Ritter Sport Selection

The wonderful thing about getting sent samples to review is that you end up with things you might not otherwise have tried. Despite positive reviews on Chocablog, I never had much interest in Ritter Sport. The name doesn’t appeal to me. Neither does the packaging. Maybe it has a more European style (does it, European readers?), but it just doesn’t spark up my own interest. Let’s move on now to what the taste test told me in these first four bars.

First up is a Milk Chocolate with Strawberry Creme, their newest bar. This one is decked up in pink to spread awareness about breast cancer. Ritter Sport is donating $100,000 to help the cause. Once I broke off a row to reveal the pink center, I immediately thought of the strawberry shortcake ice cream bars. Lowfat yogurt powder is listed in the ingredients, which is immediately apparent in the taste. A little crisped rice adds to the shortcake feel. The filling and chocolate work in more or less equal parts, though your attention naturally goes more to the strawberry. I can succumb to milk chocolate too well sometimes; this one started disappearing before me.

The Yogurt bar is also milk chocolate. Not being a yogurt fan, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it, but was pleased to find that it has more of a plain milky sense than a yogurt one. The creamy white center reminds me slightly of cream cheese. The texture being constant, your taste buds start to pair the two flavors together, making it seem like an extra-milky chocolate. It wasn’t my favorite, but for fans of this sort of thing, go ahead and try it.

The Alpine Milk Chocolate is a 30% cocoa; in addition to the “100% milk from the Alps,” I spotted hazelnut paste in the list. It’s there to find in the taste, too, adding that hint of earthiness to keep the milky sweetness grounded. Including richness even at 30%, this one is quite enjoyable.

Interesting to note about the Milk Chocolate with Butter Biscuit is that it is chocolate surrounding one large biscuit versus containing tiny bits. Increasing the magnitude, here at least, also increases the experience. Plenty of pleasant biscuit with moreish milk chocolate.

I hate to use this phrase, but they were better than I’d expected. The Strawberry Creme and Alpine Milk stood out most to me; I have no doubt, however, that the rest will have no trouble finding a home.

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