January 21st: Milky Way French Vanilla & Caramel

Kcal 220 Fat 8.0g Fat(sats) 6.0g Carbs 35.0g

We always like to keep on top with all the latest chocolates and limited edition goodies that come out over the pond. Having friends like @AmericanSoda helps a lot but sometimes we rely on our readers to help us out with some of the more obscure items we can't get hold of. Step up to the plate @ChocMission reader Bev - he contacted us recently on Twitter and offered us a few of these new Limited Edition Milky Way French Vanilla & Caramel bars. We did these feature on one of Cybele's Candy Teases a few months ago but not heard anything about them actually being out!

This Limited Edition bar clocks in at 48.8g - a pretty reasonable size for a Limited Edition chocolate (they can sometimes be smaller than this!). The wrapper aesthetically looked pretty cool - the light golden beige colour was a good choice for the flavour theme though the actual branding of the French Vanilla could have been given more prominence below the standard Milky Way logo.

For those unaware Milky Way is essentially the US brand name for our UK Mars bar. The construct of this Milky Way bar was nigh on identical to the standard Mars - the outer exterior milk chocolate hiding a base layer of nougat with the golden caramel on top. When cross-sectioned it looked terrific with the lower layer of pale nougat really highlighting the golden caramel above and dark coloured outer chocolate. Taste wise the milk chocolate and caramel were bang on expectations. The chocolate was fair standard with it's creamy sweet chocolatey cocoa taste really middle of the road in terms of it's quality. The caramel was equally good with it's sugary buttery flavours a familiar delicious chewy treat. The French vanilla flavouring came in the form of the nougat which split opinion among the team. Some liked the way the vanilla flavours were more forthcoming and sustained, though others felt they verged a little on being artificial and fake tasting.

Overall this wasn't an earth shattering limited edition offering from Mars US but it was at least different enough to justify it being classified as offering a different Milky Way experience. The French vanilla flavouring did bring the nougat more to life, though as ascertained above this did split the team in terms of adding favourably to the overall experience. We always liked trying new things and twists on our favourite bars so this Milky Way French Vanilla & Caramel was still a worthwhile experience. We wouldn't necessarily replace it with our usual Mars bar but to try it once at least was definitely worth it.

8.2 out of 10