Candy Bar Lab

I don’t often see molded candy bars that have both milk and dark chocolate. In fact, the Nidar Yade is probably the first one I’ve had. It seems most manufacturers assume that milk chocolate and dark chocolate are mutually exclusive and that consumers want one or the other, not both in the same product.

Structure
A thin, wide molded bar with a bottom layer of dark chocolate and top layer of milk chocolate. Small, caramelized bits of macadamia nuts and hazelnuts are mixed in.

Texture
Perfectly tempered with a nice snap when you break it into the smaller, triangular pieces. The hazelnut and macadamia nut pieces are really small, but add a nice contrast to the smooth chocolate.

Taste
There’s about two or more times milk chocolate than dark chocolate, but in terms of taste, the two are split evenly. The dark chocolate is more pronounced when you first bite in, but the milk chocolate becomes more noticeable on the finish. It’s difficult to taste any hazelnut or macadamia nut because the pieces are so small, but you do get some extra sweetness from their caramelized coating.

Verdict
I don’t actually finish many of the candy bars that I review on this blog myself. I try to share with others if they’re good or I sometimes toss out the rest if they’re really bad. So when I eat an entire candy bar myself, like I did with the Nidar Yade, that’s a sign that it’s a damn good candy bar. I would put the Yade easily in the top tier of the candy bars I’ve tried so far.

I like most candy bar packaging. There are plenty of examples of both upscale and common candy bars that have great packaging. The Troika, on the other hand, has terrible packaging design. I think they were trying to make it look upscale, but in failing to do so, created a design that looks cheap and generic. More annoying though, is that the packaging of the Troika fails to convey anything about the product itself. I shouldn’t have to comb through the ingredients in small print on the back to get an idea about what’s in the product.

Structure
The Troika consists of three inner layers enrobed in dark chocolate. From top to bottom, these layers are raspberry jelly, chocolate truffle, and marzipan.

Texture
Upon biting in, the chocolate shell broke off into thin pieces - separating easily from the rest of the bar. The jelly was soft. It reminded me of canned cranberry sauce, though a little firmer. The chocolate truffle layer was lost in the mix between the jelly and the noticeably dry and crumbly marzipan. Overall, kind of an odd combination of textures.

Taste
I’ll start with the good news. The dark chocolate coating is very high quality and tastes great. The bad news… the rest of the flavors aren’t good at all. The raspberry flavor is underwhelming and didn’t work with the marzipan at all. Like the texture, the flavors were an odd combination.

Verdict
This candy bar just isn’t very good. I don’t understand why they tried to put together this combination of ingredients. Marzipan and raspberry jelly? I don’t understand the appeal of that. The one bright spot for this product was the chocolate, but I’m kind of annoyed good chocolate is being wasted producing Troikas.

I love the packaging for this bar, which is simply called Cuba. The candy bar itself is wrapped in gold foil, which is then covered in plastic - twisted off on the ends like a Tootsie Roll wrapper. The Cuba logo type is clear plastic, so the gold foil shows. I’ve never seen a candy bar wrapped like this before and I award them points for creativity. As for the candy product on the inside, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect from the Norwegian description, but I could figure out that it had chocolate and almonds in it from the ingredients.

Structure
A molded high cocoa percentage milk chocolate with a soft chocolate filling containing small pieces of almonds.

Texture
The chocolate shell is thin and snaps apart nicely as you bite through to the soft center. The filling is light and fluffy like a mousse or a whipped ganache. The almond pieces are chopped very fine and add a little bit of crunchiness. I also noticed some small sugar granules suspended in the filling.

Taste
Cuba has a deep, intense chocolate taste with a bit of saltiness - a welcome shot of flavor in contrast to some cheap, tasteless chocolate I’ve had recently.

Verdict
This bar is a definite thumbs up. It’s more like a truffle you’d find at a chocolate shop than it is a candy bar you’d expect to pick up at a convenience store.