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Easter is afoot, and so, it's time to welcome the deluge of seasonal chocolate products, spiked with hot cross bun spices or shaped like Easter bunnies.
Except this one's a little bit different. It's Tony's Chocolonely's take on the Easter Egg (in true Tony's fashion) and instead of simnel cake spices, they've turned to the vibrant flavour of lemon.
It's a refreshing choice of flavour so I bought a bar from chocolate stockist Treat Me Good to give it a whirl.
Packaging
The packaging for this chunky 180g bar follows a similar design to the remainder of the range, albeit in a colour palette of bright yellow and green, paired with shiny red-foiled print that glints in the light.
This may well be a chocolate bar rather than an Easter Egg, but as Tony's opted to depict a Christmas tree on its festive bars then it was obvious they'd choose an egg for their Easter chocolate bar. We get a preview of this on the front of the thick paper wrapper.
On the reverse of the bar, there's a brief explanation of this bar, together a summary of Tony's' slave-free mission. The ingredients and nutritional lists follow this.
Tony's Chocolonely Lemon Meringue Milk Chocolate Bar ingredients:
Sugar, dried whole milk, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, meringue (3.33%) (sugar, egg white, wheat starch), freeze-dried lemon (1.94%) (glucose syrup, apricot, lemon juice concentrate, sugar, modified starch, thickening agent (sodium alginate)), emulsifier (soya lecithin). Cocoa solids: 32% minimum.
The bar is made in Belgium and consists of 53% sugars. It is suitable for vegetarians but not vegans. There's a chance this bar might contain traces of nuts. The bar is made with Fairtrade cocoa and sugar, with the sugar using the mass balance method totalling 73%.
Tony's Chocolonely Lemon Meringue Milk Chocolate Bar Review
Beneath the paper wrapper is a gold-foiled chunky chocolate bar. Don't recycle the outer paper just yet as on the reverse you'll find more information about Tony's' mission.
What do we have under the hood? Well, at its core is a generously-thick 180g slab of 32% Belgian milk chocolate. It's the same base that they used in their recent Sweet Solutions limited-edition lookalike bars.
Here, the milk chocolate base benefits from meringue pieces (made with free-range egg whites) and freeze-dried lemon pieces. It is interesting to see the company opt for lemon pieces as opposed to lemon oil, and I am curious to see if that decision is to the bar's credit.
The bar reveals a buttery, milky aroma, with general cocoa notes and a hint of caramel notes. There's barely a hint of lemon in the aroma, such is the power of the chocolate.
The design of this slab stands out the most. Tony's Chocolonely commissioned a fun Easter-egg themed mould that still manages to retain the company's iconic chunky irregular pattern around the fringes.
The bar is over 1cm in height, and the egg (around 10cm by 7cm) is solid milk chocolate. Good luck trying to snap that into bite size chunks (thumbs of steel at the ready again!).
So, what does it taste like? The milk chocolate is eager to melt on your tongue and is quick to impart its creamy texture, with flavours to match its aroma. There's general cocoa flavours in here with just a hint of caramel. It's a sweet bar, and is far too easy to demolish in front of the telly if you're not careful.
Around mid-way through the melt, the crispy, sweet meringue pieces begin to come into play, and that's when the citrus twang from the lemon starts to comes through. The lemon adds a fresh tartness to the flavour, adding a bit of zip and life.
The tangy bursts of lemon continue into the aftertaste, where the creamy, caramel notes jostle with the citrus in a playful manner, with little bursts of tartness drawing the experience to a close.
Overall, the lemon flavour is fairly muted in this bar, but I think that's a good thing. This is a milk chocolate bar with a hint of lemon and crunchy meringue pieces, rather than a full-on lemon bar that masks the flavour of the chocolate. Perhaps that's the benefit of lemon pieces over lemon oil? Either way, it works very well and is an enjoyable lemon milk chocolate bar.
Tony's Chocolonely Lemon Meringue Milk Chocolate Bar Review
RRP: £3.98 | Tony's Chocolonely | Shop now
Not too powerful, the lemon is used here more to add bursts of tartness into a milk chocolate base. The crunchy meringue pieces add a sweet, crunchy texture to the bar. I think the balance between the milk chocolate and lemon is spot-on here, creating a fun and whimsical Easter-themed bar.
Where to Buy Online
This limited-edition bar is available directly from the Tony's Chocolonely website here (£3.98). I bought mine from Treat Me Good here (£3.95).
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This bar is also available on independent baby clothing, giftware and ethical product websites too. As it's an Easter edition chocolate bar, it won't stick around for long so if you see it, and fancy giving it a go, grab it while you can.
What's your favourite Easter treat? Let me know in the comments below.
