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. 

Cadbury's Wunderbar (B&M)

Do you have any silly sayings that you can't help but utter? Mine are often an odd mixture of European languages or random catchphrases that I've picked from from films. I can't remember when 'Wunderbar!' first cropped up in my vocabulary, but it often tumbles out of my mouth (in an awful stern German accent) as a substitute for 'wonderful'. Yes, I'm very strange like that.

Given my oddness -and undying love for chocolate- I was utterly enthralled last week when I discovered that Wunderbar is a real thing, and it's made by Cadbury! It was as if I had found out that Willy Wonka's factory was to become a holiday destination ... now that's a thought.

My excitement peaked when I found the chocolate bar in B&M for just 35p -if that's not fate, I don't know what is! My Dad was bemused by my animation, and offered to buy me one (together with the peanut butter Magnum chocolate bar). He's a gem.

"A magic peanut and caramel cream experience."

Now the packaging looked very similar to that of a Starbar, so I decided to do a bit of digging. Indeed when I googled 'Cadbury's Wunderbar' a wikipedia page popped up, informing me that the Starbar is sold in Germany and Canada under the name Wunderbar. Interesting, because when I researched German Cadbury, the only relevant website told me that they sell Starbars (not Wunderbars). What made matters even more confusing was that this Wunderbar was produced in Ireland!

The ingredients of both bars look near-on identical -except the Wunderbar has a higher percentage of cocoa butter and therefore contains a higher amount of saturated fat. I'm confused. It's all a bit pointless really as I can't even remember the last time I ate a Starbar. Moving on..

At 49g, the Wunderbar is markedly larger than the new peanut butter Magnum chocolate bar (thank goodness). It was rippled on the outside, and cutting into it revealed a mish-mash of layers. The caramel was in abundance: thick and stringy thanks to its storage in my fridge's chocolate compartment.

As a fan of textural contrast, I thought that the wunderbar was a brilliant creation. The chocolate and caramel casing was reminiscent of a Cadbury's Curly Wurly -somehow satisfyingly difficult to chew, but delicious. I found the peanut butter nucleus to be less salty than the innards of Reese's peanut butter cups, but it was equally as nutty and it was further enhanced by the addition of chunky chopped peanuts.

To be completely honest, I missed the saline quality that Reese's offers, and I can't help but think that a better balance of savoury-sweet would have improved the Wunderbar. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy every last chewy, nutty mouthful. Wunderbar it truly was! 

9/10

Bahlsen Zimtsterne (Cinnamon Stars)

It's Christmas Eve -the big day is almost here! However, if like me you have been unfortunate enough to face the Supermarkets these past few days, you may have felt your Christmas spirit wane ever so slightly. If that's the case, and you'd like to be reminded that not everyone is like the crazy trolley bargers that take it upon themselves to be even more rude in the run up to Christmas, then I'd like to tell you about a little bit of festive food kindness I experienced this week.

On a quest to educate myself about as many of the continental traditional festive biscuits as I could*, I saw on Waitrose's website a few weeks ago that they stock 'Zimtsterne' which translates to 'Cinnamon Stars'. As a huge fan of anything even remotely cinnamon-y, I hot-footed it down to my local store to pick some up, but alas, they didn't have any. Nevermind, I thought, I'll buy some in Cardiff when I visit my sister (they're bound to have some!) but yet again, my mission was unsuccessful. I returned to the local Waitrose, who told me the closest store to stock Zimtsterne was in mid-Wales, and at that point I gave up. Fortunately, the people at Bahlsen heard of my thwarted quest and offered to send me a pack in the post, "as it's Christmas". True to their word, and only 36 hours later, a parcel arrived at my door...

Not only had they sent me two packs of the Cinnamon Stars, but a Poppy Seed Stollen to boot! This was extremely welcome as I previously mentioned in the Toffee Apple Mulled Cider review that I hadn't managed to get any Stollen from Waitrose either! 

So Bahlsen's Zimtsterne are more accurately 'Star-shaped cinnamon spiced hazelnut biscuits.' They are soft, and more cakey than biscuit in texture with a powerful cinnamon and hazelnut aroma. The hazelnuts account for 38% of the total ingredients, so its not surprising that you can not only smell them but taste them too. They're quite rustic looking -and tasting- which gives the Zimtsterne a lovely homemade feel. The cinnamon is balanced nicely, and the icing adds an extra touch of sweetness- it is Christmas after all! 

I really love these Stars, and I think I'd even consider making the journey to mid-Wales next year to buy them again. A huge thank-you to Bahlsen for kindly sending me a German Christmas care-package. 

Merry Christmas!

9/10

* My other Continental biscuit reviews, If you're interested:
ASDA'S Lebkuchen Stars
Weiss Pfeffernüsse

Weiss Pfeffernüsse (Gingerbread Rounds)

When I recently reviewed ASDA's Lebkuchen stars, the lovely Hannah (The Review Addict) asked me about their similarity to Pfeffernüsse. In all honesty, I'd never even heard of Pfeffernüsse, so I went in search of the German treats so I could taste them and find out. Pfeffernüsse literally means 'Pepper nuts' which I gathered must be similar to our traditional term 'Gingernuts' as they don't contain nuts (although they do contain ginger!) Pfeffernüsse have apparently been part of European Yuletide celebrations since the 1850's (thanks wikipedia!)

I tracked them down at Waitrose, where I purchased the 250g bag for £1. 
When tipping out some of the perfect little iced white domes I was welcomed with the enticing aroma of festive spices. They are quite robust little biscuit-cakes, but give way satisfyingly under tooth with a chewiness that's slightly firmer than Lebkuchen.  

I expected them to be very gingery seeing as Waitrose's website oddly describes them as 'Glazed ginger bread nuts iced' (brilliant English!) however I found that the anise is most prominant spice followed by cinnamon and then ginger. I dislike liquorice or anything aniseedy and so was quite undecided when I had my first few; however they soon grew on me and I almost polished off the entire bag in one sitting-oops!

I'm not about to give up my beloved Lebkuchen in favour of Pfeffernüsse, but they're certainly a nice festive treat! 

7/10