Mars Milky Way Magic Stars

All of my close friends know I love stars. They also know that I'm a tightass, which explains why I waited until these were on special before picking up a pack to review even though they came out some time ago.

Like a lot of 'new' products today, the Milky Way Magic Stars are new only to the Australian market. The product itself is available in the UK, although the product we have is in the new Mars gusseted 'resealable' bags, and has the slogan 'Won't ruin your appetite', which is not used in the UK any more.

The bag weighs 130g, and contains 'star-shaped pieces of aerated chocolate'. What aerated chocolate has to do with Milky Way is beyond me, as the bar doesn't use aerated chocolate (or stars). The packaging is really cute though, and shows off the product well, although I was surprised when I opened the bag to find the stars are TINY. They are slightly larger than an M&M at a hair under 2cm wide point-to-point and 0.6mm tall, but I was expecting them to be much larger.

Made from milk chocolate, the stars each feature a little face engraved on the front. According to Wikipedia, the UK version of this product used to have faces, but they were discontinued. The stars are uncoated, so despite their adorable little faces, these arrived looking a little rough and doll from being banged around during shipping. All were whole though; there were no broken points or pieces broken in half in my packet.

Inside the actual star itself we have the promised aerated chocolate, though the aerated section is only in the middle and doesn't extend to the points of the star. Most of the pieces I had had a smooth surface, though I did have one or two where a bubble of air had formed against the edge of the mould, causing an empty space.

Despite containing a minimum of 33% cocoa solids, the chocolate was rather mild and milky. The ingredients look pretty good (no scary oils) but they taste a little bit like compound chocolate (that's the cheap stuff you get at the $2 shop), with a hint of chocolate brownies and extra sugar for good measure. They are sweet, but at least it's not on throat-searing levels like some other chocolates I could name. Still, they are rather moreish, and given their tiny size, if you like shoving handfuls of M&Ms into your mouth, these would do well with you too.

A serving size is 25g (25 stars - one big handful or two smaller ones). Peanuts, treenuts and sesame seeds may be present. Milkyway Magic Stars are made in Poland.