Celebrate KIng's Day in a Chocolate Way

Tomorrow, April 27th will be King's Day (Koningsdag), a major national holiday in the Netherlands. It is probably celebrated by Dutch folks around the world. In honor of that, I want to share my experiences with a Dutch candy bar, Schär Twin Bar, that I got a freebie of via the Social Nature group; I bought it and I received money back equal to what I spent. Other than reviewing the treat on that website, this is a bonus review and no further compensation was received.

The first wrapper has graphics and text on it proclaiming this to be a wheat free and gluten free food. It also says that it is made with "Rainforest Alliance Certified Cocoa." The internal wrappers add graphics and texts saying that these bars are preservative free and non GMO. Here on The Chocolate Cult we don't have a way to prove or disprove such claims unless the categories or organizations mentioned don't exist, so we take companies at their word though I will certainly call out a brand making false claims when I discover them. I do like the packaging, the yellow-orange and brown are attractive for a chocolatey goodie. It helped make these more noticeable on the Kroger shelf (on the bottom by the way, so annoying).

The first ingredient on the list of the wrapper is milk chocolate (note that cocoa butter is 2nd and the cocoa mass 4th within that phrase) so I expected it to have a stronger chocolate scent than it did; it smell primarily like a light chocolate milk. Cocoa powder shows up again later on the list making this a candy bar that includes the three major ingredients you can get from the cacao bean – mass/liquor, butter, and powder. The bars broke into their four sections easily. As you can see in our photo, there are two layers of the wafers inside. Biting into a piece and chewing is accompanied by a crunching sound. The flavor is almost coffee, but not enough to turn me off of it; since there is no coffee added this must be my taste buds trying to make sense of the ratio of ingredients or a factor of where the cocoa beans were farmed. The wafers add just a bit of texture in what is otherwise a creamy experience. Shockingly, the chocolate flavor is not as strong as with a KitKat!

Be aware that there are allergy warnings for milk, soy, coconut (oil), and eggs and well as a disclaimer about hazelnuts and almonds. I couldn't share these with my hubby because of his tree nut allergies.

When I do these posts I have to try and think beyond myself. In terms of the ingredients, this is worthy, but I really wanted the chocolate essence to be stronger, so I can't give this Sacrament status. If you really like milkier chocolate and the crunch of wafers, this is a good product for you to try out.