Allen's Milk Bottle Mania

The second new release from Nestle's Allen's brand is bag of flavoured milk bottles, aptly named 'Milk Bottle Mania'. Milk bottles are far and away known for being a milky white in colour, and flavoured with vanilla. They are a bit like vanilla ice cream - always there but nothing to write home about.

Allen's has decided to turn this idea on its head, and has released five new flavours, plus original vanilla, in its new bag. The new milkshake flavours are banana (yellow), lime (green), caramel (pale brown), strawberry (pink) and chocolate (dark brown).

Unfortunately most of the lollies all smell like each other. It's only when I pull off the lid (stretch it out) that I can reach the untainted inner product.

Strawberry is as a sweet, strong scent. It's very strawberry ice cream orientated flavour, and that's exactly what it tastes like.

Chocolate smells like a dusty version of Chicos. There's a mild cocoa scent, and the milk bottle tastes like a watered-down chocolate milkshake. Nice, but too bland.

Bright yellow banana is very much a chalky lolly banana made into a foam lolly. It's that artificial, tastes-nothing-like-real-bananas taste that affirms the association. There's even that chalky aftertaste.

Caramel smells promising. The scent is warm and toasty, a little bit like caramel popcorn. The flavour is much the same, warm and a little buttery and familiar. If they made a whole bag of these I would devour them.

I was hoping the green milk bottle would be mint, but no, someone decided lime milkshake would be more popular. Surprisingly, the flavour is tart and sharp, more than I expected for a milkshake flavour. The milky aftertaste is a letdown.

Vanilla is just as I remember; bland and uninteresting. There are vague warm-milk flavours, but nothing that strikes me as vanilla inspired.

Cadbury Marvellous Creations Jelly Crunchie Bits

Cadbury's major 2012 release is of the Marvellous Creations range, a series of blocks and bars featuring Dairy Milk milk chocolate and assorted add-ins. The range coincides with the introduction of 'Joyville', a fictional Willy Wonka-like factory, complete with munchkin lookalikes, where the Marvellous Creations chocolates are made. As expected, there's a Facebook page and a website.

You can read more on the TV commercial and marketing info here if that's your thing, but let's get onto the chocolate!

The range comes in three flavours: 'Jelly Crunchie Bits', 'Jelly Popping Candy and Beanies', and 'Peanut Toffee Cookie', all of which are blocks or bars featuring Dairy Milk chocolate, plus 'Mini Drops', a bag of bitesize candy-covered pieces of chocolate. All feature a bright, carnival-esque striped wrapper and matching text.

The chocolate blocks are most interesting. Unlike the last ~new~ blocks Cadbury launched (Bar of Plenty in 2010), the MC blocks are larger than the normal 200g blocks. In fact, these planks are positively huge. Though the mere 100g difference doesn't like much on paper, in hand the blocks are noticeably bigger, thicker and just all around hefty. And in case you didn't get the memo, there's a not-so-subtle hint on the back that these blocks are made for sharing. The MC range also comes in 50g bars, though the Peanut Toffee Cookie variety doesn't seem to be available in this size.

Here for review we have the Jelly Crunchie Bits variety. Going by the neat picture on the front, we should expect to find glossy red jelly pieces (anyone else thinking they will be the same as the pieces in the Black Forest block?) and what looks like golden honeycomb pieces. (The wrapper doesn't actually call it honeycomb, just by the way. Even in the ingredients it's listed as 'Crunchie pieces'.) The back of the pack notes that this is made in Australia (woo! No crappy imported UK versions!) from local and imported products.

Inside the foil packaging, we have a huge plank that looks like a cobblestone street-wannabe. As well as the Cadbury branding, the top of the block also features wavy lines, and a textured surface that's pebbled like the skin of an orange. Of course, the downside of the cobblestones is that the block doesn't break into neat rows for sharing, so when you try and break a piece off, expect to be rained in crumbs.

  The block itself is 1.5cm thick, 13cm wide and 16cm tall. It's got that rich, supersweet Cadbury smell, evident from the first opening. Peeking through the gaily-patterned cobblestones are glimpses of the jelly and Crunchie pieces, giving the block an interesting speckled appearance. While the top of the block shows off mostly the jelly pieces, it's on the underside we see lots of rough, pointy pieces of Crunchie. Snapping open the block shows a fairly even distribution of Crunchie and jelly pieces.

As for the taste? Well, it's about what you'd expect. There's lots and lots of texture play - smooth, milky chocolate; sharp, crunchy, er, Crunchie, and bouncy jelly pieces. There's a lot of chocolate, so much that it can overwhelm the mouthful and you might end up losing track of the other pieces. It's also incredibly, tooth-searingly sweet, so make sure you have a drink close by. It's an interesting combination, for sure, and I bet it will be popular with kids.

I should mention the price, too. The RRP is $5.49 (regular blocks are $4.59). I bought this on special at $4.49 - still expensive in my books. The 50g bars are the same price range as other Cadbury medium bars, around $2.00 RRP.

Allen's LE Mad About Teeth n Stuff

Allen's is a brand of confectionery that is unique to our little island. Despite its extensive history (the company was established in 1891), the Nestle-owned brand has little information on its website about its history. Allen's jelly, chocolate and sugar lollies are ubiquitous in the childhood memories of most adults (I remember being at a young age and trying to 'drink' the milk out of the milk bottles - go on, laugh!), and their large range most definitely has something for everyone.

In 2010 Allen's released a 'Retro Party Mix', a play on its popular 'Party Mix' bag. The new introduction included milk bottles, pineapples, racing cars, teeth, honey bears, strawberries and cream, and ripe raspberries and was quite popular, particularly with older generation Australians who liked to enjoy lollies from their youth.

The first of Allen's three new releases for 2010 is a limited edition-branded bag, carrying a range called 'Mad About Teeth n Stuff'. I was immediately suspicious upon seeing the promo pictures earlier this week. Why would they release a product so incredibly similar to an already-existing product? The promotional material (which I posted here earlier) indicated the Mad About Teeth n Stuff bag would carry only 'foam' lollies, so I suppose this must be a repackaged Retro Mix with the honey bears, coke bottles and lips removed.

I wasn't far off the mark. Inside the bag we find just five varieties of the so-called foam lollies: teeth, milk bottles, strawberries and cream, racing cars and pineapples. For a 180g bag there was a decent mix of products, though I did receive about ten teeth sections in my one bag.

For comparison's sake, I picked up a Retro Party Mix bag as well (that's them on the right). It's pretty clear that the Teeth n Stuff bag is using the same products , just with a limited edition sticker slapped on. (Pineapples are included in the Retro Party Mix, I just forgot to put one in the photo. Oops.)

The teeth small faintly vanilla and milk, and there's a little bit of a strawberry note in there too. Lacking is the bright, bold pink of the gum section I remember from my childhood - these are a bland and uninspiring baby pink. There's a bit of stretch to the lolly, and it's firm to the touch and the chew. A very mild strawberry flavour is present, but it's pretty unremarkable. More noteworthy is that the piece is straight - they usually arrived curved. The piece is a hair under 6cm long, a perfect length for slipping under your top lip (short side in if you're more of a walrus type).

Pineapples are one of my favourite retro lollies, even if the flavour is usually far from the tarty sweetness of the real fruit. They smell of nothing, but I'm relieved to find the flavour is far from absent. The rich, juicy tang isn't quite realistic, but there's a definite note of sweet pineapple, even if it isn't a realistic flavour. These ones are also quite small, just about 2.5cm tall.

Milk bottles are pretty simple. They're firm but pliable, a fat 1cm thick and an average 3cm tall. There's nothing to the flavour bar a simple, vague vanilla milk taste. They're kind of like foamy Milkos (also an Allen's product) but weaker in taste.

Disappointingly, all of the racing cars in my bag were green. They were originally in four colours: red, green, blue and yellow. The top, coloured layer is almost opaque, but the colour is bright and vivid emerald green. The flavour without the white bottom is a brash apple flavour that quickly disappears. When eaten whole, with the foam layer, the flavour is much more mellow.

The least Allen's could have done when making these strawberries and cream was use the ones that already come in a bag by themselves. The shape of those ones, a rounded nub of strawberry in a larger pool of 'cream' is much more familiar than the lame strawberry-half-with-cream-backing they put in this bag. (For the record, the strawberries and cream in the Retro Party Mix are the half-strawberry, too.)  Though the larger jelly section does mean the actual piece has more of the jammy, blandish strawberry flavour than the other shape.  The flavour isn't enough to make me like it, though I won't actively pick it out of my bag when eating these later.

All in all, I'm still not sure why they bothered with this product. The Retro Party Mix is more than adequate for anyone wishing to revisit parts of their childhood through their tastebuds.

The packaging notes that the products contain wheat starch, and are made on equipment that also processes products containing milk powder.

Sneak Peek: Cadbury Marvelous Creations blocks

Safeway (Woolworths) already has these in store. I've seen one in person (the pink, jelly and popping candy version) courtesy of my Cadbury rep, but he wouldn't let me take pics. :( So you can have a screen shot from the Woolies catalogue this week instead.

These blocks are huge. Close to 300g, they are about the width of one and a half of the 200g blocks, and just as tall. The carnival-style packaging ties in with the Mini Drops I will be reviewing later this week.

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Hey visitors from Google! You can find my reviews for these blocks here!

Jelly, Popping Candy and Beanies
Peanut Toffee Cookie
Jelly Crunchie Bits 
(NEW flavour! April 2013) Clinkers, Raspberry Chips & Marshmallows

Sneak peek: New Allen's Lollies

On Friday at my work we'll be receiving bags of the three new Allen's lollies bags:Caramel Chicos, Teeth n Stuff, and Milk Bottle Mania.

For now you'll just have to make do with this promo pic from my rep.

I am SO looking forward to the Caramel Chicos!

Mars Pods Honeycomb Bites

Pods area crunchy biscuit product that's unique to Australia and New Zealand. They are manfactured by Mars Snackfoods, and in 2004 were released to the Australian public in the base flavours of Snickers and Mars. Twix soon followed, and since then we've seen various flavours come and go, including Cherry Bite, Mint Slice, Toffee Time, and their new release, Honeycomb Bite.

I've known about these since January, but my Mars rep made me swear not to share them with you until they were released to the public. (Check out the little story on the back of the package - apparently they beat me to the review.)

Constructed from a cup-shaped wafer bottom, the Pods are then filled with chocolate, caramel or flavoured cream, and topped with chocolate. The biscuits themselves are small, a touch over 2.5cm (one inch) wide and long, and about 1cm at the thickest point. Pods are crunchy, tasty, and very more-some, but also incredibly sweet.

Through the transport process, many Pods tend to lose the lip of wafer edge, and the top chocolate layer often ends up scuffed and dull. Beyond the cosmetic damage, the biscuits are whole. When opened, the bag smells absolutely delicious. There's a huge note of toasted honey and not much else.

The crunch is a big selling point of Pods - the bag states they are 'ingeniously crunchy', after all - and I've never experienced a bag of Pods not arriving fresh and crunch. On biting the biscuit, there's of course the lovely texture of the wafer base, and then the smooth coolness of the chocolatey entre. Despite what the bag says about the centre containing a 'dollop of honeycomb-flavoured cream', the centre is most definitely solid and stuff, a little like a fondant, but when combined in the chew with the wafer and the chocolate, it may as well be as solid as the chocolate for all the difference it would make. And unlike the picture on the front, it's not a definite layer of chocolate over over the honeycomb filling - there's a neat little squiggle that shows where the filling and the topping overlapped in application. And of course, there's never as much filling as there is in the picture!


Chocolate is a strong flavour here, and it's only towards the end that the honeycomb flavour emerges. It's a lot like the honeycomb pieces in Hokey Pokey ice cream - a little malty, and there are lots of warm honey notes in there too.

I LOVE these, and it shouldn't really be any surprise that the bag of these didn't even last the time it took me to write this review.

Cadbury Freddo 100s and 1000s

Cadbury Freddos are an originally Australian confectionery. Invented in 1930 by a worker named Harry Melbourne, the Freddo was acquired by Cadbury in 1967, and is now also available in the UK, New Zealand, Ireland and Zimbabwe. Flavours available in Australian over the years include Dairy Milk, peppermint (flavoured cream filling), strawberry (flavoured cream filling), Dream (white chocolate), milky top (half white chocolate, half milk chocolate), Crunchie (with Crunchie pieces), rice crisp, rainbow crunch and pineapple (only in the twin-pack variety), which was launched last year. The rice crisp, milky top and rainbow crunch varieties are no longer produced in Australia. Freddo also has a friend, the Caramello Koala, an iconic Australian favourite.

In 2030, they will be 100 years old - imagine that! I'm sure Cadbury has some surprises up their sleeve for that anniversary. For now, we have a new addition to the line, Freddo with 100s and 1000s. Before someone asks, 100s and 1000s are also known as sprinkles, but in my opinion, 100s and 1000s are round, while sprinkles are tubular in shape. 100s and 1000s themselves are also known as nonpariels, and are just made from sugar and colouring. They're about 1.5mm in width and are uniform in size, and are known for their bright and cheerful colours.

Onto the Freddo. This new flavour is available in both the 15g fun-pack and 35g "king size" jumbo serves. The packaging is bright, the lime green and pink-theme different from any of the existing packaging colours. Freddo is shown juggling the 100s and 1000s - cause that's what frogs do, of course.

Inside we've got a spotty Mr Freddo who looks like he's come down with a case of the odd-coloured chicken pox. Underneath the chocolate you can almost pick out the bright colours of the 100s and 1000s, except it seems most of the colours have disappeared - probably melted off in the moulding process. Considering they are known for their bright and cheery colours, this is a bit sad. On the back, there are actually less 100s and 1000s visible than on the front. he ones that are visible can be felt , but their appearance doesn't add any real texture to the otherwise smooth back.

Crack the Freddo open and now we can see more faded 100s and 1000s. The cross-section picture may look like it's showing a lot of bubbles, but those are just indents from the 100s and 1000s on the opposite side. There are a lot present, but it's nowhere near dense. When biting into the Freddo, they add a little bit of crunch and texture, but no additional flavour. By themselves 100s and 1000s are just sweet, so it makes sense that when swamped with chocolate they would be almost indiscernible. Without the texture and the little 'pops' between my teeth, I wouldn't even know they were there. Be warned that you may end up with a few stuck in your teeth afterwards, though!

Cadbury Caramel Bunnies

(This is a bit late, but for some reason it didn't post earlier, so have it anyway.)

The other new introduction to the Cadbury Easter line up is the 'Caramel Bunnies'. Aimed at women, the Caramel Bunny is a new character that will presumably be sticking around in the future. She even has her own Facebook page.

As per a lot of Cadbury's recent product introductions here in Australia, the Caramel Bunny has been available in the UK, and had a long run over the 1980s and 1990s there. In 2009 she was brought back to advertise the Caramel brand, but (to the best of my knowledge) this is the first time we've seen her on our shores.

The package itself is the new matte foil Cadbury has been introducing over the past year on its medium and king-size bars. On the front, against the golden caramel colour (also used on the Caramel Eggs and other Caramello products) is a sketch of a flirty-looking Miss Bunny, complete with pink bow.

The pack of two weighs 40g, which is about 10g less than the standard Dairy Milk and Caramello medium bar. Each bunny is quite heavy for its size, and is right on 7cm long by 2.5cm wide (feet) and just over 1cm thick. The front is well moulded, showing a reasonable copy of the sketch, complete with little bow. As with most Cadbury chocolate, it's bright and slightly glossy, and has a slight milky smell - though I swear I can smell Easter in there too!

Inside there is a disappointing amount of caramel, though the thick plug of chocolate at the back tells why the bunny felt so heavy. Getting to the caramel was an excursion in itself, but at least the caramel wasn't terrible. The consistency was lovely. It wasn't at all oozy, and didn't find its way out of the decapitated Miss Bunny as I photographed. It was a lovely toffee colour, warm and brown and neither opaque nor transparent.It reminded me a little bit of caramel fudge in flavour, bu was beautiful and smooth. I only wish that there had been more of it!

The combination of the caramel and chocolate is sweet, but not overwhelming, though the flavour will reside in your mouth for a little while. The Bunny is better as two small bites, and one Bunny is one serve.

The Bunnies contain: milk, soy and wheat glucose syrup. They may contain trades of peanuts and tree nuts.

Nestle Violet Crumble Block

It's been a little while since we've seen something new and exciting from the Nestle stable. While not necessarily new and exciting, this Violet Crumble block is an interesting idea, and the first foray Nestle has made into the 'combining bar and block' idea. (Cadbury went there years ago with its Dairy Milk and Crunchie block, so Nestle is a wee bit behind on the uptake here.)

Speaking of Crunchie, if you ask an Australian which bar they prefer, chances are they will side with either the Violet Crumble or the Crunchie, but rarely both. My uneducated theory behind this is because while both bars are technically honeycomb, they have vastly different textures. The Violet Crumble is pale in colour, somewhat mild in taste and has a chalky texture, while a Crunchie will leave you with toffee-like pieces in your teeth (if you even have any left from the tooth-decay-inducing sweetness of the chocolate and aerated, 'bubbly' honeycomb).

Described as a 'milk chocolate block with honeycomb pieces', the packaging isn't all that inspiring to look at. It's not even in the same colouration as the Violet Crumble block (which is metallic purple). Perhaps this whispers of a future packaging change, or maybe it was just to avoid a packaging clash with the omnipresent Cadbury trademark purple. I picked my block up at Coles when it was on special for $3. (I did buy one from Safeway/Woolworths, also on special, when it first came out, promptly ate it and have been waiting for it to come back on special since.) I'm not a TV watcher, Facebook participant or magazine reader so can't comment on any advertising, if there even has been any.

It's fairly weighty for a honeycomb product. (The bar is 50g and is about as long as this block.) Inside the boring packaging we have a decent-sized block, embossed with the Nestle logo, and split into the three-per-row shape, which allows for a large bite or two small nibbles. It's nicely smooth on top, somewhat glossy, with barely a hint of the honeycomb inside. On the underside is where the fun begins. The chocolate is just PACKED with honeycomb pieces, its surface rippled and bumpy like asphalt. There is definitely a lot more honeycomb in this than in the Dairy Milk Crunchie block.

The smell is a little malty and sweet (reminds me of Easter, curiously), and milky.  The ingredient list reveals that there is just 20% each of cocoa and milk solids in this - very little at all. When we break it into pieces, the honeycomb takes up just the bottom layer of the block, though this does seem to vary; in a few areas the pieces went about halfway up the square.

On first bite there's a little bit of rumbling from the honeycomb layer, and then the malty flavour from earlier reappears, softening the sweetness of the chocolate. It's not a complex flavour by any stretch of the imagination - just sweet milk chocolate with a hint of malt. I don't get any real honeycomb flavour at all, to be honest. It is a sweet bar, but not in the league of Cadbury's version, and a few pieces will be enough to satisfy most people.

Cadbury Easter: Egg n Spoon

I'm sure I'm not the first person to note that commercial holidays mean the retail giants bring out their goods earlier every year. It's only three days after Valentines Day and already Easter stock has begun to arrive at my little shop. Supermarkets have had mini eggs out for almost two weeks.

First in the door at my shop is Cadbury. Much of the range is the same as previous years - hollow eggs, bunnies, plus the yearly parade of the Humpty Casket and similar. But what's new for 2012 is the much-touted 'Egg n Spoon' range.

Advertised as 'chocolate egg with mousse centre', the packaging takes a somewhat different route, away from the plastic, and goes with the more rustic egg carton - tinted Cadbury purple, of course. It's certainly a distinctive and novel approach - I'm sure the cartons will be popular with kids. Inside, however, is most definitely adults-only. The eggs inside come in two varieties - milk and double choc - in which the mousse centre is either 'milky' or 'choc' flavoured.

Remove the cardboard sleeve and open the carton, and inside we find four eggs wrapped in black and purple foil. At first I thought they were similar in size to the Creme and Caramello eggs, but they are actually more than a touch larger. Given the mousse centre, these eggs are lighter, despite being bigger. The eggs are labelled their different flavours, but with very small text that's easy to miss. The text on the choc-flavoured egg is almost unreadable.

Enclosed with the four eggs are two small plastic spoons - purple, of course. Cadbury rarely miss a chance to stamp their trademark purple over anything! Inside the foil we find one ugly egg.

I would have expected something much better from Cadbury. The egg shell itself seems to be basic Dairy Milk - a milky, somewhat unappetising brown colour. There is no Cadbury name stamped into the product interestingly enough - once the foil is gone this could be any company's product. The chocolate itself has a slight gloss - though considering I can see fingerprints in the 'gloss', I think it's more like fat - but it's a little scuffed and definitely not in perfect condition, and has an obvious seam line around the diameter. The moulded top is, according to the packaging, where you are to bite the top off. At the very top of the egg is a small circle - presumably a plug after the filling has been inserted, as most were not perfectly round.

Bite off the top and we get our first glimpse of the mousse filling.  The top of the egg is an empty void, though the exact location of the void seemed to vary, as some of the eggs I opened had their filling set at an angle, instead of level with the top. For the milky flavoured egg, the centre is a light cream, a little glossy, and reminds me vaguely of toasted coconut.

Scooping out a spoonful of the filling shows the moussey texture. There are no bubbles, but the mix is definitely light and fluffy. The milky flavour tastes like white chocolate, but is not sweet like white chocolate. The double choc egg, on the other hand, will knock your socks off if you're not a sweet tooth. It smells a little hazelnutty (the ingredients note the inclusion of hazelnut paste on both varieties). It's more matte in appearance, but shows the fluffy texture off well. It holds its shape on the spoon with no issues. Taste-wise, by itself the choc mousse filling is somewhat like a chocolate milkshake and real-chocolate mousse. It's strong, it's very sweet and eating a whole egg together with the outer chocolate shell might just make you feel a little bit sick.

The milk chocolate shell contains 28% cocoa solids and 25% milk solids, which is a little lower than the Dairy Milk blocks. Many of the Cadbury Easter products we received have a best before date of somewhere in September, but this product's date is in June. But if there are any sweet teeth in your household, I can't imagine they will last even that long.

Ingredients: Sugar, milk solids, vegetable oil, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, emulsifiers (soy lectin, 476, 475), hazelnut paste, flavours.

Allergen statement: Contains milk, hazelnuts and soy. May contain traces of wheat, egg and other tree nuts.

Made in France.