What the fuck have they done to chocolate?

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I just treated myself to a nice bar of galaxy....

It's grim

Im in france and have gone through nearly all the chocolate available in the supermarkets and they all seem to be palm oil free. Bloody delicious.

I used to really like Franprix own brand organic chocolate which was Soya and Palm free.

I'm taste testing my love cocoa samples. I really love the dark chocolate and salt one. It's got a good snap to it and it is really chocolatey.

I'll have to return to the honeycomb one. It was an error to try it after the dark chocolate as it's more subtle.

3luckystars

Have you tried British Cadbury's lately? The 2 bags of buttons I compared were very different. The Irish ones were much nicer.

Mum loved the Montezumas buttons and preferred the G&B's milk as she prefers dark chocolate and it's quite butter for milk chocolate. She loves the LC dark sea salt. She's a dark chocolate fan though anyway.

I had some mini G&B recently, they'd sort of crumble melted into the packaging. It was really weird. I've never seen chocolate do that before. Used it in cooking.

My LC order has arrived!

My thoughts...

The milk choc 37% bar doesn't taste like my memories of the Dairy Milk bar. But that's ok, I wasn't expecting it to, & wouldn't want it to. It's a very nice milk chocolate. IMO it is just on the side of rich in taste, rather than creamy. Definitely doesn't taste like they've skimped on the cocoa mass element of the recipe. I'd say that of all the other bars as well.

The honeycomb & honey 37% doesn't seem to have a particularly strong taste of honey or honeycomb - it's there but it's subtle. However, this one was DD's favourite, so who am I to judge!? I suspect I might have liked this more in a dark bar, with more honeycomb & honey used in the recipe - it might have been sickly to use more in a milk bar. But that's just my personal taste, I do generally go for quite dark chocolate... perhaps because so much chocolate these days is poor quality, & especially milk chocolate is bulked out with rubbishy fillers?

The Earl Grey 37% does have a distict Earl Grey aroma & taste. Not overpowering though, I think they've got the balance about right. I'd buy this one again, definitely - clear winner for me.

The Orange & cocoa nibs 37% is also good. TBH I think this is pretty reminiscent of a certain orange flavoured chocolate bar before all the vegetable oils etc started to be used. Although it's obviously better quality - more cocoa mass, less milk and /or sugar, so it seems richer in taste. The cocoa nibs are pretty finely ground - some people find them quite bitter so I was concerned about their inclusion in this (I love them BTW) but they are so small & appear fairly well distributed, that the sweetness of the bar offsets them very well.

Gin & Tonic 70% - I like this bar - I mostly ordered this one out of curiosity, I must admit. There's a definite G&T hint to it, but it's not too strong. I think if they'd done this in a milk chocolate bar it could have been quite sickly or not well balanced.

All bars are shiny, smell lovely, & have a good snap. It's a bit chilly here today so I didn't bother to put them in the fridge first & we just got right on with testing!

Good review Jozxyqk! And I'm with your mum on the LC dark choc and sea salt one Perverse 😍

I have ordered the Avocado and the English Mint along with my sample bars... love mint choc...no idea about the avocado one...but happy to take one for the team! Hopefully be here soon...

I used to love Lily O'Briens I wonder if it's still nice.

Just had the salted caramel one.

The caramel taste was really nice but I'd prefer it without the salt. Interesting large grains of salt if you like that sort of thing.

I prefer my chocolate at room temperature. You get a better taste imo. But that's English autumn room temp, not 25C.

High-five Stella - fellow freezer-choc lover

Im in france and have gone through nearly all the chocolate available in the supermarkets and they all seem to be palm oil free

Branleuse I admire your dedication

Lovely as all these substitutes are, I do think there's a gap in the market for the sort of fairly cheap, not-particularly-high-cocoa milk choc that we all knew and loved - like Dairy Milk. There are lots of milk chocs around with a fairly high cocoa percentage - more 'grown-up' and with a richer taste - but sometimes I don't want grown-up ...

I love the fact that he replied to this thread and offered a discount!

The Love Cocoa sample bars for £1.50 have sold out!

June that's Milka.

Generally it's grim. I only buy the Aldi stuff these days.

Mmm, Milka doesn't do it for me. I don't like the hazelnut paste in it.

i never liked CDM even as a child....too claggy for me

A pp mentioned Tony Chocoloney....it's delicious, and very fair trade

Fair enough - what about Kinder? It does contain palm oil but tastes better than neo-Cadbury.

This thread is a revelation, as I have been thinking for a while (without completely realising it) and totally agree with.

I usually get myself a chocolate treat for the weekend, I haven’t bothered this week because I couldn’t find anything I actually like

M&S choc - I'm not totally convinced it's taste tested by human taste buds these days as it's bloody vile.

And it's saying something when the Free From (Kinnertons) range is one of the best chocs around. At least it's not free from actual chocolate.

The nicest not-too-posh chocolate I've found since Dairy Milk went tits up is in the cooking aisle at Sainsbury's: Their Taste the Difference Cook's Belgian Milk Chocolate chips in a light blue bag. They're 33% cocoa solids and not too creamy/rich - just like nice proper chocolate. They used to be £1.40 for 150 grams but Sainsbury's got wise and they're £2 now.

Also having read this thread last night, looked at the chocolate aisle today and Mackie's chocolate doesn't seem to have palm oil/shea fat in it. Might only be available in Scotland though, dunno.

I've got a 100g square of 35% cocoa fine milk Ritter Sport in front on me for around a £1, but won't open it right now.

I feel like I should keep this secret to myself buy...
Waitrose own brand chocolate (£1.62 for 200g) is amazing. No plan oil, it’s all I eat now. The milk and white ones are amazing. The dark is the best for cooking with.

Everyone stay away from the Sheffield Waitrose

Montezumas buttons are nearly £1 cheaper in JL than Waitrose. Not sure how they work that one out though!

I was addicted to Waitrose milk chocolate with orange but it disappeared a year or two ago. Is it still in bigger Waitroses? Is it worth me driving 30 miles to the humongous one in our county town? It was like Terry's Chocolate orange used to taste, and considerably cheaper too!