Thursday, January 14, 2010
Q.Bel Mint Wafer BarsLast year a new candy bar line came to the market. They’re from Q.bel and the initial launch was six different flavors with two different chocolate bar styles: Wafer Bars and Wafer Rolls. This year they’re expanding their line with two new bars. Today I have the Mint Wafer Bars. In the compact package are two wafer bars with a mint creme filling sandwiched between crispy light wafers covered in dark chocolate. It’s not a big package, though it has a sharp design that fits with the rest of their candy bars. They seem to have a color coding thing going on; as you’d expect this one is green for mint. Though there are two bars in there, it’s still pretty light, only 1.1 ounces. The ingredients are all natural and have no hydrogenated oils or preservatives (though honestly, few candies do use preservatives). The bars are about three inches long and a little under one inch wide. The dark chocolate coating is glossy, rippled and rather thin, just enough to seal up the wafers and cream. The dark chocolate coating is made in Belgium, but the candy bars are manufactured in The Netherlands. The wafers inside are light and mostly flavorless, there’s a slight hint of toasted rice (though they’re made with wheat flour). The cream center is white and slightly cool on the tongue. The mint is very light and fresh with a slight note of real mint leaves instead of just peppermint oil. It’s smooth for the most part with just a little bit of a tiny grain to it. The chocolate coating is deep and rich with a dry and bittersweet bite. The combination is quite nice, not too sweet and refreshing. The portion size is insufficient though: I know, my Americaness is showing. I’d love the package to have three instead of two. But glancing at the teensy print of the nutrition label it is clear that each finger is about 95 calories. But that means that these are jam packaged with calories - that comes out to 173 per ounce. Mmm, crispy, minty and chocolatey fat. The earlier Dark Chocolate and Milk Chocolate Wafer Bars featured crisped rice, while these just have the wafer planks and dark chocolate with cream. While this limits the crunch, it does mean that the cream and its flavors are more forward. On the whole, they’re very tasty. My only hesitations with them are the price (usually $1.50 or so) and how hard they are to find. I’m told that they’re available at Whole Foods, but you know how WF likes to move stuff around to confuse their shoppers so I find it difficult to grab them on a regular basis. The other new flavor is Double Dark Chocolate Wafer bars which feature 70% cacao chocolate and are actually vegan. I’ll review those in my upcoming Vegan Week. Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:57 am |
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Meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind.
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I love, love, love Q-bel bars. They seem light, but I find them very satisfying. I do wish they were easier to find. They have them at Berkeley Bowl West, but not the old Berk Bowl. Kinda annoying.
oh my. mint is my favorite. these look… off the hook.
I just got these in the mail a few days ago and am looking forward to trying them. I was excited to hear about the new flavors as I liked the ones they sent me before quite a bit. Actually, I thought the batons (wafer rolls?) were the best, so I’m a bit disappointed to see these only in the bars. (Or at least that’s all they sent me for review.)
The seem abit like the equivalent of our UK Nestle Blue Riband, except that they only come in one milk chocolate flavour lol theyre only 95 calories a wafer but aren’t very filling.
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