Nestlé Australia manufactures the Chokito chocolate bar which has been around for as long as I can remember (which at least stretches back to 1975 begging my mum to sew tartan on the bottom of my jeans in homage to the Bay City Rollers). It’s one of those classic bars that is sold everywhere from vending machines to newsagents and yet, unlike Kit-Kats and Mars bars, people are rarely spotted actually eating one.
I do, however, and thought it was high time to eat another in the name of explaining to those out there who have yet to do so.
A few of my friends find them extremely sickly because the inside caramel filling is gluggy and granular rather than flowing or chewy and has a strong taste of condensed milk about it.
That may not sound attractive, but it works. It must be something to do with the surrounding layer of rice crispies which is then coated in a thick, sweet layer of milk chocolate. I recommend that this be tried with a cup of coffee, hot tea or glass of iced cold milk to counteract (or complement, as is my view) the taste-bud tingling sugar rush. In fact, so sweet are they that it’s one of the few bars I wouldn’t be able to manage eating two of (that’s a sentence I never expected to write).
There’s a dark side to the Chokito though, and by that I don’t mean the type of chocolate: they are often used as joke props in acting circles. Aussie champions of the Chokito are also very quick to assert that the ‘poo in the pool’ scene in the late 1970s movie ‘Caddyshack’ starring Bill Murray and Rodney Dangerfield is a shameless copy of a much older Aussie tradition.
Rocky, an actor friend who has appeared in various Aussie movies, advertisements and on stage, tells me that it’s a tradition to ‘float a Chokito’ if there is a scene involving water. “There I was, trying to wash out the stains of murder on my hands as Macbeth – Out out damned spot – when lo and behold I find a naked Chokito fetchingly resting at the bottom of the basin. It took all of my concentration to refrain from turning around and saying, ‘Aw Dennis, I know it was you, you mongrel,’ and instead get on with the scene.”
…Perhaps that’s why I never catch anybody eating one!
Despite the fact there’s hardly any chocolate in a Kinder Surprise, it’s still one of my all-time favourites. But this little egg is more about what’s inside than the chocolate itself.
If you’ve never had one, Kinder Surprise is a thin milk chocolate egg with a little yellow plastic capsule inside. Stuffed inside the capsule is the surprise – a random toy – usually complete with Ikea-style incomprehensible assembly instructions.
But before opening this egg, I should mention the chocolate shell.
There may not be much of it (it’s almost paper thin in places), but it’s deliciously smooth and creamy. It’s pretty much the same as the Kinder Chocolate I reviewed back in December – a thin layer of milk chocolate with a creamy white lining inside. According to the wrapper, it’s 15% cocoa solids, 32% milk solids.
But you don’t really buy Kinder Surprise for the chocolate. You buy it for the little yellow capsule – and before you can get to the surprise inside, you have to go through the ordeal of opening it. For this, you will probably need to enlist the help of a small child or you could be there all day.
In theory, you just pull the two halves apart, but in practice it’s such a tight fit you have to squeeze it with your teeth or hit it with a hammer.
Once inside, you find yourself either a little too excited or slightly disappointed by the contents. And unfortunately I was disappointed by this egg. I had been hoping for a fully functional self-assembly minature nuclear power station – the kind of Kinder toy I remember from my childhood… but all I got was this little purple gorilla.
Such is life.
Chocablog reader Cliff spotted that Cadbury have updated their web site after the recent fuss about shrinking Creme Eggs. The new text does not specificially state that the eggs have shrunk, only that there is a “broad variety of sizes and flavours of products”.
It’s also a candidate for the worst marketing-speak we’ve heard in years, and seems to imply that consumers actually asked for smaller Creme Eggs:
Why has the size of the egg changed?
As the world’s largest confectionery company, Cadbury Schweppes is committed to developing great-tasting products that you, the consumer loves. Since people’s preferences vary from market to market, so do our products. This is reflected in the broad variety of sizes and flavours of products that we offer our consumers worldwide.
For reference, the same page used to say:
Why has the size of the egg changed?
It hasn’t – you’ve just grown up!
Come on Cadbury/Hershey. Quit the excuses and give the people back their full-sized Creme Eggs!
I’ve never been the biggest fan of Green & Black’s. It’s always seemed like a fairly average chocolate masquerading as something a bit posh. That’s not to say I don’t like it – just that I’d usually rather spend the money on something else.
However, being a professional chocolate eater, it’s my duty to buy and consume every bar I see in the shop. It’s a tough job.
The good news is, I was pleasantly surprised by this bar. It’s really quite tasty.
The cocoa content of the dark chocolate isn’t particularly high (60%), but that’s no bad thing, as this bar is so moreish, you’ll end up eating it all in one go if you don’t restrain yourself.
The hazelnuts and currants pieces are small (unlike the whole nuts you might find in something like Cadbury Fruit & Nut), but they work perfectly. The nuts give a slight crunch to the texture, and the currants give a nice chewiness and have a rich, full flavour and a natural sweetness that complements the chocolate perfectly.
In the end, I did end up eating most of this bar in one go – but I did it without noticing. In fact, this entire review is based on the one final chunk I had left when I realised what I’d done.
Whether the fact that you can eat a whole bar without noticing is a good thing or not is debatable. But I’ll certainly be buying this again – although I suspect I may not notice I’ve bought it until I find the wrapper in the bin.
