Relegated to cooking!

My newest post is a review of Ryelands milk chocolate...

Chocolate is a treat in my house, both me and hubby are trying to loose a little bit of weight but we do both agree with the having the odd treat. When we were last shopping we spotted this Ryelands chocolate which was on offer so decided to give it a try. We have had a lot of success in the past with the Tesco discount brands so did not hesitate in giving this one a try.

~~PACKAGING~~

The chocolate comes in a deep blue foil packet which has a white oval shape in the middle with a picture of 3 of the chocolate squares. Above this picture is the Ryeland logo and the words ‘milk chocolate’. The bottom right hand corner has a brief outline of the nutritional values for 4 chocolate squares. On the back of the packet we have all of the details about the chocolate including ingredients, full nutritional values and allergy warnings.

~~TASTE AND APPEARANCE~~

The chocolate is nothing special to look at and it is a rich brown colour. The large bar has small rectangles on it which helps to break it into smaller pieces, there is no pattern on the top of the chocolate. There is a nice pleasant smell to the chocolate which is not overly sweet and really makes you want to eat some.

I found it was very simple to break the chocolate into the small pieces due to the design of it and found that they were good bit size pieces and found I fitted each one into my mouth with ease. When I first placed the chocolate into my mouth I noticed that it did not start to melt straight away but required me to start sucking it slightly for this to happen. I did feel it was a effort to get the chocolate to melt and ended up biting the large square to make it easier to eat. The chocolate seemed to be quite thick and not as light as the branded ones. I did find that once it was melted it seemed to be very heavy and it all seemed to stick to my teeth. The initial taste was good and it just tasted like any other milk chocolate but once I got through the first 3 squares I noticed the taste started to change. It became an effort to eat anymore and I was left with a horribly aftertaste from the chocolate. I also felt like I had fur all over my teeth and did have to have a large drink to help remove this. I did end up having to brush my teeth to get this feeling to go away fully.

The chocolate left a quite nasty aftertaste in my mouth which I did not like and I was completely put off from eating any more of the bar. I have tried it again after leaving ht chocolate in the fridge to harden it up but I have had just the same results from it. Hubby did not have such a bad experience with this chocolate as I did and he did manage to eat a good half of the bar although he did get a nasty after taste from it.

I feel that for the price this chocolate would be ideal for cooking with. It would give a good taste to rice krispie and cornflake cakes but I feel it may be a little too heavy too add to any sponge cakes and may cause the sponge not to rise as well as it normally would. Stick to the basic children’s cakes with this chocolate.

~~INFO~~

The chocolate comes in a bar size of 200g and this is a good sharing size.

There are some allergy warnings on the packet and these include the fact that this chocolate contains milk and soya. There are no nuts in the recipe and it has been made in a nut free factory but Tesco cannot guarantee that all of the ingredients are nut free.

The ingredients for the chocolate are:-

Sugar, cocoa butter, dried whole milk, cocoa mass, whey powder, dried skimmed mil, milk fat, emulsifier (soya lecithins), Natural flavouring.

The milk chocolate contains: cocoa solids 27% minimum, Milk solids 20% minimum.

For each 4 squares of the chocolate the nutritional values are:-

Energy – 155 Kcal
Protein – 2.1g
Carbohydrate – 17.6g
Of which sugars – 17.1g
Fat – 8.0g
Of which saturates – 5.0g
Mono-unsaturates – 2.5g
Polyunsaturates – 0.3g
Fibre – 0.5g
Sodium – trace
Salt equivalent – trace

These are not the best values but as this is chocolate this is only to be expected.

The chocolate must be stored in a cool and dry place and out of sunlight. The shelf life is pretty good and the bar which we bought one week ago has a shelf life of 1 ½ years.

~~PRICE AND AVAILABILITY~~

The Ryelands brand is only available to buy in Tesco stores, it is their new discount brand. This chocolate come priced at just over £1 but there are usually offers on with 2 bars for £1.80. I think this is a good price but such a shame that the chocolate does not taste better.

~~RECOMMENDED?~~

I was looking forward to my chocolate treat but felt very let down by this brand. I felt it is worthy of 2 stars as it is good for using on rice krispie and corn flake cakes. It has a reasonable price and I must say this is the perfect bar for dieters as you can only eat a small amount before it gets sickly ad the horrible after taste starts. A disappointing discount brand product.