘ meaning ‘head‘) however are aerated milk and white chocolate stars kept secure in a star-shaped plastic tray. Once you’ve popped these candies out like ice cubes, you can see how chunky they are. But they are not a dense eat. Like the Caplico Minis (ice cream cones) the chocolate is layered, whipped and very light. They remind me slightly of Mars’ ‘Magic Stars‘ chocolates. The packaging choice makes the twelve star candy constellation feel ‘special’, like they are worth protecting and savoring.

Caplico Mini and Amata sweets

Last but not least; a small, wonderfully illustrated box containing six wrapped pieces of ‘Botan Rice Candy‘…the box even comes with a collectible sticker…bonus! The box helpfully explains that each pink sweet has ‘an edible inner wrapper that melts in your mouth‘ (if you have eaten chews like ‘White Rabbit‘, you might have come across this too). This edible wrap is made from rice paper, and resembles a thin layer of plastic. But it quickly dissolves and once you begin chewing a delicate fruity and floral flavour comes forward.

Botan Rice Candy (with bonus sticker)

A delectable selection of Japanese sweets, snacks and dagashi! Which Japanese snacks would you recommend that I try next?

Review: Cadbury Mini Eggs vs. Cadbury Mini Eggs

It’s time for another round of ‘Who Does It Best?‘ – a comparison of two versions of Cadbury’s famous chocolate ‘Mini Eggs‘.

In the yellow corner we have the British-born (now Polish-made) Mini Eggs. And in the purple corner we have the American-made Mini Eggs, made under the Cadbury licence by the Hershey Company.

The original British Cadbury Mini Eggs were first manufactured in 1967. These egg-shaped chocolates, coated in a candy shell come in pink, purple, white and yellow and have an adorable brown speckle pattern in order to further mimic a small bird’s egg.

Notably, the Hershey variety lack this distinctive speckle splatter and as such the colours are less muted. They share the same colour scheme as their British cousins, but also include a blue egg in the mix (a colour that was dropped from the British line-up).

Both wrappers use a similar ‘Mini Egg’ font, feature images of the similar-looking treats, and make use of the gold ‘Cadbury’ signature…but do they taste the same?

British Mini Eggs (yellow) American Mini Eggs (purple)

In short…they’re similar! But not the same.

Like with most Hershey-made versions, the chocolate is less creamy and silky compared to British-made chocolates. There is a strong sweet, artificial smell when you open the bag, and the chocolate (for me at least) leaves an almost smoky aftertaste.

The British Mini Eggs have a sweeter aftertaste, and the milk chocolate, is, well, ‘milkier‘.

But, the crunch from breaking the sugar shells on both versions is crisp and makes for a pretty good eating experience. I just find British Mini Eggs so much more moreish! Once again, that probably comes down to me preferring the types of confectionery I grew up with (ingrained bias perhaps).

Spot the difference…

There is good American chocolate out there! I just can’t taste it in Hershey-made imitation Cadbury.

But you tell me if I am wrong! Which Mini Eggs do you prefer? British? American? Or how about Canadian, or Australian Mini Eggs? Either way, have a tasty Easter!

Review: Dairy Milk Bar ft. Perky Nana

Cadbury Australia has a bit of a reputation for their inventive and creative products, including mash-ups. Once such Aussie colab up for review is the Cadbury Dairy Milk bar featuring Perky Nana.

The Perky Nana (say nah-na in my accent), also known as the ‘Mighty Perky Nana’, is a bar of light, almost foamy, banana chew coated thinly in Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate. Whether you’re a fan of banana and chocolate confectionery or not, this bar is a fun and popular candy in both Australia and New Zealand.

Dairy Milk ft. Perky Nana

This chocolate bar is a block of Tasmanian Dairy Milk interspersed with yellow chunks of banana flavoured marshmallow. These little golden nuggets are much firmer than the mallow in a regular Perky Nana and add great texture to the bar of silky chocolate.

As with most Dairy Milk products from Australia, I find that the chocolate has a slightly odd aftertaste – slightly earthy and not as rich. But Dairy Milk from different countries do vary in taste – this is simply due to different milk being being used. I suppose I am just accustomed to how UK Dairy Milk tastes!

Yellow nana nuggets

That’s not to say that this bar is disappointing – far from it! I love chocolate and banana, and there is a large scattering of nana mallows throughout the bar to ensure that there’s a good fruity chew in every bite.

The banana flavour (for me) is a nice distraction from the lingering aftertaste, and I quite happily ate this bar. I just wish that Cadbury UK was as inventive and creative with their chocolate bars – Australia wins for originality!

At the moment you can find a wide array of these big Aussie Cadbury bars in B&M, including, Dream, Rocky Road, Mint Creme, Birthday Cake, Perky Nana, Neapolitan, Top Deck, Picnic, Caramilk and Marble. So many to choose from!

Review: E. Wedel Coconut & Blueberry/Strawberry Chocolate Bars

Today I have not one, but another two chocolate bars by Polish chocolatiers E. Wedel; a milk chocolate bar with a blueberry and wild strawberry compote, and a dark chocolate and coconut bar.

E. Wedel was established in 1851 in Warsaw by Karol Wedel, and is Poland’s oldest chocolate firm. His son Emil continued his father’s legacy. The Wedel family chocolate proved so popular, each bar was eventually stamped with Emil’s signature in order to discourage copy-cat products, and you can still see this stamp on their products today!

The milk chocolate bar with wild strawberry and blueberry filling is a wonderful mix of strong fresh, fruity flavors and a decadent yogurt cream. The berries pair so well together and makes for a juicy and fresh duo – I am able to pick out both the sharp fruity notes. The chocolate, fruit and fondant elements make this bar a very creamy and flavorsome eat…if a fruit yogurt ever wished upon a star to become a chocolate bar, this would be the fairy tale result!

Wild strawberry and blueberry compote filling

On the back of the wrapper, which features a rather sweet illustration of a boy and his zebra, is a little fact about the company. I love it when brands show us their history and heritage, so finding out that Emil’s first Chocolate Lounge was founded in 1894 in Warsaw (and now operates at their ‘vintage store’) is a real added bonus for fact fans like me.

A boy casually riding his pet zebra…and flying a kite…

The coconut chocolate bar in comparison is deep and rich, mainly down to the dark and full bodied plain chocolate used. It is not bitter, but is full of rich cocoa flavour. The coconut creme filling is smooth and velvety. The two work very well together, with the milky tropical creme lifting those dark chocolate notes slightly, making it a little sweeter as you eat.

Coconut and dark chocolate

As with every E. Wedel product I’ve tried so far, the flavors are on point! Each fruity element is fresh and light, and with a good quality chocolate, it’s hard to go wrong with these Polish confectioners.

I found these in a rather large branch of Tesco – so you don’t need to go far if you’d like to try a taste of Europe chocolate!

Review: Darrell Lea Blocks

The sun is starting to shine on North West England, and what better way to get into the summer spirit than to indulge in not one…but five amazing chocolate bars from Australia. Introducing the Rocklea Road, Bondi, Fairy, Bear Hug and Halftime Orange chocolate blocks by Darrell Lea.

Darrell Lea chocolate blocks

Registered in 1934 after the youngest member of the Lea family, the company has earlier origins dating back to 1915, when father Harry (an English immigrant) and Esther Lea began to make toffees to sell in their fruit and veg shop. By the mid 1920’s the family began to concentrate on producing and selling their confectionery in their own milk bar and sweet shop in Sydney called the ‘King of Sweets’ (watch out John Mackintosh!*)

Not limited to chocolate, the company today also makes a wide variety of liquorice products, fruit pastilles and chocolate coated fruits.

In order of preference, here are the bars!

1. Bondi (milk chocolate, cornflakes, peanuts, salted caramel chips)
2. Rocklea Road (marshmallows, coconut, peanuts, milk chocolate)
3. Halftime Orange (dark chocolate, orange jellies, pretzel sticks)
4. Fairy (mini marshmallows, 100’s & 1000’s, milk chocolate)
5. Bear Hug (blackcurrant jellies, honeycomb, milk chocolate)

To be honest, you can’t really go wrong with any of these bars! The chocolate, milk or dark, is wonderfully smooth and rich and every bar is jam-packed full of texture! Bondi, Rocklea Road and Halftime Orange are equally ample with crunchy, chewy, soft textures and are crammed full of flavour. The combination of salty and sweet in these bars is yet another reason why they ranked so highly for me.

Check out all that texture!

With every mouthful you taste a little something new, a little hint of coconut…a little piece of honeycomb you missed with the first bite…which makes these bars extremely moreish as the taste and texture slightly varies each time!

I personally don’t care for sprinkles or 100’s & 1000’s, and I don’t like the combination of gummies and chocolate (I have tried chocolate gummy bears in the past) and they’re just not for me. Regardless of this, the quality of the chocolate and the amount of ‘stuff’ you get in each bar is astounding.

The creativity of these chocolate bars makes them really stand out, both graphically and physically – they are so different to what we have on our UK shelves, and I so wish companies that produce and market over here would bring something similar to the market…or better yet, Darrell Lea please come to the UK!

I picked these up just before Christmas at B&M, and last time I checked (last week) a few of them were still there. So if you fancy a pick-me-up while we dream of better, sunnier days to come, I do recommend munching on a chunk of Darrell Lea chocolate blocks to help get you through!

*in reference to the self proclaimed ‘Toffee King’, John Mackintosh of Halifax, England. Check out his royal proclamation on a previous Fact Friday!

Wrapper Wednesday: Choco Boy

It’s Wrapper Wednesday! And it’s another one of my favourite foreign snacks up for display this week – Choco Boy, South Korea.

Choco Boy box and inner wrapper

Like most Asian confections, Choco Boy‘s movie-candy style box is full of cuteness and colour! Who else could turn a fungus into an incising and fun confectionery snack? The colours of green, yellow and blue all help to symbolize nature and the ‘goodness’ of the product, while the mascot, an anthropomorphic mushroom-boy, appears quite adorable and innocent. His bowl-style haircut is a representation of the chocolate mushroom top, which helps to tie in all of the individual elements portraying the candy.

In production since 1984, these bite-sized morsels are made up of a sweet biscuit stick capped off with a solid piece of milk chocolate. I hate mushrooms…but these biscuit versions will gladly suffice! They are light, moreish and pretty darn cute.

Choco Boy chocolate mushrooms

For me, the biscuit and chocolate profile remind me of KP Choc Dips (1982) – a typically corner-shop sweet where a plastic cup is split in half, with one side full of short, sweet biscuit sticks, and the other with a smooth milk chocolate (or white chocolate) creamy dip. Perhaps this is why I enjoy Choco Boy so much – the flavours remind me of a favourite childhood snack, while the graphics and format help bring out that inner child in me!

Review: Chocolate & Strawberry Collon

Brr! It sure is turning into a freezing February here in north west England! What better way to lift the spirits, and to think of sunnier times, than eating some global snacks! Up for review are chocolate and strawberry ‘Collon’ filled sweet snacks from Thailand.

Chocolate & Strawberry ‘Collon’

Made by the confectionery powerhouse Glico (Pocky, PRETZ), Glico was established in 1921, Japan, shortly after its founder Mr. Ri-ichi Ezaki conducted research into the use of glycogen and where it could be sourced from, and used in, food. Taking their name from their USP ingredient, Glico launced ‘Glico Caramel’. The heart shaped, chewy caramel was a nourishing and sustaining candy that provided athletes with plentiful energy!

These flavoured Collon treats are composed of a short, round, crunchy wafer roll, packed generously with a smooth flavoured creme filling. Eating these definitely reminds me of summer – the crunchy shell acting as an ice cream cone (it even had a waffle print texture) with the sweet, creamy fillings substituting in for the ice cream itself.

The name ‘Collon’ apparently means a type of dessert or confectionery in Japanese, and for me they’re a bit of a combination of both!

Out of the two, the strawberry has the stronger flavour. It’s instantly recognizable and has a wonderful sweet and slightly tangy finish. The chocolate Collon has a soft cocoa flavour – I would personally like this to be a little fuller, but from my experience of Asian biscuit candy, the flavours and textures do tend to be on the ‘lighter’ side – making these very easy to eat very quickly!

Even the packaging reminds me of summer, with the bright colours and smooth wavy form of the cream pictured on the boxes. All in all, a delightfully cheery snack! Roll on the sunshine!

Wrapper Wednesday: Grześki wafers

The Grześki wafers from Poland are perhaps one of my favourite pieces of confectionery. I’ve always said, wafer candy from this country simply can not be beaten, and for me, the Grześki range is the peak of crispy perfection!

Plain chocolate, toffee and milk chocolate hazelnut wafers

The founding company Goplana was established in 1912 on the outskirts of Poznań, western Poland. And alongside E.Wedel, is one of the country’s oldest confectionery brands. The company’s name is derived from the traditional Polish name for a nymph – a type of mythical woodland creature.

The Grześki (pronounced zesh-ki) are a multi-layered, thin wafer bar, sandwiched with chocolate creme and enrobed in a coat of chocolate. They are available in a variety of flavours; the ones featured here are plain chocolate, toffee and milk chocolate hazelnut. But they can also be found in a few different formats too – such as bite-sized wafer balls, a solid chocolate bar with wafer bits, and a ‘nude’ bar without the chocolate coating.

The combination of feather light wafers, flavourful fillings and a rich chocolate coat means I will pick these over a KitKat any day! They’re such a satisfying eat, especially if you’re after something to tame your sweet tooth, but don’t want to be weighed down by having too much chocolate.

I also like how strong the branding is across these bars – even if you are not familiar with the brand, or speak Polish (I do not), you can quite easily tell that they belong to the same brand, and the imagery makes it clear what flavour you’re picking up, and what exactly you’ll be eating – sometimes it can be a bit of a mystery when you take a foreign chocolate bar home!

I know I may have struck a confectionery nerve with some of you, picking these over Nestle’s KitKat…but you tell me, which one do you prefer? Or is there another contender for the wafer crown?

Review: Cookies and Cream Wafer Spirals

Up for review is this spectacular looking milk-carton of cookies and cream wafer rolls (produced in India) by New York based company ‘got milk snacks’.

got milk cookies and cream wafer rolls

Got milk? Well in 1993, the California Milk Processor Board (USA) thought that the dairy staple needed a better promotion than simply being good for children or doing the body good – thus the highly popularized ‘got milk?‘ campaign was launched, eventually becoming one of the most recognised and parodied American advertising campaigns. The posters and t.v commercials featured an array of film stars and cartoon characters donning milk-mustaches, and weirdly comic scenarios where the absence of milk was nothing short of dire. The ‘got milk?’ campaign ran for an astonishing twenty years until retirement.

These crispy cocoa wafer rolls are generously filled with a vanilla and cookie cream centre. The packaging recommends using them as a delicious stirrer for cold milk…but I never even got to try it! I ate the whole bunch pretty quickly, but did try a couple in my hot chocolate, with them turning into a satisfyingly, slightly soggy, chocolaty treat. The wafer coatings are thinly layered with a great crunch, not bitter with cocoa, with the filling being sweet, creamy and thick.

Milk or no milk, these were an unexpected and delicious treat with the creative packaging adding a little extra fun and enjoyment! I picked these up recently on sale in Sainsbury’s, and so for just 50p, 85g worth of wafer seemed like a really good portion. Even [Black] Star, my hairy curious kitty, thought these were worth investigating! Check them out if you find them too!