Nestle Aero Bubbles Mint

Netle's new Aero Bubbles might be new to Australia, but they have been available in the UK for many years. I first heard about them through Catchoftheday.com.au a few years ago, where they were imported stock, and even better, in orange flavour (a favourite!) Unfortunately I never ended up placing an order, something I've regretted for ages, but at least now Australia has their own stock!

Well, not quite. These are UK-imported stock, recently confirmed by Nestle on their Aero Australian Facebook page.

The Bubbles are small, spherical bites of the classic Aero aerated confectionery, surrounded by a layer of thick milk chocolate. The centre on Aero Mint products is a 'confectionery' (it's not technically chocolate). I can't say why they don't use white chocolate instead, but I would hazard a guess that cost has a lot to do with it.

The green matte-finish foil package is bright and easy to spot on the shelf as it looks very similar to the standard Aero bars.  The bag weighs 35g, while a bar comes in at 40g, but the 5g difference is a lot more noticeable with the different product size (balls versus a bar). I received 12 balls in my bag.

The balls are very similar in size to a Mars Malteser, at about 2cm wide (shown with a Mentos for size below). Although the chocolate layer is a nice colour to it, it looks a bit dinged from its travels. Some balls had a small hole or crater where the chocolate had broken. All of the balls have a noticeable seam in the chocolate as well. They smell very sweet with a sugared-up mint scent, and they are quite strong.

I was surprised to find that the glazing layer over the chocolate was a touch sticky if my fingers were even slightly warm. I would not want to touch these on a warm day! When I bit one open, I found that the chocolate layer was quite thin - less than 2mm - which is very different to the product image on the bag. The light green confectionery filling also didn't fill the entire ball; instead there are fairly even big air bubbles inside. I bit open a few different balls and found most had the big air bubbles.

Luckily the taste is nice. I found these milder than an Aero Mint bar in terms of both sweetness and mint flavour - perhaps it is the proportion of more chocolate to less confectionery centre. The bubbly confectionery centre is quite light - as to be expected from an air-filled product. The chew is not very milky or melty, and the mild mint flavour doesn't hang around afterwards either. I rather enjoyed them as something mild, but I did find that the more I ate, the stronger the sweetness became. I think I can understand why the serving is six pieces, and not the whole bag.

I liked the flavour, but the stickiness is offputting. 3 out of 5 stars.

Made in the UK. Contains milk and wheat. Nestle has said on their Facebook page that the Aero Bubbles Mint "do not contain peanut and tree-nut ingredients" and there is no nut statement on the bag.

Kit Kat Caramel Duo

Nestle's last Kit Kat variety  from October of last year was an epic fail, so you can imagine I approached this new variety with some trepidation. Visions of mockolate and 'white confectionery' aren't far from my mind, and with a pack that describes the product as 'Wafer Fingers Covered with a Smooth Milk Chocolate base & Creamy Caramel Flavoured Choc Top', I wasn't all that reassured. At least the base is chocolate, and I love caramel, so it can't be all that bad - right?

The packaging is made with the new matte-finish foil wrapper that seems to be the range these days. It still has the bright red, easily-reconisable background and bit Kit-Kat logo, but the bottom right corner of the bar includes a tan-coloured swathe dedicated to the new flavour. Often the packaging will also include an illustration of the flavour - for example, a picture of a strawberry on a strawberry-flavoured product. There's no such guide here. I know caramel can be difficult to illustrate, but that tan swathe could be representing leather for all I know!

Our 45g bar is in the classic four-fingers shape, with the foot or base of each finger made from a layer of milk chocolate, while the rest of each finger has been coated in 'caramel flavoured choc'. The caramel area is a nice tan colour, perhaps a touch lighter than I would expect for a caramel product, and is matte with no discernible gloss at all. My bar is a weeny bit heat damaged though, so that may have contributed. The bar as a whole seems quite heat sensitive too - I couldn't even hold a finger for five seconds without it beginning to melt.

The caramel coating smells suspiciously like caramel milkshake flavouring: it's sweet, and I get a hint of spices there as well (?). It's a little bit like fudge, too. Not bad! The milk chocolate base isn't as nice though; it smells bland, like poor quality Easter chocolate.

In a regular chocolate Kit-Kat, between the layers of wafer you would find a chocolate-based smooth product. Although I can't tell what it is, Nestle appear to have replaced the chocolate with a tan-coloured product inside, presumably to add to the flavour.

The wafers in my Kit-Kat were lovely and fresh and added a good crunch. But then it's downhill from there. The flavour is somewhat boring; the caramel is strong enough to dominate the milk chocolate base, but overall is weaker than the scent it gives off. Although I don't drink coffee, the weak caramel flavour is about what I would expect to find in a caramel-flavoured coffee product - the flavour is there but doesn't do a whole lot else. I don't know what I was expecting, but I'm disappointed. This is not a product that stands on its own. It's okay. There are many other nicer products out there I could have spent my $2 on.

A serve is two fingers (half the packet). This product contains milk, soy and wheat, and is made on equipment that processes products containing peanuts and tree nuts. This product was made in Australia.

Nestle Kit Kat Limited Edition White

In one of the more curious limited edition releases this year, Nestle has released a White variety of their classic Kit Kat bar. Interestingly, the LE flavour seems to be only available in king size.

The first thing I noticed is that the description on the side of the package describes the bar as "Crisp Wafer Fingers Covered With Smooth White Choc" [horrendous overuse of capital letters courtesy of Nestle]. The red flag is the word 'choc', which indicates that the outer layer on the bar is not real chocolate but instead some delicious mockolate. Awesome. Just to confirm my thoughts, on the ingredients list, cocoa (not even cocoa butter, just 'cocoa') is way down in seventh place, behind delicacies such as vegetable fat and yeast. Cocoa butter is ninth out of fourteen total ingredients. Oh, and 70% of this bar is this delicious 'white confectionery'.

To give Nestle credit, the bar's outer layer does smell a little like white chocolate. There's that buttery, creamy tang that reminds me of Cadbury's Dream white chocolate (in which cocoa butter is the third ingredient) but there's a note of something there that I can't identify. It's a little bit chemical in nature. The colour is spot-on, although the shape of the finger and its sharp edges, combined with the bars faint gloss coating, all makes me feel like it resembles a Lego brick.

The finger has a solid snap to it, indicating freshness (probably due to the foil packaging Nestle introduced a few years ago). If there's supposed to be identifiable white confection between the wafer layers, I can't see it. It's the same colour as the wafers so even if I wanted to try and dig a bit out for a tasting, I couldn't.

As a whole bite, the bar isn't terrible. There is a fair bit of sweetness, but it's not throat-searing like some poorly manufactured white chocolates can be. It is a little bit bland and uninteresting though. The almost-savoury wafer does  a good job of balancing things out, and adding a great crunch texture to the chew. Unsurprisingly, the white confection doesn't melt or become a delicious creamy mess in your mouth. It just hangs around until you've finished, like an unwanted visitor.

The Nestle Kity Kat Limited Edition White bar contains milk, wheat and soy, and is mad eon equipment that processes products containing peanuts and tree nuts.