The Good: Inexpensive, No aftertaste
The Bad: Not a great dark chocolate flavor, Obviously not very healthy, Competing flavors make for a pretty lousy overall taste.
The Basics: The Snickers Dark chocolate bar, with its dominant flavors of peanuts and caramel, left me unimpressed.
My Easter basket from my wife was one that she seemed to have a lot of fun with. We went out shopping together and she picked me up a bunch of candy to accompany the two figures and Blu-Ray she was giving to me. She knew, when she was buying them, that most of the candy bars she was picking up were ones I had never tried and I would want to review. She was, of course, correct and so far, most of them have been hits with me. That trend changes with the Snickers Dark candy bar.
Ironically, when my wife picked up the candy bar, she said, “You love dark chocolate; you’ll like this!” Sadly, I do and I did not. I still love dark chocolate, but the Snickers Dark bar is not one that will truly satisfy a dark cocoaphile!
Basics
Snickers Dark bars are an unnecessarily complicated candy bar, that tries to do too many things and, thus, fails at doing any of them well. It is, in many ways, an indistinct candy bar with a jumble of flavors that ends up not combining in any satisfactory way. The 1.83 ounce candy bars are wrapped in a purple, blue and white plastic wrapper, which theoretically prevents the chocolate inside from melting. The Snickers Dark candy bar is smooth, save the top that has a crisscrossing pattern that makes it look like chocolate was drizzled atop it. This candy bar is a dark chocolate rectilinear candy that is remarkably nondescript. The Snickers Dark bar is about 3 3/4" long and 1 1/8” wide. The bar is dark chocolate that surrounds layers of peanuts, caramel and vanilla nougat.
Ease Of Preparation
This is a candy bar that has been made by the fine folks at Mars Chocolates and as a result, preparing them is as easy as opening the wrapper and removing the bars. From there, one need only bite into the bar and chew! It does not need to be any more complicated than that! Snickers Dark chocolate bars come ready-to-eat and require no preparation save removal from the wrapper.
Taste
Opening the Snickers Dark bar’s wrapper, the smell of heavy dark chocolate rushes at the consumer. This is not a chocolate bar that is trying to hide. The aroma is strong and forceful for the consumer. It implies that the flavor will be rich and dark.
Unfortunately, when one bites into a Snickers Dark candy bar, the outer shell of the bar is hardly as dark and dry as the smell foreshadows it will be. Oddly, it is just a strong enough flavor to completely overwhelm the vanilla nougat. Sadly, the chocolate flavor is then easily overcome on the tastebuds by both the layer of caramel and the peanuts that are in this chocolate bar. No one flavor truly dominates, but the net result is that the sweetness of the caramel and the dryness of the peanuts compete in the mouth to overwhelm and potentially chocolatey flavor.
Nutrition
Obviously, this is a candy bar and the folks at MARS do not intend for consumers to live on them. They are a snack and not a terribly nutritious one at that. A serving is considered one 52 gram candy bar. With the standard recommended serving size, the candy has 250 calories, a whopping 110 of which are from fat! That's 18% of the RDA of fat, with 23% of the RDA coming from the four grams of saturated fat! While there is 4% of the RDA of calcium and an impressive five grams of protein, there is no denying that this candy is not good for you and one ought to use it as a dessert occasionally, not a meal ever. I was surprised this candy bar contained 5 mg of cholesterol, though I was not shocked that it had 115 mg of Sodium.
The lack of health benefits ought to be obvious from the ingredients list, which is led by semi-sweet chocolate, peanuts and corn syrup. Rather nicely, this candy bar has nothing unpronounceable in it, which was a pleasant surprise. There is the standard warning about the candy possibly containing nuts (in this case, almonds).
Storage/Clean-up
Just as with the preparation, Snickers Dark bar chocolate bars are low stress when it comes to storage and cleanup. Storage is simple when the candy bar is kept in its wrapper at room temperature or cooler. Kept cool and out of direct sunlight, these confections have an indefinite shelf life (there is a production code, but no expiration date on my package).
The Snickers Dark bar is still a fairly firm candy bar, so it generally does not make a mess until the exterior is cracked. Should one of these bars melt onto clothing one is wearing, consult a fabric guide for what removes chocolate and/or caramel from that type of garment. Otherwise, melted Snickers Dark candy bar should wipe right off non-porous surfaces with a warm, wet cloth.
Overall
Snickers Dark bar chocolate bars seem like an ambitious idea gone horribly wrong. In the attempt to make a complicated candy, MARS just makes something that is messy and not truly enjoyable.
For other dark chocolate reviews, please visit my reviews of:
Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Chocolate Squares
Jelly Belly Dark Chocolate Coconut Dips
Lindt 99% Cocoa/Cacoa Dark Chocolate Bar
3/10
For other candy reviews, please visit my Chocolate Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the chocolate reviews I have written!
© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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