The latest offering to join the Dairy Milk range are these Marvellous Creations bars. There are two to choose from; Jelly Popping Candy Shells, and Cookie Nut Crunch. They're actually based on the Marvellous Creations bars that have been available in Australia for some time.
The packaging is fun, quirky, and very appealing. This is carried through to the look of the chocolate itself - it's not your average Dairy Milk Bar. The chocolate has been shaped into irregular wacky segments with different patterns and textures. It's not the easiest to break off into pieces but it does look unique.
The Jelly Popping Candy Shells bar is an interesting concoction combining fruit flavoured jellies (6%), sugar coated candies (6%), and popping candy (4%). The jellies and candies are whole sweets that have been included in the chocolate, rather than little broken up pieces.
The resulting bar is an interesting medley of different textures. The fruit pieces are basically chewy jelly bean type sweets, with a vaguely fruity flavor. The sugar coated candy (that's mini Smarties to you and me) are very colourful and add a nice crunchiness. The popping candy is present throughout the whole bar, giving the Dairy Milk chocolate that slightly fizzing feeling on the tongue. Depending on your view of popping candy, this either completely ruins the satisfying chocolate melt OR enhances it to new levels of enjoyment. It really depends if you are a popping candy kind of person or not!
Overall I'm in two minds about this bar. On the one hand, I'm pleased that Cadbury is bringing out something so different to the UK market. On the other hand, it's a bit of a novelty that I can't imagine buying again. This conflict was reflected in the views of my testers. No surprise that my eldest son loved it and thought the flavor was brilliant. My husband however, absolutely hated everything about it and even insisted that I give this bar my first minus score! Don't worry Cadbury that's not going to happen!
Luckily for the popping-candy-phobes out there the second bar is a much safer choice in terms of flavor. The Cookie Nut Crunch is made up of biscuit pieces (8%) and chopped roasted caramelised hazelnut (3%). It turns out that being chopped, roasted and caramelised means that the hazelnuts don't really taste of hazelnuts anymore. I thought they were actually little pieces of hard toffee. They're almost too small to be able to properly discern the flavor. The cookie pieces are much more successful, there are lots of circular chunks that look, and taste, like mini choc chip cookies.
The combination of these added ingredients creates another crunchy and chewy textured bar but with flavours that are much easier to appreciate. It's a very tasty bar but it doesn't have same quirky impact as the Jelly Popping Candy Shells bar.
To sum up - if you want to play it safe then the Cookie Nut Crunch is the bar to try, if you want to give your taste buds a tingle then give the Jelly Popping Candy a go!
Grocery Gems Verdict: Cadbury Marvellous Creations
RATING: Jelly Popping Candy Shells - 6.5 out of 10, Cookie Nut Crunch - 7.0 out of 10.
Buy them again?: Maybe.
Nutrition: Jelly Popping Candy Shells - 235 cals, Cookie Nut Crunch - 245 cals.
Purchased: Co-Op
Price: £0.50p for 47g bar.
If you want to take a look at the original Australian Dairy Milk Marvellous Creations, then check out these reviews on The Snack Review, Choc Mission and Foodstuff Finds.
