ZOMG, Candy!

Most people are pretty familiar with Ferrero’s Kinder Surprise eggs. They’re banned in the U.S. and some other countries because they mix edibles and toys with tiny parts, which is a no-no. Kinder Joy, which I came across for the first time in Europe, is a newer addition to the Kinder egg line. It too, mixes edibles and toys, so it’s also not allowed in the U.S.

The two halves of Joy egg are split. One half contains a toy (in my case, a lame Ice Age 3 - yes, they apparently made an Ice Age 3 - badge), while the other half is a creamy spread studded with two chocolate cookie balls. Each half is individually sealed so that the spread doesn’t get on the toy (and vice-versa, I suppose). Finally, a flat plastic “spoon” is included to scoop up the spread.

The spread is a layer of white chocolate on hazelnut chocolate. It has the viscosity of Nutella - smooth and thick and glossy, but just short of the runniness of honey. Inside the spread are two chocolate balls comprised of chocolate ganache surrounded by a thin wafer shell covered in chocolate and crunchy chocolate sprinkles. They’re similar to Rocher balls, but smaller and without hazelnuts.

If you try to pry the balls out of the spread, a half shell of chocolate and sprinkles gets left behind, which imparts a nice crunch to the spread. Overall, I found this treat too sweet to eat on its own. The balls are managable, as their wafer shells help cut the cloy, but eating the spread is akin to eating straight frosting: okay for a lick or two, but too much beyond that. It did go nicely on bread, however.

All in all, a nice treat, but I’d rather buy a normal Kinder chocolate treat, like a Happy Hippo, Bueno, Rocher, or Duplo, and just put Nutella on my bread. The Joy gets an O, with the caveat that it would be great for gift-giving as soon as they stop coming with lame-O Ice Age 3 toys.

Sometimes, candy can come awfully close to being too cute to eat. Fortunately for you lot, dear readers, I am willing to sacrifice my cuteness sensibilities and chomp down on adorable candy, even if it happens to endearingly resemble frightened hippos.

Kinder’s Happy Hippos, like nearly everything made by Kinder/Ferrero, is tinged with hazelnut deliciousness. The Hippos come in two varieties, cacao cream (left) and biscuit (right). Both varieties consist of hippo shaped wafers (complete with eyes, nostrils, and eyebrows) filled with flavored cream and half dipped in chocolate and sprinkles. They differ in that the cacao cream has, well, a cacao (cocoa) flavored cream, and while the Cacao Hippo can be found submerged in a lake of chocolate, the Biscuit Hippo’s prefers a lake of white chocolate.

The wrapper of the Biscuit Happy Hippo shows milk and hazelnuts, and that’s what you get in lovely combination in this chap. The light wafer crunch of the Hippo stands in sharp contrast to the thick hazelnut and milk cream that fills its three pods - bum, head, and nose. The fillings are so thick and creamy that they’re moisture-suckingly good, even if the finish is rather cloying.

The wrapper of the Cacao Hippo calls the filling fat-reduced. Clearly I should take that to mean that I can eat a bloat of Happy Hippos (yes, a group of hippos is called a bloat) and not have to worry about personally bloating from Hippo-related weight gain, right? There are two layers of cream inside, one brown that tasted of cocoa and one white that tasted of milk and vanilla. Online ingredients lists for the cacao cream Hippo lists hazelnuts in the ingredients, so the milk layer may have been the same as the filling of the Biscuit Hippo, but I didn’t taste any hazelnut in the filling of the one I got. The filling of the Cacao Hippo was thinner, which meant that it didn’t coat the mouth or cloy.

An ZOMG! for both because I am a sucker for chocolate and hazelnut things and cute things.

I once wrote that I’ve yet to meet a Ferrero product I didn’t like. As my Lily O’Briens experience showed, I’m not above eating my words. The Kinder Cereali bar was not for me.

The packaging on my Kinder Cereali is all in Italian because I got it from my friend Andrew, who was lucky enough to spend his spring break in Italy. All expenses paid, I believe, as he is a geology major. There are few geology majors at Yale, so even undergrads get special treatment and get to do cool things and go on cool trips.

Unlike most Ferrero/Kinder products, the Kinder Cereali contains no hazelnut. Instead, it is chocolate-covered puffed wheat and a frosting-like confection. I guess if the wheat is supposed to be like cereal, the frosting is meant to approximate milk? If so, then this bar is reminiscent of those horribly processed Milk ‘N Cereal bars that General Mills makes.

I love how the Cereali looked outside of the wrapper. It’s already tiny as it, more fun-sized than full-sized, and even still it’s neatly pre-segmented. And the little imprints of heads of wheat are a lovely touch that make the whole thing quite darling (can you tell I’ve been in England for a couple of weeks now?).

The puffed wheat was, for me, an unexpected taste sensation because it was different from the usual candy bar go-to of crisped rice. The wheat was similar to puffed rice, but with more texture and flavor. Think Smacks instead of Rice Krispies. The milky white frosting that surrounded the wheat puffs tasted blandly of blah vanilla frosting. Finally, the layer of chocolate that coats the whole thing is quite thin but creamy.

The Kinder Cereali wasn’t bad, exactly, but it wasn’t good either. It just kind of… was. And though the use of wheat instead of rice made it different, it didn’t really make it better. Just a non-negative, tepid O.

I’ve still yet to meet a Ferrero product I didn’t like (though to be fair, I should note that I’ve never had a Rafaello, and coconut candies tend to be hit or miss with me), and the Ferrero Duplo was no exception. If you look closely at the wrapper, you can see that my Duplo is special - yes, that’s Hebrew on the wrapper. My friend Monica brought this back for me from Israel along with this thing and a Nestle Lion that I made her keep because she’d never tried one before. If she can be a great friend and bring me foreign candy, I can be a good friend and not deny her the deliciousness that is the Nestle Lion.

The Duplo is composed of two crisp, crunchy wafers: a flat one to serve as the base and one with three spherical humps to serve as the top. I’m going to guess that the wafers are the duo that the name insinuates. Each hump is filled with a smooth and creamy chocolate paste with a whole hazelnut inside. I found the whole hazelnut to be surprisingly bland, and the filling itself didn’t have much of a hazelnut flavor. Overall, the Duplo was super sweet, but the sweetness didn’t linger or burn the throat.

The Duplo is extremely similar to the Rocher, minus the chopped hazelnuts on the Rocher and with a less hazelnutty paste. The wafers, as far as I can tell without having a Rocher handy for comparative purposes, are the same in both. It also reminded me of the Kinder Bueno, but not as good, as the Bueno had a thicker paste and more hazelnuttiness.

Despite the fact that I wished for more hazelnut flavor, the Duplo was still a wonderful treat. OM for its indulgent, creamy richness.

Ferrero Rocher (BUY!) are a pretty classic treat, and they’re probably Ferrero’s (BUY!) most famous product in the U.S. Whenever my parents go back to China, they buy a bunch to give our relatives to give as gifts (they’re cheaper in the U.S. than they are in China). As a kid, I thought Rochers were the pinnacle of fine chocolate. They were so pretty in their gold foil wrapping and so fancy with their individual stickers (that I used to collect, by the way).

I used to eat these very methodically when I was younger. First I would carefully nibble away the outer chocolate and crushed nut layer, exposing the sphere of chocolate wafer. Then I’d eat half of the chocolate wafer, leaving me with a little wafer bowl filled with the smooth chocolate/hazelnut creme and the whole hazelnut. Next was the whole hazelnut, followed by careful, slow licking away of the chocolate/hazelnut filling, and finished by crunching up the second half of the wafer shell.

Now that I’m older, I know that these aren’t as fancy or as high-end as I thought they were. But they’re still delicious, and there’s a reason they’re so popular. The strong hazelnut flavors keeps the sweetness of the chocolate and Nutella-like filling from being overwhelming.

An OM. No G because I probably overdosed on these as a kid, and they’re quite ubiquitous, so they’re not as special as they should be.

Mon Cheri (BUY!) chocolates, also by Ferrero (BUY!), are attractively packaged, so they look more expensive than they actually are. They also look like they’d taste better than they actually do. That isn’t to say that Mon Cheri chocolates are bad, exactly, they’re just not that great.

The individual chocolates are individually wrapped in shiny gold paper to look like tiny gifts. However, once unwrapped, you can see the inferiority of the chocolate. Mine had a little bloom on it, and it didn’t look that appetizing. I wanted something with a nice gloss and sheen to it. Instead, I got ashen chocolate. Boo!

The outer chocolate layer had an okay snap and an okay taste. The one I tasted had a whole hazelnut in the filling, plus several chopped up hazelnut bits. I didn’t like the texture of the filling. It was crumbly, while I would’ve preferred something smoother and creamier, like a hazelnut ganache. The taste was great - slightly chocolatey and super hazelnutty - but I couldn’t get over the mouthfeel issue.

I give these an O. I ate one in my package of four and was happy to give away the rest. They’re not bad, but they’re nothing special, and there are better chocolate/hazelnut candies out there.

Today I kick off Hazelnut Week here on ZOMG, Candy! with the Kinder Bueno (BUY!). Incidentally, Hazelnut Week is also Ferrero week, mostly because Ferrero makes lots of hazelnut + chocolate things (case in point), including Nutella (BUY!). Mmmm… Nutella.

The Kinder Bueno consists of hazelnut creme inside crispy wafers that are enrobed in milk chocolate. It comes in two segmented sticks, so it’s nicely portion controlled and easily shareable. I was pleasantly surprised that the sticks came individually wrapped. Wasteful, yes, but perfect if you want to eat one now and save the other one for later. Or if you want to eat one now, save one for later, have the saved one discovered by a chocolate-loving friend, and find yourself graciously sharing your saved Kinder Bueno.

The hazelnut creme inside the Kinder Bueno is super rich and thick. The hazelnut flavor of the creme is strong, and that nuttiness is enough to keep the creme from being too cloying. It also pairs well with the dry texture of the wafer it’s encased in. My only complaint is that the wafer is a little too dry and a little too bland. Then again, maybe Ferrero knows what they’re doing. It’s possible that a sweeter, more cookie-like wafer could send the Kinder Bueno into too-sweet territory.

I give these guys an OM because they’re on the pricey side. For the price of two Kinder Buenos, I could get a whole jar of Nutella instead (though with the way I adore Nutella, that jar may not last much longer than two Kinder Buenos).