A Cheap Treat

A review on Tesco own brand milk chocolate, a little treat which can be eaten in small quantities and is good on the purse!

I have to confess to loving chocolate, this for me is not good as I am trying to loose weight. When I was last in Tesco I decided that I would give their own brand chocolate a go as it was a lot cheaper than the named branded bars.
~~PACKAGING~~
The chocolate bar comes in a blue wrapper which has a nice white swirl on the front and a small picture showing two small pieces of the bar. The Tesco logo and the product name is on the top corner of the packet and in the bottom corner you have a brief outline of the nutritional values for the bar. The back of the packaging if half blue and half white. On the white section we have all of the product details including the ingredients and a full break down of the nutritional values.
~~APPEARANCE AND TASTE~~
The chocolate bar is large and is made up of smaller cubes all stuck together. It is a dark brown colour and looks lovely. There is a pleasant smell to the chocolate and this is not overly strong to make it seem sickly or too rich.
The chocolate can be eaten in two ways, you can bite the large slab or break in into the smaller pieces, I do break it so I can share with hubby. It is simple to break even if you have stored this in the fridge. One thing I would say is that this does make a small amount of mess when broken so try to do this when it is still in the packet or over a plate or dish.
The chocolate is very nice to eat but it does seem quite heavy at times. There is a nice rich taste to it but it is not overly sweet. I do find that it melt easily in the mouth and is rather creamy and smooth. Unfortunately I do have to say that I can only ever manage about 6 pieces of the chocolate as after this amount it start to feel quite heavy and it does leave a horrible feel on my teeth. After a large quantity has been eaten I am also left with a bad aftertaste. I can not pinpoint what the taste is but I have to have a drink to get rid of it.
There is a noticeable difference between this chocolate and that of the Cadbury’s variety as I can quite easily eat a whole large slab of this without getting any aftertaste or film on my teeth. There Cadbury’s version seems lighter to eat and goes down easier.
~~INFO~~
The bar of chocolate comes in a packet size of 200g, this is an ideal size for sharing.
The ingredients for the chocolate for those wishing to know are:-
Sugar, Cocoa Mass, Cocoa Butter, Dried Whole Milk, Butteroil, Emulsifier (Soya Lecithins), Natural Flavourings.
The milk chocolate contains Cocoa Solids 45% minimum, Milk solids 15% minimum.
The recipe does not contain nuts but Tesco cannot guarantee that this has been made in a nut free factory. The chocolate is suitable for vegetarians.
The nutritional values for 100g of the bar are:-
Energy - 580KCal
Protein - 6.4g
Carbohydrate - 46.0g
Of which sugars - 44.0g
Fat - 41.0g
Of which saturates - 25.0g
Mono-Saturates - 14.0g
Polyunsaturated - 1.5g
Fibre - 4.1g
Sodium - trace
As you can see the values are quite high but taking into account this is chocolate then this is what is to be expected.
The chocolate must be stored in a cool dry place. I suggest the fridge as t does melt easily. There is a good shelf life on the chocolate bar and the one which we have has over 12 months on the date.
~~PRICE AND AVAILABILITY~~
This is a Tesco own brand chocolate bar so it can only be bought in their stores. It is priced around the 31 mark, we paid just 75p for ours as it was on offer. The price is good considering the branded bars of the same size are closer to the £2 mark.
~~RECOMMENDED?~~
I am on the fence over this chocolate bar as I found it hard to eat much of it in one sitting. The start taste was nice and pleasant but it changed the more of the bar I ate. It is nicer when chilled and easy to share. The price is a good point to this bar so I would say to give it a go and taste for yourselves. If you are on a diet and want chocolate this may be the way to go as you wont be able to manage the whole bar!