A note from the editor:
Candidly, it hasn’t been a great week. The world is at odds with itself at the moment, and we are seeing the very worst of human nature play out in front of us, both home and abroad. It’s easy, and understandable, to feel exhausted by it all. We here at the Bureau can’t offer much, but we hope we can offer you a funny distraction from the world. Enjoy today’s article, and we’ll return to more pointed programming next week.
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Chocolate is nourishment, physical and spiritual. A foodstuff unto itself, no other earthly delight can compare. Its mere mention entices. Its existence is the closest thing we have to proof of divinity in this otherwise hellish, cruel world. To me, it is almost separate from food, a sort of moral imperative, mandatory and vital. Chocolate can be an ingredient in dessert, and it should be, but it is an item that I believe warrants its own course, ideally after dessert, with a glass of something medicinal to aid digestion.
I don’t think I can adequately express how much I love chocolate, if only to say, if I was told I could no longer live unless I gave up the stuff, I’d be on the phone immediately to my solicitor, who shall be tasked with drafting a rather hurried final will and testament. Farewell cruel, chocolateless world.
I can, under much duress, be open minded enough to listen to almost any person’s insane beliefs, given they are respectful and measured. Flat earther? Sounds batshit, but give me your best 5 minutes. Anti vaxxer? I don’t think a Byron Bay wellness Youtube account is a credible news source, but sure, I’ll listen our of politeness. The one belief I outwardly refute, and refuse to entertain, is that of any person who doesn’t like chocolate. To me, that’s akin to saying they don’t like vision, or having veins. It is a perverse betrayal of human existence. Chocolate is the most refined food on earth. It can convey infinite possibilities of texture, flavour, mouth feel, terroir. It can express as much as the finest single malt whisky, or the most complex Burgundy. It can elevate you into a state of bliss that only illicit narcotics afford. This is the power of good chocolate. But we’re not talking about that sort of chocolate today.
Today, we’re talking about shit chocolate, which I love almost as much as the good stuff.
Today, we march on the aisles of our supermarket duopoly, abdicate any responsibility to address the horrid mess of ethics and human rights that are the Nestle and Mondelez corporations, and endeavour instead to find the best tasting mass produced chocolate bars currently available in Australia. For the sake of brevity, we’re keeping nominations within the big three: Cadbury, Nestle and Whittaker’s.
This is one for the secret late night supermarket chocolate runs. This is one for the confidential cupboard stashers who hide their chocolate away like secretive diabetic squirrels. This is one of the more unhinged things you’re ever likely to read. We’ll be giving out medals for both the best and worst of their kind; a gold for Best is the peak. A gold for the Worst is the pits.
So check your blood sugar, consult your GP, and venture with me, dear friends, into the realm of the damned: The Shit Chocolate Olympics.
Cadbury Milk
The Best:
Bronze: Peppermint
A controversial opinion, but one I hold dearly. This is a very refreshing and complex flavour profile for something largely intended for children, not dissimilar to creme de menthe. A pro tip is to stick this directly into the freezer to create a textural menthol salve for warm evening snacking.
Silver: Breakaway
Whatever forces conspired to remove this product from our shelves for so long are truly the very worst of us. It’s so simple, yet so effective: big Cadbury Kit Kat. Say less. It has the added effect of its airy wafer filling giving the false effect that it is somehow less bad for you than the rest of Cadbury’s products, which it most certainly is not. The perfect coffee accompaniment.
Gold: Marble
On gilded angel’s wings, a message came down from upon high. And so it was as if fate had delivered upon me a reprieve, a return to meaning in my otherwise meaningless existence. Yes, that was the return of Marble, its rich buttery truffle filling and rippled brown & white shell not only proving delicious, but a powerful message of racial unity. Praise be.
The Worst
Bronze: The Cadbury Cream Egg
A godless relic of our childhoods, any adult hoping to recapture those memories when Easter comes around should be warned: these things are disgusting. The filling is the closest edible thing you can find to Clag paste, sickly sweet and grotesquely dense, like chewing on a draught stopper made of sugar and flour.
Silver: Marvellous Creations Birthday Cake
It is worth noting that while this seems like a fairly innocent attempt at mass appeal marketing, the main flavour profile of birthday cake is sugar and butter, and I don’t believe a sugar and butter flavoured chocolate bar should have been permitted by the ACCC.
Gold: Curtis Stone’s Raspberry & Hazelnut Tart Chocolate Block
While many Australians likely only know Stone as the affable face of Coles supermarkets, he is in fact one of Australia’s most successful international restaurateurs, and the holder of a coveted Michelin star. Which makes this disgusting and contradictory flavour pairing all the more confusing, and while I’m not convinced Curtis himself had anything to do with this abomination, it has nonetheless swiftly disappeared from shelves.
Cadbury Dark
The Best
Bronze: Old Gold Picnic (Favourites Exclusive)
Those wishing to try this delight will have to take a circuitous route to satisfaction; it is only available in the rare Dark Favourites box, the choice of discerning baby shower organisers across the country.
Silver: Old Gold Cherry Ripe Block
The peak of the artform, I believe this is the best quality chocolate block that Cadbury produces. A heightened, textural reading of the classic cherry and coconut combination, it’s the closest thing Cadbury had done that would be at home in a high end specialty chocolate environment.
Gold: Cherry Ripe Double Dipped
Just as above, only better; more dense, an extra girthy delivery system of dark chocolate only heightens the pleasure. Small but elegant.
The Worst
Bronze: Slices Mint Creme
An affront to choc mint apologists, this block attempts to capture the magic of the Arnott’s mint slice and ends up taste more like calcified toothpaste.
Silver: Old Gold Moccona
Freeze dried and chemical treated robusta does not an enticing ingredient make. Acrid, invasive, a waste of good chocolate.
Gold: Cadbury Old Gold Baileys
Between Moccona and Baileys, Old Gold has made a strategic choice to make Boomer Baiting a core principle of its brand. It is now only a matter of time before they launch a Rev flavour. While the virtues of Baileys are debatable, the opaque creamy gel which fills this block is of questionable provenance, and tastes putrid.
Cadbury White
The Best
Gold: Caramilk
Caramelised white chocolate is one of the fine dining flavour hacks du jour, appearing regularly on desserts across the world. It is an unequivocal delight, amplifying the savoury notes of the white chocolate, and making it a powerful umami backhand return of serve to lighter, sharper flavours like berries and stone fruit. Caramilk is as good if not better than the iterations you will find in your local hatted establishment.
The Worst
Gold: Slices Hedgehog
This isn’t so much bad as it is an unnecessary distraction from the chocolate itself. Keep it simple, folks.
Nestle
The Best
Bronze: Kit Kat
A classic, undeniable, irreplaceable, as established in the firmament of chocolates as any chocolate bar has ever been. You can never be disappointed with a Kit Kat.
Silver: Chokito
A cult favourite reinvigorated, Chokito and its dense fudgy filling and crispy puffed rice accoutrements is a very satisfying treat.
Gold: Crunch
This may be nostalgia speaking, but I struggle to think of a chocolate block I enjoy more than Crunch. It is simplicity refined, two pure ingredients combining to more than the sum of its parts. Crunch’s dense texture and the nutritional benefits of puffed rice make this a suitable meal replacement, particularly for the clinically depressed.
Worst
Bronze: Smarties
An infantilised M&M, inferior in every way. Grow up, Smarties.
Silver: The Mint Pattie
A perversely artificial servo staple, both in flavour and texture, best relegated to the doldrums of history.
Gold: Kit Kat Chunky Cookie Dough
How do you ruin a classic? Simple: take a beloved chocolate confection and inject it with a lab grown sugary construct redolent of the flavour of raw cookie dough. Ben & Jerry’s have much to answer for, including their share of salmonella poisoning cases.
Whittaker’s
It hardly feels fair to put Whittaker’s on this list, the beloved New Zealand brand a reliable bastion of quality. However, their status as a supermarket staple necessitates dissertation.
Best
Bronze: Coconut
A nourishing, filling delight, the toasted coconut notes lend a pleasing oily complexity to the gentle spice of the chocolate.
Silver: Dark Almond
Little to add here; a sensational, classical quality product that would be at home on a petit fours platter in a Michelin starred restaurant.
Gold: Hokey Pokey Crunch
For the longest time, Whittaker’s honeycomb block was only available in Melbourne, curiously, from the concession stand at Hamer Hall. I can honestly say that this played a not inconsequential role in my cultural intake over several years, as the promise of securing one of these masterpieces was often enough to get me to buy a ticket to a show. More recently, Hokey Pokey has gone into wider release, and it is a must-purchase for chocolate lovers. The honeycomb quotient is high, and significantly crunchier than other iterations you’ll find on the shelf.
Worst
Bronze: Hot Cross Bun
A rare miss for Whittaker’s usually spot-on seasonal specials, this tasted of orange flavoured medicine and that half eaten packet of raisins you bought 6 years ago and forgot about.
Silver: Jelly Tip
I have never had whatever a “Jelly Tip” is, and do not wish to start some sort of international incident, but this is gross.
Gold: Relax Passionfruit and Chamomile
Rather than the intended result of relaxation, I found this product vexing and stressful. How could such a normally excellent company produce something so poorly conceived? Chamomile, which is of course just hay, only detracts from this experience. As a final insult, the product’s misguided art direction, which aims to fool the consumer into thinking the product is a wellness aid, only deepens the offence.
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