Nestlé Yorkie

I consumed a Nestlé Yorkie whilst studying for one of my midterm exams before Easter holiday.

It's apparently NOT FOR GIRLS!

Not exactly sure what the official reason is, but I would guess because it is very filling. The Yorkie is a essentially a solid chocolate bar from outer appearance, but inside, there is a slab of biscuit about one-third the thickness of the entire Yorkie lining the bottom of the bar and the remaining two-thirds is raisins and chocolate. All of this is really densely packed together. I bought a bar with 5 breakoff-able chunks. This bar got me through Math Finance and afterward, I didn't need to eat lunch anymore. It was that filling, even more filling than the Cadbury Picnic, and also much sweeter because it has a higher chocolate content.



I really liked the Yorkie. Of course, I'm a fan of any chocolate candy that has raisins in it that can trick me into thinking it's good for me in some way. This is probably the most overwhelming bar of its size that I've ever eaten because of the biscuit and dense chocolate action. Chocolate quality was standard milk chocolate, not very memorable, but not bad at all.

I also tried the Nestlé Yorkie McFlurry a while back, and it tasted nothing like the candy bar. I'm not even sure that there were raisins in it.

Cadbury Creme Egg McFlurry

Before I went on break, I tried a limited edition Cadbury Creme Egg McFlurry due to a tip I got from a loyal reader. (Yes, we have loyal readers! Plural!). Aside from trying as many chocolates as possible, usually the commercial stuff (Ivy "specializes" in the high class chocolaterie-type chocolates), I've also been trying to get every limited edition McFlurry.

I've never had a Cadbury Creme Egg before, so I don't know how "faithful" this McFlurry was to the candy. However, you can see that it looks like what I imagine a cracked and crumbled Cadbury Creme Egg sprinkled over McDonald's soft-serve ice cream. Here's a little secret I'll let you in on (but you could probably figure it out): this McFlurry was made by sprinkling pre-crumbled chocolate pieces and squirting caramel (or whatever the "yolk" is made out of) in a seemingly irregular fashion -- in other words, no Cadbury Creme Egg was actually used! This isn't supposed to be surprising, but I felt like sharing anyway.

Back to the taste. It was a little melty since I waited until I got back to my room to consume this (after, of course, taking multiple pictures of it). But it was the typical run-of-the-mill McFlurry. It probably didn't taste much like a Cadbury Creme Egg mixed with ice cream; at least, this was the case with the Yorkie McFlurry I had ages ago (tasted NOTHING like a Yorkie!). But I digress. The chocolate flakes were quite flaky, and a little powder-y? As for the "yolk," it tasted like caramel (is that correct for the yolk?). In the typical McFlurry fashion, the chocolate flakes and the yolk were weaved throughout the ice cream, but there wasn't a lot of either, so the McFlurry tasted like someone took a sundae with toppings added on and just stirred it with a spoon for a bit, as opposed to, say, chocolate and caramel ice cream.

Overall, good dessert for £1.19. It certainly is what you pay for.

Koruna Pralines

so i went to prague and bought belgian chocolates. alas. i guess at least there was something that was sort of local-ish (the becherovka truffel).

i miss the cheapness of the czech republic. really. all this for about... oh, i think it was 7 usd:


the bestseller:


almond truffle: cream with chocolate in milk chocolate and almonds. apparently, the best-selling truffle by koruna pralines. and it was amazing. as you can see, there are a whole host of fabulous almond sliver stuck to the milk chocolate outside, and the inside is filled with this heavenly, heavenly chocolate whipped cream, which tastes pretty much like a chocolate cloud. frothy, light, balanced by buttery almonds. deeelish.

so good that my mouth almost orgasmed.

yeah.


honestly, i bought this mostly for the shape. mushroom: nougat content. the outside was a mix of white and milk chocolate - a thin shell of it, and the inside was some nut nougat (like milk/cream with nut flavouring) and that was pretty good, if not outstanding.


walnut cream: pecan cream in dark chocolate. honestly, not entirely sure what the walnut is doing there - b/c there isn't any. but the cream does have a very distinct pecan flavour (a tad oversweet in my opinion), but the dark chocolate outside is pretty damn sexy. it's got that bitter aftertaste, but it's sooo smooooth. again, i think the entire thing could be improved if the pecan cream were just a trifle less sugary.


Baileys: "The original Irish cream in hot chocolate". i think, when the translation reads "hot", it actually means dark. anyhow. is there anyway this could taste bad? elaine has already pretty much established that baileys tastes good with just about anything. and now we're adding (well-made) dark chocolate to the equation?

sweet jesus my tastebuds have died and gone to heaven.


Champagne truffel: "Cream flavored with champagne in white chocolate". not bad - could barely, barely taste the champagne, but like i said, not bad. but i have something to compare this to in a future post, so just you hold on. white chocolate and champagne are preferable combination to champagne and regular chocolate.

so yeah, i don't know about giving people both (either milk/dark chocolate + champagne) as gifts now.


apologies, i don't remember wtf the above is. it was good and chocolate-y.


Cointreau praline: "Duplicate content - with the cream liqueur". yeah, that's probably not a very good translation. cointreau though - i prefer this to the grand marnier liquor filled i'ved tried in the past (this doesn't burn as much). i know, not the same thing, but still. not outstanding though.


Krokant bitter nougat: "Nougat filling with pieces of nuts nadrcenými in bitter chocolate". now i remember why it's taken so long for me to update. because i keep on getting about this far everytime and i'm like, do i even really remember what this shit tasted like? no. which means it wasn't exceptional enough for me to take note of. eff this.


Rum truffels: "With rum cream filling coated in bitter chocolate". eh, not a huge fan of rum, but again, x liquor + x well-made dark chocolate just tends to work out pretty well.


becherovka truffels: becherovka in bitter chocolate. um, wow. for those of you who don't know, becherovka is a uniquely czech liquor. the first restaurant where we had dinner served me and my friend a free shot of becherovka, and i must say, that's probably one of the tastiest shots i've ever had (not that i'm drawing on an abundance of experience, but that's not the point). becherovka kind of has that nice jagermiester bite to it, but it's also very slightly sweet. i tried it again at a more traditional czech pub/brewery/restaurant called u fleku, and it was much stronger, but still quite good. becherovka truffels taste effing divine. combined with the bitterness of dark chocolate, the becherovka cream filling tasted like a cloud of the liquor, which balanced the bitter dark really well.

if i could, i would go back and buy another box of these for myself. and maybe a nice-sized bottle of becherovka too.

The Chocolate House: Cappuccino Bar

I just remembered I had this bar whilst cleaning my desk drawers and I figured I should treat myself to real chocolate (Orange-flavored Kit Kat bars don't count. More about this at a much later date.) I bought this little number at the farmers' market in Brecon, Wales. What a lovely farmers' market that was -- so many pretty and unique desserts, and of course, the ciders! But I digress...

This little bar has restored my faith in excellent chocolate and also proves that homemade chocolate will always have a more natural taste to them than, well, mass-produced chocolate.

I feel like this bar has a personality that mass-produced chocolate simply do not. For one thing, I bought her (I've totally decided it's a she) from a farmers' market, which in itself is quite telling of how we spent most of our weekend in south Wales -- eating. And for a good reason -- the Welsh do place importance on food and at least try to have some semblance of a cuisine (unlike the English).

Additionally, when I was breaking off the first chunk of this bar, I noticed she required more force and finally cracked with a satisfying thwap. Clearly, she's meant to be taken seriously. After breaking super pliant Kit-Kats all week, I knew I was in for a treat.

I took a bite into a chunk. The coffee flavor just took over. Wow, what a strong presence. This is not a wimpy bar with just a whiff of coffee. Far from it, the coffee dominates the chocolate. Also, this bar was not particularly sweet, which is nice because added sugar is a killjoy. Since it wasn't so sweet, I wondered if it was dark chocolate, but research on The Chocolate House's website shows that it is just milk chocolate. Wow, I have realized your potential, milk chocolate.

This is a bar that I'll keep stashed away and consume only when I can fully appreciate it. She's not a whore like those Cadbury bars, consumed without much thought. She's so classy and deserves to be treated as such.

Cadbury Picnic

I bought a 4 pack of these for £1 when I was in Sheffield earlier this month. They look like turds, especially so since I got the full size bars (texture AND size resembled a turd!). However, they make up for their appearance in their taste.

It's got a bit of everything that might be good for you: peanuts, raisins, and cereal. Thus, eating a Picnic is like eating a Quaker Chewy bar, except covered in milk chocolate (and OK, there's some caramel inside to reaffirm its classification as candy and not health bar). Due to the caramel, the bar is quite chewy and moist, and not as crunchy as a granola bar. The raisins are well integrated in the bar -- I can taste them and their squishiness exploding in my mouth, but when I look at the cross section of the bar, I can't find them! Then again, it is quite a mess of cereal+caramel+peanut+raisin deliciousness.

Since it's got real carbohydrates, this bar is quite substantial and can fill you up while giving you a sugar crash. Also, it's quite easy to fool yourself that you're eating healthy because of the cereal+peanut+raisins. Mmm... healthy chocolate... mmm I've been deceived...mmm I think I'll doze off right now...

Nut Nougat by Primadonna

i know what this looks like.

and i am sorry to confess that - yes - my elitist, chocolate-loving-self did succumb to the call of the much-cheaper-by-the-gram faux nutella manufactured by primadonna (who, incidentally, makes a lot of other chocolate products) and sold at lidl right next to the much pricier and smaller jars of nutella.

ingredients: nutella, while predominantly composed of sugar, also contains a whopping 13% hazelnut, no small feat for such a tiny 400g overpriced jar of deliciousness. nut nougat, a whopping 750g (i figured i would run out of this much less quickly than nutella), is a mere 2% hazelnut.

you might wonder whether or not that 11% makes a difference, and i can assure you, yes, it does. nutella tastes like hazelnut and chocolate heaven, while nut nougat, though not without its redeeming (read: sweet and chocolate-y) characteristics, tastes like glorified chocolate icing.

don't get me wrong - i love chocolate icing - but in terms of a nutella substitute, there's maybe only the faintest whiff of hazelnut. that 11% gives nutella a lot more leverage on my tongue than this nut nougat business. so if you're looking for a cheaper alternative to nutella and frankly, my dear, don't give a damn about how hazelnutty something is, then go for this (and if you're even more of a cheapskate, go find the asda brand. that probably has an even more miniscule %age of hazelnut).

i don't know how long it's going to be before i finish this beastly thing (i've been going through about one 400g jar of nutella per month), but as soon as i do, it's back to ferrero's nutella.

until then, i'll make-do with buenos.

Consolidation of Chocolate (Wales)

First up, Topic. I'm not even sure which parent company makes this (o - apparently it's mars), but essentially, it's whole hazelnuts (yum!), nougat, and caramel wrapped in milk chocolate. it's quite sweet, but not altogether unseemly.


i don't honestly remember what the drifter (nestle) tastes like - which probably means that a) i should have written this post as i ate it, and/or b) this isn't a terribly memorable chocolate bar. apparently there was some kind of a debacle (past-tense, thank god) about the use of transfats in the drifters. but here - crisp wafer, chewy caramel, milk chocolate cover. kind of like twix, since the wafer was especially thin/crispy. unremarkable, but not detestable:


i have a weakness for peanut butter and hazelnuts, so it seems. chocolate and peanut butter is a heavenly combination, but this particular version of kit kat is best (as i discovered) when you let it melt a little. unmelted, it's a rather unwieldy thing...:

this was quite delightful. caramel cream, chocolate cream, milk chocolate, and "crispy rippled wafer". what doesn't work so well for chocolate (in my opinion, anyway) works pretty well for wafers - the wafer in this thing was thin, and was done up sort of like the wispa or whatever other cadbury thing that involved stale-tasting chocolate-y ribbons. the ribbons seem to accentuate the crispy-ness of the sugary wafer. it's quite sweet, but not excessively large, so i thought it was rather nice.



this was purchased at the market in brecon, where elaine/jessica/ and i spent an inordinate and disproportionate amount of time consuming sweets (see elaine's somewhere photos of before and after dessert carnage. it's intense and disturbing, but you should all be used that degree of indulgence/excess by now).

this chocolate is made by chocolate house, which is a welsh chocolate house. i'm not entirely certain what it's called, but it seems to be a bar form of this dark cherry and kirsch (fruit/cherry brandy) in dark chocolate. i really, really enjoyed the bar. it was a perfect combination of dark chocolate and creamy fondant/cherry flavour - and of course, the slight bite of the trace alcohol didn't hurt either. i think i see a trend...:


also, i tried asda's version of nutella.

not even remotely legit.

it was mostly just sugary - the cocoa taste was there, but faint, and it was missing the most important aspect of nutella - the hazelnuts. so it was just ella, in effect.

and not to be misogynist or anything, but that really just sounds like pussy to me (thank you, lil wayne).