Cadbury Dairy Milk with Oreo Vs Milka & Oreo!

I was so excited when I heard about the new Dairy Milk with Oreo (thanks to @kevvieguy!). I've blogged before about the Milka & Oreo which is one of my favourite chocolate bars ever. I love chocolate and I love Oreo's so it's a perfect match! I'll give a bit of a comparative review of the two versions at the end but firstly let's talk about the new Dairy Milk with Oreo.

Unwrapped it looks like any other Dairy Milk chocolate except that if you look closely you can see a few black pieces of Oreo biscuit peeking through. I wasn't sure when I first heard about this bar if it was simply going to be Oreo chunks encased in Dairy Milk chocolate. Once I finally had a bar in my hand I could see from the wrapper that it actually has a creamy filling with Oreo chunks which are then wrapped in Dairy Milk chocolate.

In the photo above I've cut along the centre of the cubes of chocolate rather than along the natural break, to give you a better idea of the filling. The Oreo pieces seem to congregate along the top of each chunk with the creamy layer along the bottom. This makes it quite a layered bar with separate sections. The Oreo chunks are quite large, bigger than I was expecting, which gave the chocolate a considerably crunchy texture. The creamy layer is very smooth and sweet with an almost white chocolate flavour. The Dairy Milk chocolate covering is the perfect thickness, encasing the sweet filling with a lovely milk chocolate flavour. The combination is divine but then I do love a good biscuit and chocolate union.

I bought the Dairy Milk with Oreo from my local Co-op supermarket for the bargain price of £1. I have a feeling I will be stocking up on quite a few more!

Dairy Milk with Oreo Vs Milka & Oreo

I can't resist giving a quick comparison between the Dairy Milk with Oreo and the Milka & Oreo. Cadbury's and Milka are both owned by Kraft so there is obviously some overlap in the ideas behind these bars. I've been lucky enough to eat more than my fair share of Milka & Oreo bars. Luckily enough my brother brought me a bar back from his holiday this week so I could take photos of both bars side by side! There are some similarities between the two but also some important differences.

Cadbury's on top -  Milka on the bottom

You can see above that the Milka version is much flatter in depth and has smaller pieces of Oreo than the Cadbury's bar. The Milka chocolate coating is also thinner and lighter which means you can see more of the Oreo pieces when looking at the chocolate from above, even though overall there are a lot less Oreo pieces in the Milka one. This makes the Milka & Oreo a lot less crunchy than the Dairy Milk with Oreo. The taste of the chocolate coating is obviously different too, Milka chocolate has subtle caramel undertones whilst Dairy Milk is well... Dairy Milk. They are both great bars but I preferred the Cadbury's version because of the thicker filling and chocolate coating.

Have you tried the new Dairy Milk with Oreo? Leave your thoughts below!

You may also be interested in:

Milka & Oreo Review
Dairy Milk Mint Bubbly Review

Cadbury's Crunchy Spiders

Here's something new from Cadbury's for Halloween, a spider with a chocolate body and cardboard legs, very cute or very hideous depending on your attitude towards spiders. They are a fairly decent size and come in at 155 calories each. Once unwrapped the chocolate has a few etchings to represent the hairy spider but otherwise it is fairly plain looking.

Inside though is where the real treat lies waiting. The inside is filled with crispy rice pieces that have been coloured green. The green colour is quite dark but it still pops against the dark brown chocolate. It's a fun product in the same way as the Cadbury's Screme Egg.

I wasn't expecting much from this chocolate, it's more of a kids novelty after all, but it was surprisingly tasty. The chocolate is creamy and really delivers a cocoa hit. I quite like chocolate bars with puffed rice anyway and this Crunchy Spider is no exception. The crunchiness of the rice works really well with the smooth chocolate. I prefer it to the overly sweet flavour of the Cadbury's Screme Egg.

They cost 65p each at the moment, or 2 for £1 in most places. There is also a pink wrapper version available, just in case you are too girly to handle this purple spider. I would definitely buy these again and will be stocking up if I see them going cheap after Halloween!

Almondy Toblerone Cake

Apologies if this is another old "new" product. I spotted this in Tesco's cake frozen section and for all I know it's been out for ages. I've tried the Almondy Daim cake before which is rather delicious. If you've ever visited an Ikea then chances are you'll have tried an Almondy cake, it's a Swedish concoction which was previously only available in Ikea restaurants and food sections. I used to go to Ikea just to stock up on this cake! It's well worth a try and is now easy to find in most Tesco's. It's an unusual gluten-free cake which is made using almonds rather than flour.

The Toblerone version looked quite promising on the packaging. I liked the thought of the chewy nougat chocolate mixed in with the almond base. It seemed like it could work well in the same way the chewy Daim bar pieces taste delicious in the Daim version. The Almondy Toblerone cake needs defrosting for only 20 minutes and then it's ready to eat. The cake looks nice, if a bit basic, once it was defrosted, but it does have a lovely golden brown colour.

But one of my mottos in life is "don't judge a cake by it's cover". Or something like that. Once sliced the cake tends to crack a bit, the outer chocolate layer is quite hard and brittle, so the individual slices ended up looking a bit mangled. It's not a huge mess but it's not that attractive either.

The overall taste of the cake is good and my kids certainly enjoyed it. The almond base is quite flaky but very delicious. The chocolate layer is also delicious. My only problem was that it didn't taste as good as the Almondy Daim version. The Toblerone doesn't seem to work as well here and we couldn't even taste any nougat crunch or flavour. There were hardly any Toblerone pieces even though it was described as "liberally sprinkled". I doubt I would even have guessed that this was a Toblerone themed cake if I hadn't seen the packaging. On top of the almond base is a pale creamy layer that was a bit bland. It didn't taste of chocolate or nougat. I much prefer the delicious almond caramel that covers the Almondy Daim cake. I think I will be sticking to the Daim version in future but this Almondy Toblerone was still a cake that we all enjoyed trying!

The Almondy Toblerone cake is vegetarian friendly and gluten free and is currently available in Tesco for the offer price of £2.00 (until 15/10/2012).

Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte & Salted Caramel Mocha

I recently posted my excitement about the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte coming to the UK for the first time. I love Starbucks' seasonal drinks but we usually only get the Christmas and summery ones here. Autumn (or rather Fall) flavours in America only means one thing - Pumpkin Spice. If there is a product that can have some Pumpkin Spice added to it then it will be done. I've heard about Pumpkin Spice yogurts, chocolates, bread, pancakes, hell even Pumpkin Spice Pringles!

Unfortunately we don't get anything like that in the UK but luckily for pumpkin fans Starbucks has come to the rescue, well almost. I ordered the Pumpkin Spice Latte but as you can see from my photo above I don't get cream on my coffees, ever. Can't stand the stuff. Here's what it should look like with cream:

The Pumpkin Spice Latte is described as "espresso blended with the unmistakable spices of fall – cinnamon, nutmeg and clove – smooth with steamed milk and topped with delectably sweetened whipped cream". So no actual pumpkin then. I tried this drink on an extremely rainy and grey day. I got soaked just walking to the Starbucks and the Pumpkin Spice Latte was just the thing to warm me up. The cinnamon and autumnal spices are warming and delicious. However there is absolutely no pumpkin taste, even the sprinkles on top taste of cinnamon and ginger rather than pumpkin. Disappointing for pumpkin lovers but still a lovely drink that is very similar to the Gingerbread Latte.

I also ordered the Pumpkin Loaf cake at the same time (seen in background of the top photo). This cake was extremely moist in texture but still quite heavy and filling. It had a great unmistakably pumpkin taste which was very satisfying. It might sound odd to have a cake with a vegetable flavour but pumpkin lends itself to sweet flavours in much the same way as carrots. The cake has been topped with pumpkin seeds in a sweet syrupy drizzle which adds a lovely crunchiness to the moist cake.

My husband ordered the new Salted Caramel Mocha, (stock photo above!). It was quite odd because the flavour was very similar to a normal Mocha with a caramel drizzle but then it has been bizarrely topped with crushed sea salt and sugar. You literally get small lumps of sea salt as you are drinking, especially at first. After a while the sea salt melts into the drink, once this happens you can't really taste the salt but it does heighten the flavours of the chocolate and caramel. Again, it's a very warming drink and I'm glad that Starbucks has brought this autumnal menu to the UK.

KP Nutty Nibbles: Hobnob's & Chocolate Mix

I bought these KP Nutty Nibbles from Waitrose where they are currently on offer for 99p a bag. I got suckered in by the word "new" on the packaging but it turns out that this snack was actually released last year. I'm not sure why they are still producing them with "new" on the packaging or how many years it takes before a product is officially "old"? Being around for a year does not seem to count anyway. Regardless, I'm still pleased to have been introduced to this snack, it's extremely moreish and delicious.

It comes in the ubiquitous "grab bag" formation so beloved of snack producers. It seems that we are a nation of snack-sharing junkies. It comes in a 130g bag which actually seemed quite small to me, but then I was sharing them with the hubby! They are quite calorific, with 548 calories per 100g. There is a huge paragraph of ingredients and also the classic nonsensical disclaimer at the bottom, "May Contain Nuts". Seriously? I think anyone with a nut allergy might get a clue from the name "Nutty Nibbles".

There are three snacking elements in these Nutty Nibbles; Honey Roast Peanuts, Biscuit Pieces and Milk Chocolate Chunks. The peanuts are the same KP Honey Roasted Peanuts which will be familiar to most people. They have a sweet crunchy coating which makes them less salty then normal peanuts. The Biscuit Pieces are mini Hobnobs, very simple but tasty oaty biscuits. Then finally there are little chunks of good milk chocolate. We all know that chocolate tastes fantastic with biscuits. We also know that chocolate and peanuts are a match made in heaven. Putting all three (peanuts, chocolate and biscuit) together in one snack bag is just genius. It's like a dissected Snickers bar that gets to be reassembled in your mouth, except with extra Hobnobs. It's a gorgeous combination of peanutty, chocolately, biscuity delicousness which was nibbled all too soon.