I chose to wait for the right moment to enjoy my Nestle Munchies. A soak in an aromatic bubble bath, a candle lit room, a nice glass of wine, a good film…then open the Munchies. Yes, Munchies deserve that don’t they?
“So what did you think of the Munchies?” I asked my son sometime later. “Oh, they were okay I guess” he replied, “but I don’t think I’ll get them again.”
What!? A child of mine doesn’t like Munchies!? I immediately pulled out the family album to compare family features. Surely he must have been swapped at birth….?
Later that evening, my time had come. I opened up the Munchies, popped one in my mouth just waiting for that delicious Munchie Moment I remember from all those years ago…then…my mouth went motionless as I quickly checked that I had actually put a chocolate in my mouth and not some cardboard packaging. I tasted another and looked closely at my old favourites. To say I was disappointed is an understatement. Heck, I hadn’t felt this gutted since the Interflora van pulled up outside my house on my last birthday and the delivery guy walked down the next door neighbour’s path.
A pack of Munchies contains 12 individual chocolates. ‘Milk chocolate with soft caramel and crisp biscuit centre’ is the description on the packet. My argument = milk chocolate? Since when has milk chocolate tasted like dried out cardboard? Soft caramel? Ok, so you don’t loose a filling with the caramel but I doubt it would slowly drip the way only a good caramel can. Crisp biscuit? Fair enough, I won’t argue with this.
Maybe I had been unlucky enough to buy from a bad batch? With this possibility in mind I went out and bought six more packs from different shops. I did this because I am committed to my chocablogging duties.
Psst – while Dom isn’t looking…between you and me; it’s because I wasn’t ready to accept that my, yes *my* Munchies had changed.
I accept the deal about Wagon Wheels and Curly Wurlies. Yeah Yeah, it’s me that has grown and not the confectionary that has shrunk (well, maybe I accept this) BUT this isn’t merely about size, although size does matter (sorry guys), this is about the whole chocolate, the whole taste, the whole choccing thing.
The result of the whole nine yards, erm, packs of Munchies is that: I hadn’t bought a dud pack in the first place. Munchies are no longer the delicious little chocolates that made you wonder why they came in tubes and not in a fancy box. They are no longer the scrummy delight that would sway you into accepting a second date should your beau present you with a pack to munch during the film. They are now little more than a dry, bland imitation of my dear sweet chocamemories.
You can buy Nestlé Munchies online using the links below.
It’s a good thing that Cadbury Time Out come in multi packs because quite simply, one is not enough!
Ok so these multi packs contain smaller twin bars but still….
Certain foods leave you wanting more when you have eaten what can be considered the correct portion, and Time Out is one such food item. Moreish is the word to describe this chocolate. Is it just we Brits who use the word moreish?
The multi packs are found in the biscuit section of the supermarket, so, are they biscuits? I think not! I’m sure they are displayed alongside the other chocolate bars in smaller shops but having never looked for them in a smaller shop I couldn’t say for certain – buy a single bar of chocolate? Not me!
If Time Out was a wafer covered in chocolate then I’d say ‘yes, it’s a biscuit’, but these fingers contain two thin, light and crispy wafers which sandwich a slice of what appears to be Flake or Twirl. This is all then covered in milk chocolate. So you see, more chocolate , less wafer – even Dom may approve of these.
The pack states ‘ Two milk chocolate covered wafer fingers with milk chocolate centres.’ I personally think that Cadbury aren’t doing themselves any favours by describing it as a milk chocolate centre because this description tends to imply a solid centre. The fact that the centre isn’t solid but crumbly and soft is what makes Time Out so delicious. So trust me on this, don’t be fooled by the wrapper.
Are biscuits less guilt laden than chocolate bars? Do you suffer from chocaguilt? If you answered yes to both these questions then Time Out is for you. “They were on the biscuit shelf m’lud.” – we won’t tell 😉
You have to laugh. Really. You have to.
According to Yahoo News:
“It might sound like a chocoholic’s dream, but stepping into a vat of viscous chocolate became a two-hour nightmare for a 21-year-old man Friday morning.
Darmin Garcia, an employee of a company that supplies chocolate ingredients, said he was pushing the chocolate down into the vat at Debelis Corp. because it was stuck. But it became loose and he slid into the hopper.”
…and the best bit…
“Co-workers, police and firefighters tried to free the man but couldn’t get him loose until the chocolate was thinned out with cocoa butter.”
Rumours that a representative from Cadbury threw in some raisins and tried to market it is ‘New Improved Fruit & Nut’ are entirely false. Apparently.
But it does raise the question – what would you do if you were trapped in a large vat of chocolate?
Lion Bar is another of those childhood favourites that brings back all sorts of good memories every time I buy it. It was introduced in the 1970s by Rowntree’s (makers of KitKat, Smarties and Aero amongst other things), who were taken over by Nestlé in 1988.
Lion Bar is not a sophisticated chocolate bar, and has no pretentions of being so. It’s just a good old-fashioned chocolate bar with loads of stuff crammed inside!
The bar consists of a wafer, filled with creamy stuff, covered in caramel, topped with crisped rice and coated in milk chocolate.
As you probably know, I’m not a big fan of wafers, but it does work here. Partly because it’s only a small amount of wafer, but mainly because there’s so much other stuff squeezed into the bar that you hardly notice it.
The result is a chewy, crispy chocolate bar that’s really quite satisfying. The ratio of crispyness to chewyness is just right, the caramel is tasty and the chocolate is nice enough, if nothing special. But the overall effect is just right, and a mid-morning Lion Bar will fill you up just enough to keep you going until lunch time.
All in all, an unpretentious and yummy chocolate bar. One word of advice though – don’t keep this one in the fridge overnight. If you do, the caramel becomes rock hard and you lose all the chewyness.
I find, this is best served at 19.4°C with a nice cup of tea. But then, I’m British, so I would.
