Many thanks to Monster Sweets for sending me these Milk Duds to review recently. I must admit I had never heard of them before but it seems like they're rather popular in the US. They're basically hard chewy caramels coated in chocolate, or rather, a "chocolate coating" made up of vegetable fat and cocoa powder. Like a lot of US confectionery the caramels contain corn syrup and vegetable fat, as opposed to butter and condensed milk like UK caramels. According to Wikipedia Hershey changed the recipe in 2008 to retain the price of Milk Duds due to rising cocoa butter costs. Personally I think they should have just increased the cost, because in this form they taste a bit rubbish!
Opening the pack I knew something was wrong because they only had a vague chocolatey smell. There were no strong notes of caramel like you usually get with most hard caramels.
Tasting one, I found it to be very chewy and pretty flavourless. It had a very vague hint of caramel but mostly tasted non-descript, whilst the chocolate coating had only a mild cocoa flavor.
I actually didn't bother finishing the pack which is very unusual for me. They tasted so chewy, bland and boring that I would rather make up my daily calorie allowance from elsewhere!
If you've tried Milk Duds please let me know your thoughts in the comments! Did they taste as bad as this before the recipe change?
RATING: 3 out of 10.
Do check out Monster Sweets Online for some much better European and American snacks than these - they have some fantastic stuff like Reese's Cups, different Skittles and M&M's varieties plus Milka and Ritter Sport bars!
http://www.monstersweets.co.uk/
*This product was sent for an honest review and all opinions expressed are my own.
