Mostly, the ‘tone’ of chocolates sampled here at Chocablog reside proudly at the upper end of the quality/quirky ingredients/boutique brand spectrum, but even we critics like to downscale when we’re off duty.
As such, I thought it was high time the faithful Aussie classic, the Wagon Wheel, got its turn in the spotlight. During my childhood (before CDs, fax machines and microwaves were available), Wagon Wheels were sold at every school tuck shop, every petrol station and corner store and were always one of the cheapest snack lines available. Even today it’s good to know that, thirty years later, they still are – only 99c from my local Foodland supermarket. Television advertisements from a few years ago featured a nervous Lobster hiding in a fishtank at the local Chinese restaurant, urging us to ‘Pick the Wagon Wheel, Please, pick the Wagon Wheel!’
Essentially the Wagon Wheel is just two biscuits sandwiched together by a thin layer of strawberry jam and marshmallow coated in chocolate and yet the overall result is delicious. The original size is 48g, but Arnotts Biscuit Company also have ‘minis’ weighing 25g each. I’m sure they are just as yummy, but as a great chocoholic once wrote, “Why call a one inch Mars Bar ‘fun’ when a foot long one would be much funner?”
I thought it was appropriate to take a photo of the 48g packet on a magazine that ‘our (clearly air-brushed and tightened) Kylie’ is on, celebrating her fortieth birthday. And yes, there is a ‘shop for your shape’ article in the publication that probably doesn’t include any suggestions for proud chocaholics. I doubt that Kylie ate as many of these choccy circles as I did, yet when I mention them to other grown-ups they all remember them fondly and then decide to go off in search of one to have with their morning tea.
Being an old Aussie standby that hasn’t altered over the years, taking a peek at the ingredients list doesn’t make inspiring reading because it contains the dreaded C-word – compounded chocolate. All is forgiven however because they are a long-standing favourite and the chocolate is but one part of the entire snack. On the plus side, at 7.9 grams of fat per pack they’re not too much of a threat to the waistline and they do go a long way towards making the clock-watching until lunchtime a little more bearable. Even more so if you eat two.
In contrast to my previous review of PureFlavour Raw chocolate, may I present Isis? This is a Belgian bar made by a company who have been making chocolate for eighty five years, and was bought from Waitrose.
This bar is best described as ‘full fat’, being made from a blend of 50% cocoa dark chocolate and hazelnut praline, with 100% pure cocoa butter. It’s so soft that it needs to be kept cool, and is 35% fat, 46% sugar. High levels of naughtiness indeed!
The mouthfeel is remarkably similar to the Tesco Espresso bar I reviewed a while back – very, rich, creamy and dark tasting. You know as soon as you pop a square of this in your mouth that it isn’t health food! The bar is studded with small biscuit pieces which do a great job of breaking up the richness, and provide a nice crunchy counterpoint of both texture and taste to the creaminess of the chocolate.
This is definitely a ‘special treat’ bar, and, like the Tesco bar, something you’d be hard pressed to eat more than a few squares of. It goes well with a good cup of coffee. Just keep an eye on how much you eat in one sitting!
Last week I looked at a milk chocolate Heavens Above with coffee, so I thought I’d look take a look at a dark chocolate one this week.
As you can see, the packaging is pretty similar, with another retro photo with “witty” caption. I should add that I actually felt a little self conscious buying a bar of chocolate with a picture of a man in the bath on the front. It’s not that I have an issue with men taking baths, but I just can’t see who this is meant to appeal to, aside from those looking for a “novelty” gift. The fact that the caption talks about chocolate scented soap doesn’t help much either, because that’s what I instinctively found myself comparing this to.
The bar itself smells quite minty and looks nice and dark. It’s only 54% cocoa solids though, and when you bite into it you can really tell. There’s a fairly pleasant minty taste, but it’s quite difficult to pick out any chocolate flavours at all. This actually reminds me more of a Kendal Mint Cake than a bar of chocolate. It’s all sugar and mint.
And that’s really all I can find to say about this bar. It’s not easy to do a chocolate review of a chocolate that doesn’t taste of chocolate. Suffice to say, at £3.50 a bar, this is another Heavens Above chocolate worth going out of your way to avoid.
After doing a radio spot about chocolate recently, the show’s producer took me aside and said, “Have you seen the new Mahony bar in your shop yet? I found some when I was up in Darwin and it’s cheaper and better than Toblerone. Try some!”
Cheaper and better than Toblerone? That’s a pretty big judgment call and one that I was dying to test out for myself. Sure enough, hidden more discreetly in the supermarket than even the shy M&Ms dark range, was a red slab of Mahony, hiding right at the bottom of the shelf next to Toblerone.
The box didn’t look too promising. Like a recently heart-broken lover, I’d seen too many red boxes of chocolate on discount tables and in ‘Crazy Dave’s Bargain’ stores to know that uninspiring red packaging often meant some truly dodgy substances made in Kazahkstan or Senegal with about as much resemblance to real chocolate as carob without the sugar and oil but with extra dirt.
It was distinctly cheaper than Toblerone, and at 400g looked like a plank of wood you could defend yourself with, if the eating of it wasn’t a possibility.
The ‘hill’ pattern on the block was similar to Toblerone, as was the taste. Cheeky. If blindfolded, I doubt that I would be able to detect the difference. They both taste delicious and Mahony was an equal match. This will be too sweet for the serious chocophiles who prefer Dark chocolate, but it should definitely be sought out and tried by those who love Toblerone or are in the mood for some good milk-chocolate that melts in the mouth and ends up with some lingering nougat to chew on.
Half a block later (200g mind you!), I ventured to Chocolat Frey’s website, which informed me that they’d been around in Switzerland since 1887 and held 38% of the Swiss domestic market, so they were not some Johnny-come-latelys flicking the bird to Toblerone. Or maybe they are and have only just released this version – I’d love to know.
The ingredients listed on the back of the box were pretty standard – 38% cocoa solids, sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate liquor, milk and nougat. Fat content 31.3 grams per 100 grams. Oh dear, that meant that I just inhaled 62.6 grams of fat. My eight year old daughter is right: She reckons that if she and I ever owned and ran our own chocolate shop (her current dream), we’d need to install a permanently running treadmill directly behind the counter that I’d need to stay on all during our work day.
