Gone Chocco

And finally onto the last four blocks of the eleven Ritter Sport flavours available in Australia.

From the top left (clockwise) we have Yoghurt, then Dark with whole hazelnuts (das Germans liebe their hazelnuts), Butter biscuit and Whole Almonds.

All of the milk chocolate contains 30% cocoa solids with a ‘Cadbury Dairy Milk’ feel about it, which isn’t a bad thing and I suspect that Ritter Sport is the Deutschland equivalent. As you can see, these too have survived export, storage and transit far better than my original three review blocks did.

My notes for these four flavours are about the briefest I’ve ever done.

Reasons were partly due to greed, lack of time before ‘Modern Family’ started and trying to slap away Love  Chunks’ hands in order to get my fair share.

Here’s what I wrote:

Yoghurt – Delicious !!  Sweetly creamy with an added tang.

Dark Whole hazelnuts – OK, nothing startling.

Whole Almonds – Also OK but they go well with the milk chocolate.

Butter Biscuit – Yum!  This is like a snack food rather than just chocolate, with a bit of praline to fill in the gaps between the biscuit and the chocolate.

In the cold light of day, the praline in the Butter Biscuit block is actually – according to the wrapper – ‘fine cocoa cream’ and when conducting a second tasting session with time to spare (ie on my own with a morning coffee the following day) finds that it reminds me of the filling inside a Tim Tam, so it’s a big tick for this one.

Ultimately, the Yoghurt and Butter Biscuits are winners for me because they offer something different. And scrumptious.

 

THESE are the kind of building blocks I like to play with!

I’m always out of date. For instance, I’ve just discovered ‘30 Rock’ when they’re up to Season Four, only watched ‘Six Feet Under’ last year on DVD at a friend’s insistence and, up until last week, had never set foot inside an ALDI store.

Time to change that because, even after two years in Melbourne, I only just found out that there’s an ALDI a stone’s throw from the Queen Vic Market. The day I went there was a fire drill in the adjoining building, with half the staff wondering if they should congregate at Mac’s pub (est 1853) next door.

It was a challenge for me not to gawp inside ALDI as I struggled to hold my purchases (note to self: always carry a green shopping bag) in my arms and try hard not to be too obviously amused at the sight of a burly bloke trying on a motorbike helmet for sale right alongside box after box of bargain tampons.

Part of my stash was the dodgily-named Choceur blocks. They’re made in Germany, but I guess ‘Deutsche Gemacht’ isn’t as catchy.

The Coffee and Cream looked pretty darn nice when undressed though. No posh ‘thock’ snapping sound, but it was glossy and had a rather nice cream and coffee aroma wafting out of the gold wrapping.

It contains 33% cocoa solids in the milk chocolate part and 28% in the white bits – yep, my technical descriptions are on fire today. The ‘flavour’ is in the milk chocolate which makes up three-fifths of the block and the white is just white (no additional flavour), comprising the other two thirds.

There’s no scary ingredients, but no real coffee either, just the vague sounding ‘flavour.’

Despite this, it tasted delicious. Melts in the mouth instantly, gives a nice coffee hit (thanks to ‘flavour’) and goes down perfectly with a hot cup of tea.

Yes, it’s saliva-suckingly sweet but you expect that with a white and milk combo that lists ’sugar’ as the first ingredient followed by cocoa butter and cream powder.

I’d highly recommend this for a cheap thrill - not a dinner party ‘bring along’ or gift, but most appropriately enjoyed in the privacy of your own home.

Onto the Peanut & Flakes. This one has a completely different configuration when ‘nude’, presumably to accommodate the more nobbly bits inside:

 

 

 

 

 

Sweet old Uncle Abraham on an untested Unicycle…….. this was utterly more-ish, delish, scrummy and crunchy-sweet-crunchy! Described as 75% milk chocolate (containing a very unshabby 32% cocoa solids), 20% peanuts (the second ingredient behind sugar) and 5% cornflakes (which Choceur assure us contain ‘95% corn minimum’), these all roll in together to create a chocolate that eats like a really satisfying snack bar. The nuts or flakes taste as though they’re sugar or toffee-coated or else they’re just super crunchy and hum along nicely to the sweet chocolate.

There’s seven ‘rows’ in this 200 gram block and I’d eaten three before even putting my lense cap back on. I’m going back to ALDI for a few more of these bad boys – this time with my own shopping bag!

 

 

In addition to Newman’s Pleasure Society ‘Selections’ and ‘Fruit and Nut’ boxes, they have these two upright boxes, which don’t really match the earlier couple but look rather classy.

I’ve said it before though and I’ll say it again. *sigh* Newman’s packaging is all over the shop and they need a clearer line of packaging so that the average consumer recognises all of their products as belonging to the same brand. As you find below, not only their boxes differ in size and shape with each flavour but so does the wrapping…

Rant over. Time to try the chocolate, with the larger ‘Pleasures’ box up for tasting first.

Sorry, the rant – or mild whinge – isn’t really over yet. The box is lovely but this plastic bag full of what looks like cheap Christmas lollies isn’t. Clearly they’ve decided to spend the majority of their packaging budget on the box, so here’s hoping that the actual chocolates make up for how they look when the box is opened and cast aside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When unwrapped they remind me of most of us humans in front of a bathroom mirror: when nude, we ain’t pretty.

Thankfully these taste a darn sight better than they look, but on closer inspection the shell is thick in some areas and thin in others, and the coconut flavoured one (top right in the photo below) is just blended with the chocolate and not a separate filling. Think of these as Newman’s version of ‘Cadbury Roses’ but with some slightly different flavours and you’re on the right track.

 

 

 

 

Now for the Liqueurs.  I know that like marzipan and ginger, liqueur chocolates are those that people either love or loathe so these aren’t likely to convert any loathers. Luckily, I adore liqueur-filled chocolates and even snatch up some of the dodgy Eastern-bloc $2 cherry liqueurs found in Cheap-as-Chips bargain shops from time to time.

The packaging here is different to the blue box – no big plastic bag enclosing them but just loose and in different wrappers.

When naked, they’re as battered and bruised as those from the blue ‘Pleasures’ box, with the dark coffee one already oozing.

The flavours include Limoncello, Butterscotch, Coffee, Blood Orange and Vanilla. ALL of them are delicious and I was surprised by the strength of the vanilla centre. Normally I can barely detect the flavour, but considering this was a ‘liqueur’ Mr Newman must have poured the whole bottle of essence into the mix so it’s potent – which gets a tick from me, but might not from those who like their essence on the undetectable side. The coffee is dark and strong (tick), limoncello has a disconcertingly fluorescent snot colour to it but has a lovely citrus punch (tick), the blood orange is suitably orangey/grand marniery (tick) and the butterscotch is a thin caramel that oozes everywhere and looks very pale but tastes divine (tick tick tick).

Yes, they all taste good. Delicious, even. And the wallpaper-inspired boxes are gorgeous. Inside it’s another story – a bit of a dogs’ breakfast in terms of presentation but, as my mother would say, “they only end up getting chewed up and churned inside your gut anyway.”  Then again, she was referring to her infamous ’stew’ that she’d serve up to us in the 1970s!

Regular readers may remember that I recently reviewed three Ritter Sport blocks and was distinctly underwhelmed. All of them had been heat affected which severely affected their taste.

Well word got out to the Australian importers of Ritter Sport, who were mortified at the state of the blocks I’d reviewed and have since contacted the shop I’d bought them from to get them to store the chocolate more effectively.

“The stock was obviously extremely heat affected and therefore I feel the review was not a true indication of what the bars are actually like. We do not want anyone in Australia buying our product in such a state and it is our responsibility to do what we can to prevent this. After all, chocolate should make you feel good, not disappointed!” Well said, Marianne.

And so, drum roll please…….. Ritter Three Block Review Redone!

I’m happy to say that these three bars – Alpine Milk, Dark Chocolate 50% and Marzipan were unrecognisable to the three misfits I’d tried a couple of weeks earlier.

The marzipan was nicer and slightly stronger (but not bitter) and the chocolate (the same 50% as the plain block) tasted a fair bit richer and more pleasant. It’s not posh chocolate by any means and has a slightly grainy mix (sugar and cocoa not conched as long as some of the more prestigious brands) so three rows of the plain dark were also left for me. As the sole marzipan-lover of the household, the entire block was mine and it worked well with the dark chocolate and I found that I preferred the chocolate as a ‘cover’ for another flavour rather than by itself.

It was the Alpine milk, at 30% cocoa solids, that really won me – and my family over. “Mmmm, this is better than Dairy Milk,” said the eleven year old and the forty two year old reached for another couple of squares and agreed, “Yeah it’s pretty nice.” 

As you can see, they look much better as well and Marianne was kind enough to send me the other flavours that we Aussies can find here, so stay tuned for more reviews.

 

I think most of us who’ve been in Coles or Woolworths lately have seen these bags lurking near the checkouts. Caramello is the other flavour on offer as well as some really large milk buttons which to me just seems like the seven thousandth way that they’ve re-packaged plain Dairy Milk chocolate, so I chose the ‘Clusters of crunchy flakes and juicy raisins tumbled in scrumptious Cadbury milk chocolate.’

Chocolate that is put into these ‘pouch bags’ (and there’s a few chocolate companies that do it) seem to be indicating that it’s better than a bog-standard block, but not as good as a box of chocolates. This doesn’t really seem like it’s going to be a long term success in my opinion because if you want to scoff something in the privacy of your own home you’ll choose the cheaper blocks and if you want to impress someone with a gift, you’ll buy a box so as not to be considered a cheapskate.

When opened, they’re not pretty. Rolling around in a pouch all the way from Germany (yes, they’re made in Germany – why not here, or shouldn’t I care?) means they’re a bit crumbly and turd – sorry ‘tired’ looking.

Still, they seemed like a good way to get in some fibre via the Sultana bran that I never eat for breakfast. Why not have some at morning coffee time, covered in chocolate? Who wouldn’t be excited about fibre intake then?

And that’s exactly what they taste like. Sultana bran!

The ingredients and nutrition panel don’t bother to mention fibre content and chocolate makes up 70% of the clusters, so it was sadly apparent that my bowels weren’t going to benefit any time soon.

Raisins comprise 18% and cornflakes the remaining12%. The three of us at Chocco Lockett scoffed these in a few minutes, so fifty grams gave us 11 grams of fat (16% RDI), 6.8 grams saturated fat (28% RDI) and 31.4 grams of sugar (34% RDI) each.

They are more-ish and the chocolate has 29% cocoa solids (here in Australia it’s usually 26%), but I’m not sure that they worth the $3 I paid for them.

What do you think? Has anyone tried the crunchie-flavoured ones?

And only two more sleeps until the Lindt Chocolate Ball – but plenty of sleeps to donate to a worthy cause:

 

Having two Lindt Cafes in Melbourne now means that there are two other avenues to sniff out the blocks and varieties of Lindt that we KNOW are found freely in Europe but, cruelly, can be rarer than chicken lips here.

I found this little stunner at Chadstone:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tiramisu is one of my favourite desserts to eat and to make (I might one day be persuaded to share my never-fail, always-impressive recipe with you if you ask – nay, beg – nicely) and I even like the Cadbury Desserts version.

But Lindt always manage to find that extra ‘oomph’ when it comes to their chocolates and this is no exception. Plus, it’s 150 grams instead of the excellence-sized 100 grams so I was already excited.

The smell of coffee and cream hits the nostrils as soon as the foil was torn open and the lovely embossed segments always look so inviting. And dammit it all, Love Chunks and Sapphire were hovering (they spring to life at the sound of the first tearing of the cardboard flap at the back of the Lindt pack like our dog does when we plonk her dinner bowl on the sink), so I had to share.

Still, fifty grams of sweet milk chocolate filled with a thin but flavoursome layer of dark truffle, coffee cream and biscuit pieces (presumably instead of soaked sponge) was divine. We all agreed; and this was obvious when all that was uttered was a slightly-less-than-eloquent “Mmmm, mmm” instead of real words or critiques.  Each square was nibbled delicately to make it last longer when what I really longed to do was snatch the block and inhale it all myself.

The ingredients show that the milk chocolate has a respectable 30% minimum cocoa solids and – what a shame – no fat, saturated or sugar or any nutritional information at all is included, so we’ll eat without fear or guilt.

Unfortunately, the biscuit component of the block contains palm oil. Yes, the biscuit only makes up one percent of the whole block and it the oil is only a percentage of that one percent but it begs the question as to whether it is really needed and, with environmental and conservation issues now raging about the Orangutans in South East Asia, can’t they get rid of it and get rid of it SOON?

 

Who doesn’t like receiving a present in the mail, especially when it reveals a parcel as pretty as this?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside, I found two boxes of Waterthins Chocolate Selection biscuits. The box on the left are ‘Creme Delights’ and what looks like caramel oozing out is actually ‘cocoa nut creme’. The box on the right are Wafer Straws.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They were opened just in time for Mrs Krups to make my morning coffee and they had a delicious burnt-sugar- toffee smell that wafted up as I was leaning in to take a photograph.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Firstly, the Creme Delight. It has a pretty generously-thick disc of milk chocolate on the top (with a not-so-shabby 32% cocoa solids), covering their version of the creamy Tim Tam filling (also on par) and a fine-crumb base (hence the powdery stuff on the top of the chocolate) that is one of the best factory-made biccies I’ve eaten in a long time. Om nom nom, two biscuits down……

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Onto the Wafer Straws. I’ll be honest right out and say that wafer has never really rocked my world. If I had to take ‘em or leave ‘em, I tend to walk off and not look back. As for these fellas, they were pretty wide to be a straw until I took a bite and realised that they were hollow – a couple of minutes earlier I could have tried slurping my coffee through one! The wafer in this is delightfully crisp and somehow holds up against the thickness of the chocolate and there’s a hint of hazelnut flavour lurking in the background as well. These are many many notches above your standard crap-wafer-and-thin-chocolate-gunk that’s normally available. Om nom nom, three more down…..

Okay, so I’ve established that I *love* the way they taste and have since seen them on the top shelf in the chocolate biscuit aisle at Woolworths (Tim Tams are at eye-level, so Waterthins are kind of hidden), so what’s the catch?  A couple, actually. Some of the ingredients don’t make for happy reading – there’s no hazelnut, it’s peanut paste; vegetable fat is in both biscuits and they’re made in Poland.

This is where, as a chocolate reviewer who wakes up every single morning with the first thought, “I want chocolate” before her face has even unfolded or her bladder emptied, I find myself in a dilemma. Utterly delicious and addictive vs vege fat and Poland.

Thoughts anyone?

…and while you’re thinking, click on the link below, complete a survey and be in the running to win a years’ supply of Belgian chocolate.