Cadbury Twirl

So, it's a Cadbury Christmas! One can't help but keep coming back to this brand, simply because they have such a vast variety. I've reviewed a number of Cadbury products on Chocosophy, including cookies and chocolates, and the line-up still seems unending. This time, it's the Twirl, a product quite similar to the Flake.

However, unlike the Flake, Twirl has a solid/smooth layer of milk chocolate on the outside, which makes it a sturdier product. The Flake, while lovely, isn't a very popular product, because it is very fragile. The Twirl is an improvement as it gives the consumer that lovely, flaky taste experience without it crumbling into pieces all over the place.

The Twirl comes in the popular 2-finger format, which makes it easy to share/store. The milk chocolate is rather ordinary - like most Cadbury products are - and has the brand's trademark sweet taste. What makes it different are the flakes that melt in one's mouth.

A 43g pack with two fingers costs INR 60, simply because it is an imported product. Milk chocolate and Cadbury lovers will like it but it certainly isn't unmissable.

RATING: 3/5

Cadbury Oreo Choco Crème

I'm back with another review of 'The World's No. 1 (overrated) Biscuit'; this time, it's the Oreo Choco Crème. I've tasted all varieties of Oreo, including Vanilla cream, Strawberry cream, Blueberry cream and Oreo Double Delight, which I have reviewed on Chocosophy, and I maintain there are better products out there. The Oreo Choco Crème is just another ho-hum variation from Cadbury's (now Mondelez International) Oreo stables.  

This classic sandwich biscuit comes with two thin dark chocolate biscuits with a layer of chocolate cream in between. The chocolate cream is lame with little flavour and all one gets in their mouth is a load of sugary goo. The cookie seems to have more chocolate than the cream! You do not want to twist-lick-dunk this shit, especially the lick part.

What is good news, though, is that Oreo in India has arrived at a very competitive pricing point with a 150g pack (including the 30g Free) costing only INR 30. I think this makes it cheaper than or at par with most other Indian products. So you won't be spending much and still be indulging in a fancy schmancy brand, if you so wish. I, for one, give it a thumbs down.


RATING: 2.5/5

Chocosophy news: Healthy chocolate, Barry Callebaut Academy, Cadbury picnic table

Indian-origin Brit creates world's first 'healthy' chocolate

Indian-origin math graduate has created the world's first 'healthy' chocolate that has a negligible 20 calories per piece. Combining his love of chocolate and his background in math, 25-year-old Aneesh Popat created these chocolates using flavoured water and cocoa. His chocolates do not have the sinful ingredients like cocoa butter, cream, gelatin and eggs. Popat's creations are already being supplied to Michelin-star restaurants and are expected to grow in popularity, especially among health-conscious chocoholics. I want some of these despite that corny punchline that follows the brand name - The Chocolatier : A niche by Aneesh. :/

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Barry Callebaut opens chocolate academy in South America

Barry Callebaut, the world’s leading manufacturer of high-quality cocoa and chocolate products, opened its first Chocolate Academy™ center in South America, the 15th center worldwide. Located at Paulista Avenue in São Paulo, the Chocolate Academy™ center is a state-of-the-art teaching and training facility for culinary professionals at all levels interested in strengthening their skills in working with chocolate and learning about new techniques, trends and recipes dedicated to the Brazilian market.

The center’s offerings include a wide range of training courses and demonstrations for customers in all sectors: chocolatiers, chefs, pastry, bakery and other chocolate experts as well as culinary professionals working in hotels, restaurants and the catering business.

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Cadbury creates life-size chocolate picnic table in London

Trust Cadbury to come up with the most creative ideas for marketing. To mark National Picnic Week (June 17-23) in the UK, Cadbury made and placed a 60 kg edible chocolate picnic bench at the Cotswold Wildlife Park, Oxfordshire. The bench could support a family of four and was created using 400 Picnic bars, almost 64 kg of Dairy Milk, peanuts and puffed rice. The bench was covered in glaze to protect it from the elements.

Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk Orange Peel

I am spoilt I am. With every exotic foreign chocolate I sample, Indian chocolates seem to slide a notch lower  on my scale. Not that all foreign brands and makes are good, but Cadbury India's (Mondelez International) mediocrity gets more and more manifest. Disgusted by their innocent (read messy) eating ad pitch, I had kept away from this product for a long time (which adult eats chocolate like that? Ew.). But I decided to give it a shot to see what the big deal was all about.

Cadbury Dairy Milk (or CDM as they like to call themselves on the website) decided to launch Silk as a premium product above their insanely popular repertoire. In fact, popular is an understatement, because no other chocolate brand in India offers any real competition to them.

What makes Silk premium are its shape, texture (apparently), packaging and price. I like the little paper note that is wrapped over the trademark gold foil, that enumerates Silk's finer points. I agree about the dome-shaped squares fitting snugly in one's mouth. But the chocolate DOES NOT melt in it. Even at room temperature, the chocolate does not dissolve in the mouth. Unless, of course, I try my Silk in Mumbai's sweltering summer. To me, the whole 'creamy, silky' chocolate business seems like a sham.

And that's not the only let down. The orange peel flavour is mild and there are almonds in it for no apparent reason. What I expect from a flavoured chocolate is an intense enough scent and taste; a lovely tang in case of orange peel. But the flavour in this is diluted and the nuts don't help. A 65 g bar costs INR 50, which I don't mind too much, but anything seems like a waste when I am given a sweet milk chocolate. All I'm going to say is that I have felt the Silk lately, and what an underwhelming experience it was.


RATING: 2/5

Chocosophy product launches: The Milk Shake Factory, Paton's, Ghirardelli, Cadbury

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Paton's new postcard and Royals collection

The Australian chocolate company launched their new Postcard  and Royals collections at the TFWA Asia Pacific exhibition in Singapore this month. The new postcard packs focus especially on the Asia Pacific region - the brand's biggest market, and have 21 pieces of chocolate instead of 15 to offer consumers more value for money.

For the Royals collection, Paton’s has come up with a new gift box of toffee-dipped, chocolate-covered macadamias based on the preferences of customers and retailers in key markets. The new gift box designs include more gold colouring with wider colour bands and images of the chocolates – offered in milk, white or dark flavours – have been increased in size for better on shelf visibility. The back of the box features a potted history of the family-owned company, as per moodiereport.com.

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Snappers by The Milk Shake Factory

The Milk Shake Factory by Edward Marc Chocolatier announced the launch of this new chocolate innovation, called Snappers, in Costco stores in mid-April 2013. Snappers are described as a crunchy, salty and sweet snack.

“Made with crisp pretzels, creamy caramel and rich milk chocolate, Snappers are a gourmet treat everyone will love, both young and old,” the maker was quoted saying.

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Ghirardelli Toffee Crunch and Mint Cookie

 

American brand, Ghirardelli, has launched two new filled chocolate flavors -- Mint Cookie and Toffee Crunch -- to join their existing lineup of Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt Caramel, Milk Chocolate with Caramel, Dark Chocolate with Raspberry and Dark Chocolate and Caramel. The mint Cookie can be described as a decadent refreshing mint chocolate filling blended with crunchy cookies surrounded by slow-melting milk chocolate, while the Toffee Crunch is a slow-melting milk chocolate with a filling blended with crunchy toffee bits.

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Cadbury Crunchums cereal bites

Mondelez is adding to its quirky snacks portfolio by introducing Cadbury Crunchums in June. Crunchums are crispy cereal bites covered in milk chocolate. Last year Cadbury launched chocolate-covered popcorn and pretzels, and this year's launch will be massive too, in true Cadbury style. The product will be available in 105 g share bags following a 1.3 mn GBP campaign.

Cadbury Crunchie

I think I had taken no notice of this product for so many years because the packaging resembles a 5 Star , and I make no secret of my dislike for the latter. Not that Cadbury Crunchie is available everywhere as it has to be imported from the UK. But the product has been around from as far back as 1929, when it was produced by J. S. Fry & Sons. Fry merged with Cadbury eventually and Crunchie became a Cadbury product. Crunchie has been a popular chocolate abroad and several limited edition flavours like orange, lemonade and champagne have been introduced over the years.

Crunchie is basically a milk chocolate bar with a honeycomb toffee centre. A honeycomb toffee, also called sponge toffee or cinder toffee is a sugary toffee, which is light, rigid and has sponge-like texture. For those who want to know more about the toffee-making process, head here.

Needless to say, the toffee is the most important component of this chocolate and it offers the most wonderful texture. I prefer the hard, crunchy toffee many times more than the sticky, soft caramel so many people seem to prefer.

However, the end taste is rather sweet, with the milk chocolate and the honeycomb toffee coming together. Since I am not a fan of overly sweet chocolates, Crunchy is not something I would buy often. But for lovers of sweet confections, a 50 g pack for INR 50 might be a good treat.

RATING: 3/5

Chocosophy news: Kit Kat Final 50, chocolate taster and chocolate masters

The Kit Kat Final 50 Art Project

Okay, riddle me this. What does art and chocolate make together?
"SWEET!" Duh.

Yeah, so Kit Kat pulled off this fabulous art project in Australia to 'immortalise' its Final 50 bars of the Limited Edition Kit Kat White Chocolate bars.

Artist Mike Watt was invited to make 50 paintings from 50 bars of Kit Kat Limited Edition White Chocolate bars. Watt crushed and melted the chocolates, giving him 'white chocolate paint' to work with. Check out the video below to see how he did it.

Here are some of Watt's sweet work and you can see all 50 in their FB album.

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Welsh woman bags 'chocolate taster' job

There's actually a job of a 'chocolate taster' and this woman has it! Jane Ballinger, from Glyn Ceiriog, Wrexham, beat 77,000 contestants to win the post of 'honorary chocolate taster' for Cadbury for a year. Much like Charlie in the chocolate factory, Jane will get a year's chocolate supply for free and will be consulted for taste before Cadbury's innovations are released to the public.

I waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaant!!!!!

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Denis Karaca winner of Chocolate Masters Asia Pacific Selection

Australian chef  Denis Karaca took home the top honours at the World Chocolate Master Asia Pacific round. The World Chocolate Masters is an initiative of the three leading gourmet chocolate brands, Callebaut, Cacao Barry and Carma. Karaca was followed by second place Lei Fu Veng from Macau at the competition, that was held in Taipei. Both Chefs won a full travel package to compete in the World  Finals which will be held in Paris  between 28th and 30th October 2013.

The Cocoa Trees, Mumbai

Focus Network Agencies (FNA), the Singapore based branded consumer lifestyle group, has partnered with Cosmo Fine Foods Pvt. Ltd., an Indian organization offering the widest range of international chocolate brands, to launch the boutique store range, The Cocoa Trees in India. The Cocoa Trees is a retail concept store which offers the widest range of international brands under its umbrella. Conceptualized in 2000, it has now grown into a retail chain of 36 boutiques across Asia with presence in China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam.

The Cocoa Trees in India are currently in the cities of Mumbai, Pune and Goa. In Mumbai, the first store was opened at Breach Candy in 2011, and they have recently expanded with two new stores - in Nature's Basket, Bandra and at R City Mall, Ghatkopar. When I was invited to check out their new outlets, I felt exactly like Charlie must have in the chocolate factory. Upon entering the Nature's Basket outlet in Bandra, one is greeting with these huge banners to the left, which announce the presence of a dedicated chocolate section in the basement.

Down a flight of stairs, one sees gift baskets of chocolate things and exclusive shelves of mostly imported chocolate, but these are Nature's Basket properties.

The Cocoa Trees is bright section up front and unmistakable with its happy yellow interiors. Row upon row of the world's best chocolates is quite enough to drive a chocolate aficionado like me mad. In a perfect dream, I would have unlimited money and a super sized shopping cart inside The Cocoa Trees! :)

The Cocoa Trees stocks the best international and indigenous brands including Anthon Berg, Cadbury, Celebrations, Chupa Chups, Cote d’Or, Daim, Droste, Duc d’O, Fazer, Ferrero, , Gavottes, Goldkenn, Haribo, Hawaiian Host, Hershey’s, Jelly Belly, Jules Destrooper, Kagi, Kinder, Lorenz, M&M’s, Maltesers, Mars, Mentos, Merci, Milka, Ritter Sport, Snickers, Starburst, Storz, Swiss Delice, Taveners, The Belgian, Tic Tac, Toblerone. The Cocoa Trees also stocks rare brands like Frey, which are exclusively licensed to be sold only at their stores. Besides, new brands like Zaini which have all Disney characters in their edd-shaped chocolates, have been added.

I saw these cute Zaini chocolate boxes shaped like the Disney character, Lightning Mc Queen from the movie Cars and thought, THIS! my 3-year-old will love! Other kiddy touches like the Chupa Chups lillipop stand with giant lollipop-shaped containers, teddies holding candy and M & M stands shaped like their popular animated avatars make the store an altogether delightful place for young customers.

But there are plenty of things to get not so young customers like me excited too. For example, some unbelievable flavours like the Frey Lemon Pepper Dark chocolate! Lemon Pepper? But that's what one puts in their soup, right? I HAD to pick a bar up. Review will be up soon!

And then there were these Oreo boxes shaped like giant cookies that totally make you want to forget your diet and container after container of different chocolate flavours from Sorini and Ritter Sport Minis that are sold by weight. Mind-blown as I was, there was some space for heartbreak too when I noticed that the store did not have any Toblerone dark chocolate. Are you'll taking note, dear store owners?

After walking around and gushing over all these beauties, it was time to leave. I was presented with a gorgeous hamper from The Cocoa Trees that comprised a box each of some delightful Belgian Pralines, Jules Destrooper Belgian Chocolate Thins (biscuits) and Merci assorted chocolates. I was a little disappointed to find most of these melting by the time I took them home, but then these delicate exotic things can hardly be expected to withstand Mumbai summers.

Anyhow, what's a little melted chocolate when they're so darned beautiful and mmmm...-inducing? I tried German-made Merci first, which is a collection of 20 fine assorted chocolates. The flavours include Milk Chocolate, Coffee & Cream, Hazelnut-Almond, Hazelnut-Creme, Marzipan, Dark Cream, Dark Mousse and Praline-creme. They are ideally had at room temperature, but I had to keep them in the fridge to save their form. Even when hardened, they chocolates melt quickly in the mouth and lose none of their rich delightful flavours.

At INR 550, this 250 g pack of 20 assorted chocolates makes for a wonderful gift idea, and if it is a chocolate aficionado you are trying to impress, look no further. You will say 'merci' to me for this one.

Next up was a pack of four Belgian pralines, so amazing I would have been happy only kissing them. Too bad they had melted a lot as well and needed refrigeration and eventual eating. I know, what a hard life I have. :D The Belgian pralines from... duh, Belgium, are crafted to perfection and are almost worth their price (almost 50 bucks apiece!). For those who don't know, regular pralines refer to a confection made of nuts and sugar, but Belgian pralines have a hard chocolate shell with a soft (sometimes liquid) filling. They are also referred to as chocolate bonbons or Belgian chocolates.

The four pralines in this box included a white chocolate, a milk chocolate, a dark chocolate and a dark chocolate with nuts. Delicate doesn't even begin to describe these lovelies and they were lapped up before one could say 'Bless The Cocoa Trees'.

And finally, there was a chocolate-biscuit pack from a brand that's completely new to me - Jules Destrooper. The Belgian biscuiterie (my favourite new word!) is over a hundred years old and if I've never heard of it, that must be because very few, if any, places in India import it. But that's changing, of course, because of The Cocoa Trees. The best, most exotic chocolate brands of the world are now available under one roof.

The 100 g Jules Destrooper pack of Belgian Chocolate Thins are nothing but chocolate coated crispy biscuits. The kinds of chocolate are the usual dark, milk and white, only Amazing with a capital A. The biscuits are of just the perfect hardness and crunch and taste unbelievably good in combination with the chocolate. Because these babies melted too, I have no idea whether there are 10 thins or five in that pack - they got stuck, I think. Nevertheless, they are well worth their INR 275, and I most definitely recommend it, as I recommend a visit to The Cocoa Trees.

Seriously people, whether or not you are a chocolate aficionado, make one trip to experience the unique concept of this store. Also, people who are clueless about gift ideas, The Cocoa Trees is the answer to all your prayers.

Address: The Cocoa Trees, @ The Nature's Basket, Hill Road, Bandra, Mumbai
Website: http://www.thecocoatrees.com/
Phone: 022 - 26425050, 26421122
FB: www.facebook.com/CocoaTrees

Cadbury Bournville Cranberry

Mondēlez International is a busy company and constantly trying to make the people of the world fat with its new creations. It is, afterall, the world's largest chocolatier and candy maker and among other hugeass brands, it owns Cadbury. The latest product they've been making a lot of noise about recently is the Cranberry Bournville. I've tried the Bournville Almond variety before and wasn't too impressed by it, but then a chocolate reviewer's gotta do what a chocolate reviewer's gotta do.

I still find it laughable that 44% cocoa is proudly sold as dark chocolate in India AND has takers. But then anything above 35% qualifies as dark chocolate according to EU regulations, so it's okay. Another thing that caught my attention was the Queen's seal on the packet and it turns out Cadbury is a multiple Royal Warrant holder.

According to Wikipedia, Royal Warrants of appointment have been issued for centuries to tradespeople who supply goods or services to a royal court or certain royal personages. The royal warrant enables the supplier to advertise the fact that they supply to the issuer of the royal warrant, so lending prestige to the supplier. Royal families of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden, among others, allow tradesmen to advertise royal patronage.

Anyway, coming back to the new Cranberry Bournville, when their FB page started rubbing in product posts relentlessly in my face, I had to pick a bar up. Although, I must admit their chocolate pairing suggestions in these posts are quite useful. The dark-ish bar is apparently made from the finest Ghana chocolate and is fairly smooth. It has cranberry AND almonds in it - something nut allergy people need to watch out for.

The sour dried bits of cranberry make for a wonderful contrast to the sweet-ish chocolate and the almonds lend it desirable crunch. I must admit that this Bournville experience was somewhat better than my first. The 80 g bar costs INR 80 and mostly your money's worth. Go try it.

RATING: 3.5/5

Cadbury Creme Egg movie-inspired adverts for 2013

It's time for Cadbury's much-loved Creme Eggs to be back in the market as Easter come close. These festival-themed chocolates are released by Cadbury each year between the months of January and March as an Easter egg variety. The milk chocolate shell is filled with white and yellow cream, made to resemble the white and yolk of an actual egg. Vegetarians can't find it very appealing. 

However, these chocolates are crazy popular, especially in Western countries where Easter has cultural significance. For this year's launch, Cadbury's made some rather cute movie-inspired print campaigns such as this one with Louise Thompson in an American Beauty-inspired ad, and another featuring her and Binky Felstead in a Mission Impossible mock up. I love!

  

I've not tasted this product yet. Have you? Rate the product or share a review. Chocosophy will be happy to feature it.