This “limited edition” Dairy Milk Peanut Brittle chocolate bar caught my attention because I love chocolate, peanuts and toffee, and having them in a single treat is, frankly, an extremely efficient use of my snacking time.
Dairy Milk now has a wide selection of these large-format chocolate bars available in Canada, and they’re commonly found at grocery stores and pharmacies. They’re a good size to share, especially now that we’re seeing other people again in offices and such. That said, the usual rules about taking candy from strangers still apply.
What’s a brittle?
Peanut brittle, for the uninitiated, is a hard candy made with boiled sugar, butter, water, roasted peanuts and a leavening agent. Other ingredients can also be added, but the idea is that it’s a hard toffee base with peanuts mixed in.
The candy mixture is poured out onto a baking sheet while still hot, in a layer that is usually about the same thickness as the peanuts. After it cools, it’s broken into pieces and eaten.
In Canada, it’s a popular treat around the holidays, as it’s not especially difficult to make at home (provided you’re OK with working with boiling sugar) and can be gifted to lucky holiday recipients. I gather similar toffee-and-peanut candies can be found in other countries where they appreciate both sugary toffee and peanuts. (Note: That’s a lot of countries.)
Dairy Milk already makes a chocolate bar with toffee pieces mixed in, so this strikes me as one better.
What’s it taste like?
The initial hit is milk chocolate, with some crunch from the toffee chunks as you bite into the bar. It’s got that creamy sweet Dairy Milk base, which if you love, you love. It melts quickly and fills the mouth with rich sweetness. While the texture of the toffee is obvious, the taste is only apparent at first, before it gets lost in the sweetness of the chocolate.
The peanut flavour is also very apparent, though some of the nut pieces tasted a bit stale, even though my chocolate bar’s expiry date is about six months away. There’s just the right quantity of peanut to contribute to the overall taste and texture, so it’s unfortunate that the peanut didn’t taste as fresh as it could have.
The Details
Price: $2.50 (on sale) for a 100-gram chocolate bar at Safeway in Edmonton.
Value for Money: Excellent sale price for a large-sized chocolate bar.
Availability: Limited? Don’t expect to find it widely. Look for it wherever you find other big Dairy Milk bars, or on special promotional displays.
Calories: 230 per 10 squares (42 grams). That’s 23 calories per square. There are 24 squares in a bar, so 552 calories per bar. So share it, maybe?
Verdict: Very nice, provided you don’t get one with stale-tasting peanuts.