ZOMG, Candy!

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).