While Tesco's own range of baked goods provides some pretty decent edibles, it's nice to see some branded stuff pop up now and then. At the moment there's a wide array of Mars products immortalised in cookie form, from Galaxy to Bounty to Magic Stars. The most interesting of the lot was these Mars Secret Centre cookies, which promise a "soft Mars centre" in the middle of a pretty nice looking chocolate chip cookie.
I thought I'd have trouble with these once I'd picked up the bag. The cookies seemed pretty friendly with each other. Having baked cookies in store myself during my Tesco days, I can attest to their tendency to stick to each other and separate messily. Thankfully, these cookies were pretty well baked, and I managed to extract them from the bag whole. The only place these were falling apart was in my face, and that they did. The cookie is nice and soft, slightly chewy and with a nice smattering of chocolate chunks. There are also some caramel drops placed in there, but I can't say I noticed a particularly caramel-like flavor. It's probably overwhelmed a little by the chocolate and the centre, but it would have been nice to have a little more caramel in there. Speaking of the centre, it's supposed to be nougat flavour, and I guess it has a hint of it, but really it's quite creamy and light. I wasn't expecting the classic chewy middle of your average Mars bar, but it didn't particularly remind me of the bar itself. It's a little goopy, a little sickly, but it blends in fairly well with the cookie. Overall these make for some pretty nice cookies, but I don't see how they're particularly Mars themed. I couldn't taste the caramel, the nougat center wasn't nougat-like, it's just a pretty ordinary chocolate chip cookie with a creamy center. Certainly not bad, but if you're expecting an authentic Mars bar experience you might be left disappointed.
My rating: 3/5
