It’s time for more M&S fakery, and this time it’s the humble Bounty that’s the target.
Just like the Fake Mars Bar, this looks just like the bar its pretending to be. There’s no attempt to make it look even slightly original – even the ripple pattern on top is pretty much the same.
Once you get inside this bar though, there is a difference that will be immediately apparent to hardcore Bounty fans. Rather than the crisp white coconut in a real Bounty, the filling here is dirty yellowish in colour and a little off-putting. I’m not entirely sure how they made coconut go yellow… and now that I think about it, I’m not sure I want to know either!
The taste is a little different too. The coconut here is sweet and a little artificial tasting. The flavour is more like a liquorice allsort (sans-liquorice) than a Bounty. It’s not offensive, but one of the main reasons I like genuine Bounty on a summers day is because the coconut is refreshing, rather than overly sweet – and I just don’t get that here.
The milk chocolate coating is just average. There’s not much of it, and it tastes pretty much the same as the real thing. Hopefully if you’re buying a copy of a very ordinary chocolate bar, you’re not expecting to find fabulous chocolate anyway.
Once again, I have to wonder why M&S felt the need to produce this in the first place. I know they have an aversion to stocking anything but their own brands, but this is really taking it a little far. I’ve no objection to every day chocolates either, but surely it wouldn’t take that much more effort to come up with something original.
After this set made its way home with me, I realized it had a familiar name, being none other than the trice-reviewed, twice–accused brand. That was enough to make me a little edgy as I started opening the black boxes.
The Milk Chocolate Honeycomb was first up as the one I was most curious about. Turns out, it’s cinder toffee, not honeycomb. Yeah, I guess real honeycomb’s not the best thing to be munching on. They could’ve added honey in, though. Whatever is or isn’t added, however, I like them. The toffee tastes like caramel and cotton candy, caressed by a flavorful 30% milk chocolate.
The Milk Chocolate Black Currants are a nice change from the usual cherries and cranberries, fruity and sweet with only the smallest tartness. I wonder how they’d be in a dark chocolate.
Next up, the Milk Chocolate Toffettes are very, very small. The only comparable thing I can think of is M&M Minis, but these are even smaller. Don’t take their size for granted, though, as they pack in a lot of sweetness and a slight buttery flavor. They also tend to disappearing.
The Dark Chocolate Mintettes are “natural mint fondant encased in a rich [50%] dark chocolate.” They’re not too great. The mint flavor is boring and bland, and the chocolate is too gooey-tasting to over please. I think I like Godiva’s version of the same format better, though it’s been a while.
Lastly are the Cocoa Dusted Coffee Beans, made with Costa Rican Peaberry coffee beans. The milk chocolate is a low 20%, but it’s very think, which is good when you’re dealing with whole coffee beans. I also very much like that it’s milk chocolate, as that helps tone down the overall taste.
They’re all nice offerings, the Mintettes excepted. But I found them in a sale pile and the normal price is $12. That’s $2.40 for each 35 gram box. That’s too much even for a gift.
I have to agree with what’s been said before: the quantity is low and the quality isn’t high enough to make up for it.
Information
- Buy it online from:
- Contains dark chocolate, milk chocolate (30, 50% cocoa solids).
- Filed under blackcurrant, coffee, dark chocolate, honeycomb, kshocolat, milk chocolate, mint, toffee, uk.
Update: This competition is now closed
Our friends at Herhsey got in touch to tell us they’d like to give Chocablog readers some free stuff as part of their Hershey’s Extra Dark promotion. So it’s competition time again!
We’re giving away three sets of prizes to our US readers, consisting of:
- Hershey’s Extra Dark chocolate
- Large beach tote
- Beach towel
- A copy of Bob Green’s “The Best Life Diet”
- A copy of Bob Green’s “The Best Life Diet Cookbook”
- An aluminum water bottle
- A Pedometer
That’s a pretty nice prize, I think you’ll agree! The only catch is, you’ve got to be a US resident to enter this one!
All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning all this chocolate is to subscribe to the email version of our feed and then tell use the form below to tell us why you should win!
That means not only could you win that fantastic prize, but you also get Chocablog delivered to your inbox every day without having to lift a finger.
Rules
- To enter, you must be subscribed to our email updates service and use the same email address in the entry form above. You can unsubscribe afterward if you like, but you must be on the list on the competition closing date for your entry to be counted.
- One entry per person only.
- Chocablog staff writers may not enter. You have enough chocolate already.
- The competition is open to US residents only.
- The competition closes on Friday 14th August 2009.
- The judges’ decision is final.
- Rules are subject to change without notice (if we’ve forgotten something because we’re a bit slow)
Update: This competition is now closed
This looks like it’s fairly new – a companion bar to the delicious Newman’s Ginger Treat and Peppermint Treats reviewed earlier and enjoyed many times since. And yes, I bought two so that the taste test is thorough, no mistakes are made. Well that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Newmans were established in 1924 but were acquired by chocolatier firm Ernest Hillier in 2000. They apparently also have a Cherry Coconut and plain Coconut bar in this Treat range so I’ll keep my beadies open for those in future.
Back to the Nutty Caramel. It’s a fifty gram log that’s rather generously covered in milk chocolate that comprises of a minimum of 29% cocoa solids. It smelled nice and sweet and seemed like just the thing to have with a cup of tea for a mid-morning sugar-fest.
The caramel may look like the inside of a chokito but it’s not as ‘suck out your mouth and make your fillings shudder’ shockingly sweet and is also studded with bits of peanut and rice crispies. The inside is described as ‘Rice crisps and peanuts floating in caramel’ which is actually a bit misleading, because the caramel is far too thick for anything to float like a feather in it. Instead the nuts and crispies are more like ‘forcefully entrapped’ but that’s not necessarily a bad thing in this particular case.
Newman’s Nutty Caramel Treat bar is delicious. Sure, it’s no uber-posh choc that’s handmade by Ecuadorian virgins on the south side of the remaining rainforest but it’s uncomplicated, honest, sweet, easy to munch and satisfying. It vaguely reminds me just a bit of my favourite toast topping which is crunchy peanut butter and honey but with a more burned sugar after taste (again, this is a good thing). One fifty gram log gives you nearly eleven grams of fat (half of which is saturated) and 34 grams of sugar, so you know it’s naughty. But also very, very nice.
