My experience with peanut butter and chocolate is pretty much limited to Hershey's Reese's products. While many of you go crazy for Reese's Pieces and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, I find them too salty to enjoy.
Consequently, as a rule of thumb, peanut butter and chocolate is a combination a veer away from. But when browsing the Treat Me Good website I stumbled across Montezuma's interpretation of this recipe.
I've enjoyed Montezuma's hot chocolate buttons in the past, so felt reassured by that. Plus, just because I'm not fond of one company's version of something doesn't mean they're all bad, right?
I smashed the buy button and took delivery of Montezuma's Butter Nutter Milk Chocolate bar to find out.
Packaging
The packaging is very jolly and cheerful, in a colour palette of yellows and pinks. A stylised 'M' dominates the cover of the box, with a description of the product beneath it. Here we have a 35% milk chocolate bar with a peanut butter truffle centre.
The rear of the box explains the dilemma of choosing a chocolate bar or truffles, so the team decided to mix the two.
It also includes the ingredients list and nutritional information.
Montezuma's Butter Nutter Milk Chocolate Bar ingredients:
Milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, cocoa paste, emulsifier (soya lecithin), vanilla extract), peanut butter (17%) (roasted peanuts), sea salt. Cocoa solids: 35% minimum; Milk solids: 23% minimum.
The bar contains around 41% sugars and is suitable for vegetarians. It is free from colourings, gluten, GM ingredients and preservatives, although it may contain traces of other nuts.
Montezuma's Butter Nutter Milk Chocolate Review
The box is recyclable and the bar is sealed inside a biodegradable semi-translucent film wrapper. It's branded with the Montezuma's logo and the three-arrow recycle symbol surrounded by the words "100% recyclable. Help keep our planet beautiful".
The bar is portioned out into a dozen segments, each imprinted with a crown motif.
Curiously, there's a small pin hole in each of the segments. I presume it's for injecting the truffle centre but it detracts from an otherwise clean finish.
Montezuma's reckons 25g makes a sensible portion size which translates into three-and-a-bit servings in this 90g bar. Realistically, you'd probably consume two to three pieces per sitting (making four to six servings), depending on your willpower.
The aroma is largely dominated by the milk chocolate, with its sweet, lactic, creamy and almost caramel flavour notes at the forefront. Behind this is a glimmer of the scent of red skin peanuts.
Snap a segment in half and you'll see that the truffle filling is surrounded by a very thick shell of milk chocolate.
The truffle filling has a slight crunch to it and it's slightly grainy in texture. The flavour is of mildly roasted peanuts with a hit of salt at the end.
So what's it like altogether? The milk chocolate yields its sweet, creamy and caramel notes first, and as you bite into the centre, it adds the flavours of butter and peanuts into the fray. These intensify about half way through before the salt throws its weight around. For me, there's too much salt in there and that distracts at the end. To its credit, the salt helps temper the sweetness and adds a savoury edge to the overall flavour.
Personally, I like the beginning and middle but not the salty end so much. A touch less salt and a bit more in the way or roasted peanut flavour and it'd be perfect. That said, I'm not a big fan of salt paired with chocolate, so there was always a risk this wouldn't be my favourite bar in the world. If, however, you like the combo and like peanut butter then you'll probably enjoy this bar. It's very easy to eat and you'll easily polish it off quickly.
Montezuma's Butter Nutter Milk Chocolate Review
RRP: £2.59 | Montezuma's | Shop now
A sweet and creamy milk chocolate shell hides a salted peanut truffle centre. A British take on an American favourite, this bar puts the chocolate front and centre, followed by the peanuts and then the salt. It's a tad too salty for me and I craved more roasted peanut flavour, but it still evokes imagery of a chocolatey peanut butter in my head.
Where to Buy Online
You'll find the Butter Nutter Milk Chocolate bar on the Montezuma's website here (£2.59). If you love the combination then you'll love Montezuma's Butter Nutter truffles, available in a handy grab pack here (£7.99) or a lovely gift jar here (£29.99).
You'll also find it on the Treat Me Good website here (£2.95) as well as on Amazon here°. You'll also find the Butter Nutter truffles on Amazon too°.
Peanut butter and chocolate - love it or hate it? Let me know in a comment below.
