Easter Round-up - Thorntons, Cadbury, Maltesers/Caramel [by @NLi10]

Easter in the snack world means one thing - chocolate! As I'm not a massive fan of chocolate I still have Easter products left from previous years, I enjoy it but only when I'm in the right mood. Here are the most Eastery chocolate things I have consumed recently.



Thorntons Praline Melt Egg

This tiny thing, about the size of a Cadbury Creme Egg (pens included for scale, but focusing wasn't really working) is a very edible little treat. Usually these eggs are full of something heavy like caramel or the Creme Egg itself and while a pleasure to eat one is more than enough. This however is a feather-light treat, and as the runny centre is best consumed quickly to avoid spillage one that is over all too quickly. The combination of the quality chocolate & praline is a taste explosion I could have happily eaten two or maybe three of these in one sitting. As it was a gift I'm not sure how expensive these are, but I think I'll be checking for post Easter sales on these.


Cadbury Dairy Milk Clinkers

I enjoy Cadbury's chocolate but I'd never just buy a bar of Dairy Milk to eat. I have a few cubes here and there of other peoples, and the little Celebrations size versions are more the correct portion size for biscuit loving me. This however is something I'd be tempted to pick up. I think this was a gift (it's chocolate so it's likely) probably from Cyber Candy or similar as this isn't a high-street brand and I've not heard of 'clinkers' before. The multicoloured candy within this bar is fruit flavoured but not sour like the equivalent UK candy of Nerds which is at first underwhelming, but actually works as a nice edge to the chocolate. This combination of fruit and soft, melty Cadbury's chocolate caused me to eat the bar in two sittings - and I have over 10 choc bars in various stages of consumption that I've had for much longer. If this was available in newsagents I'd love a 40-50g bar for a single portion of out and about chomping.



Amazingly Inventive Cake featuring Maltesers Bunny & Caramel Bunny

I can take no credit for this one - it's made by my cousin (@xCuteKrazyKayx on Twitter) for her niece's first birthday party. While I didn't actually get chance to eat any of this I thought the use of the stylish Maltesers Bunny and (I'm only 90% sure this is) the Cadbury Caramel Bunny as a simple but effective Easter style cake was too good to not mention. White mice are always a nice touch too. Anyone looking for an Easter cake could probably find all the bits for this long after the pre-made Easter cakes are gone from the supermarket and for a more reasonable price.

Anyway - have a fantastically fab Easter and now I have to try and eat all the chocolate before the next one rolls around!

By @Nli10

Haribo Eggstras & Tangfast Chicks – What came first, the chicken or the egg? (Tesco) [By Spectre]

Easter is here again. Store shelves are covered from bottom to top with a multitude of brightly coloured chocolate eggs from every variety. I decided to break with the norm and try something different. Besides, I’ve recently changed job and it now takes me longer to travel back and forth. I’ve fallen into the trap of eating sweets on the train as a sugar energy interim before dinner. It’s difficult to eat a huge chocolate egg on a packed commuter train and small packets of sweets such as these Haribo’s fit in my pocket easily. Consequentially, Not only have I rediscovered my sweet tooth, but my waist size is increasing again. Ho hum…

Haribo Eggstras
These are Fried Eggs from the Haribo Starmix. They are sweet gums in the quaint shape of miniature fried eggs. They have a healthy hint of orange and mango and have no artificial colours. There’s lemon and passion fruit in the ingredients too. Although these two flavours seem to take a backseat to the stronger orange and mango flavours. I found these to be very pleasant and surprisingly healthy tasting gums.

Haribo Tangfast Chicks
These are described as “sour mix” and “fizzy fruit flavoured foam gums”. They are Chicken shaped. Hence the Tangfast Chicks name given to them. On opening the packet I noticed that they had not been counted equally, and I only had two green to taste test. Glancing at the back of the packet I noticed the ingredients included apple, aronia, blackcurrant, elderberry, mango, grape, kiwi, lemon, nettle, orange, passion fruit, and spinach. Funny mix there, especially the spinach and nettle! There were four colours of sour sugar coated gums. On remembering just how sour Haribo gums can be, my fingers dove excitedly into the packet.
The white colour gum is clearly supposed to be lemon flavour. It tastes like lemon, but surprisingly not too sour, rather sweeter and sugary, certainly not unpleasant, just not sour enough. Usually lemon flavour is the sourest in any sour pack of sweets, so I began to worry a little. The red colour is predominantly blackcurrant flavour with a decent portion of elderberry. The red colour was sweet, with a distinctive pleasant taste, but also not really sour. The green colour followed suite as an obvious apple flavour, just not very sour. The orange colour was unsurprisingly orange flavour, but there was little sourness there also. All the gums became slightly sourer the more I ate, but definitely a tame version of sour sweets that didn’t make me twisty faced at any point.

To the question, “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” I have to answer the Tangfast Chicks, but only by a narrow margin. If they’d made my tongue twist with a stronger sourness, they’d have been clear winners.

Happy Easter everyone!!

By Spectre

Caramel Chocolate Double Crunch Bunny (Marks & Spencers) [By @Cinabar]

Easter is nearly on its way, and if you are looking for a last minute stocking filling I think you should take a peak in M&S. There were quite a few lovely goodies in there, but it was these chocolate bunnies by the till that caught my eye. I had only popped in to purchase a couple of boring groceries, but I guess that is why they put the temptations next to the queue!
At first I thought they were just caramel filled, but then I realised that they had an extra bonus and contained chocolate truffle and crispy pieces too. I opened up the bright yellow wrapper, and found a very sweet looking chocolate bunny. I liked the detail on the moulding; even the whiskers were neatly present. Obviously the next thing I did was bit his head off... well you sort of have too!
The chocolate was sweet and creamy and left a thick rich melt in the mouth. The caramel was really good, it was buttery with a hint of salt and managed to add a lovely toffee tone to the overall flavour. The other half of the rabbit contained a rich dark chocolate truffle that was full of cocoa taste, and has what seemed to be specks of rice crispy pieces to give texture.
I have to say it was an impressively posh and enjoyable Easter treat, well worth checking out. :-)

By Cinabar

Rococo Chocolates: Quails Eggs (Waitrose) [By@Cinabar]

Looking through all the lovely Easter goodies on the shelves this year, these cute little Quails Eggs caught my eye. I love how Rococo have decorated them to look like the real thing, and neatly packaged them so they appear to be sitting on straw. When I read the back the back of the small box, and I spotted the word ‘praline’ I immediately added these to my basket!
When I got home, I decided these would make the perfect after work treat, and decided to open them up. Wow – the ribbon is annoying. It looks nice enough, but it is very firmly knotted, and the label forms a sticker over the back of it helping to seal it to the box. I was determined to open it without resorting to scissors, I managed it, but I really should have just given in and cut it as it was a bit of a struggle!
There are five eggs in the box, each had brown speckles on a light blue background, and each one seems to be differently decorated to the others. This is a nice touch as it makes them look a little more handmade and like a natural egg. The shell is made from sugar, and is quite thin when you bite in. It gives away easily, and reveals the wonderfully silk praline within it. The shell does add a slight sweetness, but it is mostly for the decoration rather than the taste. The flavours of the filling are rich, chocolaty and the hazelnut adds a lovely nuttiness. I admit I love praline, but these eggs don’t contain just any praline, it is of a particularly excellent quality. It is silky and flavoursome and turns something from a novelty into something special. If you are looking for a seasonal treat in ever such a sweet looking packaging, and you happen to like praline then these are a must!

By Cinabar

Crème De La Crème Eggs (Artisan Du Chocolat, Selfridges) [By @Cinabar]

Easter is becoming more and more predominant in terms of stock in shops, eggs are everywhere and other themed goodies are appearing too. Wondering around Selfridge's food hall you feel like you have been transported to some type of Easter Land, as there are just some many impressive seasonal goodies, from giant eggs to almost life size chocolate chickens. In my favourite corner of Selfridges sits the Artisan Du Chocolate stand, with its refreshing range of intriguing fresh chocolates. I was on a mission last Saturday looking for these Crème De La Crème Eggs, but I couldn’t see them and had to ask. I was actually standing right next to them, but I hadn’t spotted them as I was looking for something egg shaped and in their layers of wrappers had dismissed these as being giant chocolate sweets (like the giant Quality Street chocolates available at Christmas time).
Inside the pretty bag, are two varieties of Crème De La Crème Eggs, with three dark and three milk chocolate ones. The eggs themselves aren’t a perfect egg shape once they have been opened. Each egg has a patch of flat surface on its base which stops it rolling and directly above this there is a slight dimple in the chocolate on the top. I cut both types of the egg in half to have a sneaky peak at the contents. Both eggs had a lovely thick chocolate shell, the egg white in each consisted of a vanilla fondant and the yolk was a fruity one.


I decided to try the dark egg first, and bit in. The chocolate released a rich cocoa flavour, balanced by the smooth, but wet creamy filling. The flavour was predominantly vanilla, with a hint of fruitiness from the yolk. The yolk did have an orange taste, but it wasn’t very strong. As a whole, the mix of textures from the smooth shell cracking, and its wet truffle made for a pleasant mix of contrasts and the sweet filling made it an enjoyable egg.
The milk chocolate egg had a similar appearance, as the dark, with a similar ratio of yolk and white fondant within. What was amazing though was the flavour sensation within this egg. The yolk had a wonderful golden mango taste, sweet, and fresh and it added a lovely tropical twist. The creaminess from the vanilla shone too, and with the sweet milk chocolate it was just the kind of treat that made you wish you had another one (lucky for me I bought a bag). ;-) It is so nice to see mango getting centre stage in such a lovely chocolate egg, and proving that it can shine perfectly with the traditional flavours.
The milk chocolate egg was truly the crème de la crème, with its flavour balance it is absolutely perfect. All the ingredients work together and the chocolate and fruit tastes just melt in the mouth. If you are looking for a different Easter gift, make sure you check out Artisan Du Chocolat for something a bit special too.

By Cinabar