NEW! Holly Lane Chocolate Stollen Bites (ALDI)

I hope that stollen is one of your Christmas staples too. The German delicacy of buttery, cake-like bread filled with almondy marzipan and dried fruits is sheer genius. I'm quite glad it's only sold seasonally because otherwise I'm sure I'd eat too much and grow sick of it (or maybe not, I've never reached that point with chocolate, peanut butter or ice cream after all).

There's a huge discrepancy between great and goddamn awful stollen though. Some manufacturers master the lightness of the dough, whilst others create something that's best use would be best utilised as a window smashing implement. Last year I reviewed the epitome of the second type (which came from LIDL) and a beautifully fluffy version from Bahlsen. Both LIDL and Bahlsen are German companies who I imagined would work equal wizardry with stollen!

Following the brick-like experience with LIDL, I thought my German discount supermarket stollen buying days were over. But then I saw these new chocolate covered stollen bites. ALDI soon suckered me in with the exciting idea of one of my favourite Christmas treats covered in one of my favourite everyday treats. I didn't resist. The 350g box cost £1.99 and contained roughly 12 bites.

"Stollen bites with raisins, mixed citrus peel and a marzipan centre, covered with chocolate."

They certainly looked very chocolatey, and were haphazardly drizzled with milk chocolate. They felt a little on the sturdy, heavy side, and I couldn't smell the sweet spices that normally makes an appearance when opening a pack of stollen. I hoped all of this could be pinned on a super thick layer of chocolate.

Slicing my first "bite" in two (anyone able eat them in one bite has a much larger mouth than me) revealed a thick marzipan centre, sandwiched between two stollen layers, surrounded by the chocolate. The stollen appeared dry, but I tried not to judge it completely on appearances.

Biting into it I could really taste the (plain) chocolate, which wasn't the best quality but was perfectly edible and a far cry from Kinnerton's nasty calendar stuff. My tastebuds then acknowledged the marzipan: soft, chewy and almondy -just as it should be.

The trouble came with the stollen, which should always be the star of the show, but was sadly completely lost against the more dominant almond and chocolate components. Perhaps this is could be explained by the delicacy of the yeasted dough, maybe it's because less than 50% of the bites are made up of it, or possibly it's just because ALDI and LIDL can't seem to make stollen to save their life.


As far as fruity, marzipan, chocolatey squares go, they're rather good. I've made plenty of complaints in this post when in actual fact I'm rather enjoying them. They're just not going to tick the stollen box if that's what you're after this Christmas.

6/10.

P.S
If you're a fellow stollen lover you might also be interested in my review of Morrisons' Bakery stollen cookies. Otherwise, if you fancy reading another opinion on these chocolatey stollen bites please pop on over to One Treat's review.