Candy Bar Lab

A few months ago, while preparing for a big Oktoberfest party, my mom picked this candy bar up at a local German grocery store along with some beer and brats. Immediately, I remembered the last German candy bar I tried - the Storz Nougat Praliné. Both have gold packaging, are made of a chocolate and hazelnut nougat, and hail from Deutschland. Two things jumped out at me about this Wendler product though. First, the packaging design is superior to the Storz version. It’s crisply folded and has a cool metallic, textured feel to it. Second, I could see from the picture on the front that this product has two distinct layers, one darker (and presumably more chocolately) than the other.

Structure
Two layers of German nougat. The bottom layer is a darker shade of brown than the top.

Texture
The Wendler Nougat bar is soft and dense. It coats your whole mouth as you try to chew it. There isn’t a huge difference in consistency between the two layers, but the top layer is slightly smoother, while the bottom layer is a bit drier.

Flavor
Very surprisingly, there is almost no chocolate flavor. It didn’t taste at all like I was expecting, which was something similar to Nutella. Instead, there’s a distinct roasted hazelnut flavor. Overall, this product is very sweet and unfortunately, without the chocolate present, there’s not much going on to cut into that sweetness. There’s really no discernible difference between the two layers, except the top was maybe a little sweeter.

Verdict
Maybe I’m being overly critical because I was so sure that this bar was going to taste like chocolate and I was horribly let down. It’s very one-dimensional and way too sweet.

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.

The Peanøtt Kubbe (”Peanut Log”) is a Norwegian product manufactured by Freia - a subsidiary of Kraft Foods. This bar didn’t stand out much amongst the dozen or so candy bars I currently have from Norway. The ingredients list - chocolate, peanuts, and toffee -looked good enough, but it’s not exactly exotic; we have bars like that here.

Structure
The inner toffee core is first surrounded by a layer of dark chocolate and next by chopped peanuts and milk chocolate. The package contains two segments.

Texture
I was expecting the toffee center to be firm and chewy. To my delightful surprise, it was very soft and smooth. The milk chocolate is soft and creamy, while the dark chocolate is a bit harder and the chopped peanuts provide crunch. All together, there are many textures and they work together wonderfully.

Taste
The flavor is deep and complex. The toffee center has a burnt caramel flavor. The dark chocolate cuts the sweetness of the milk chocolate and adds to the uniqueness of the overall flavor (I can’t think of many candy bars with dark and milk chocolate). Of course, both of the chocolates used are high quality and taste great. Finally, the roasted peanuts add to the mix by providing a nutty background flavor.

Verdict
The Peanøtt Kubbe is an amazing candy bar with many textures and flavors all working well together. It’s one of the best candy bars I’ve ever had actually. I’d say this one is even worth buying online and having it shipped, but I can’t find a place online that sells it. If you ever come across one, either online or off, do yourself a favor and buy it.