Cadbury's

Cadbury's is an English company. They have, however, licensed Hershey Foods Corporation. to manufacture chocolate in the states under the Cadbury's name. People have told me that the British version it is far superior to the U.S. version, and my own experience shows that this is true.

I can't say that I've ever been really impressed with Cadbury's chocolates, although now that I've actually tried the original British versions, I can say that they don't suck. They do, however, package their chocolate well for shipping. It comes in the same sealed wrappers that Lindt chocolates come in.

Dairy Milk

This is the U.S. version of Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate. This chocolate has a longer ingredient list than any I've reviewed so far. You can probably tell that I don't think that's a good thing. Chocolate comes fourth after sugar, milk, and cocoa butter. Following that are nonfat milk, milk fat (what's up with that?), soya lecithin, artificial and natural flavors.

This is a very sweet chocolate. I think that concealed in the "artificial and natural flavors" are a little bit of malt extract, and a fair amount of vanillan. All that aside, however, the overriding quality of this chocolate is the creaminess of it. It does have a lot of milk and milk products in it, which really makes it taste more like chocolate flavored cream than anything else. I think that was the manufacturer's intent, though. If you like cream, you'll probably like this chocolate, but if you're allergic to milk products then stay the heck away from it.

Dairy Milk (England)

This is the British version of Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate, which is to say the original version. It's actually one of the better milk chocolates I've had, and is easily better than the American version. The ingredient list is much simpler, too: Milk, Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Cocoa Mass, Vegetable Fat, Emulsifier: 442, Flavourings. A kind person in england, Terry Weatherill, informs me that emulsifier 442 is probably a reference to E442. In turn, E442 is the designation used within the European Economic Community to refer to the food additive Ammonium Phosphatides. Terry notes, and I agree, that Cadbury's most likely lists this ingredient by its code name rather than its chemical because "E422" sounds a whole lot less scary than "Ammonium Phosphatides."

I have to say that even though I'm not a milk chocolate lover by nature, I'm quite pleased with this milk chocolate. Yes, it's quite sweet, but it's very smooth. I've had a number of milk chocolates which failed to feel very nice in the mouth, and in my opinion it is important how a chocolate feels when eaten. This is not a wildly chocolaty chocolate, but the 20% cocoa solids listed on the wrapper are evident enough.

Another interesting piece of information on the label is that the milk solids are also at least 20% of the bar, as well as the cocoa solids. I've never seen another chocolate bar list the percent milk solids, although I think it would be nice if that information were listed on more milk chocolates. I suppose that since Cadbury Ltd. is about the oldest manufacturer of milk chocolate in the world, that it's not surprising they bother to list that, nor is it surprising that the product itself is so good. It's a shame that this chocolate isn't more widely available.

Bournville

This chocolate is from the actual Cadbury company in England, and is not the stuff made by Hershey's in the U.S. and sold under the Cadbury name. It comes to me by the grace of Judy Schneider, a devoted reader who was the first to send me chocolate I could not obtain locally, who I hope will not be too offended by this review.

The subtitle on this chocolate is "the original plain chocolate," by which I assume that this is Cadbury's effort at producing a dark chocolate. Well, to be sure this is a much darker chocolate than their milk chocolate, but oh my is it sweet. One look at the ingredient list shows why: sugar, cocoa mass, vegetable fat, butterfat, cocoa butter, soya lecithin. I'm not so thrilled about the vegetable fat, but at least they list the percent cocoa solids, 36%, which is more than I can say for American chocolate manufacturers.

I can't say that I'm terribly pleased with this chocolate. Primarily because it is so intensely sweet. After consuming one six gram piece from the larger bar, I was forced to go get something to drink because it was so sweet. I've been told that the English like their candies sweet, and I guess it must be true.

The chocolate has a nice scent, very similar to Hershey's Special Dark but not as strong. The color is similar too, and the chocolate is nice and firm. Normally when I taste a chocolate for the first time, especially for review, I pay attention to how long it takes the flavors to come out, what those flavors are, and how strong they are. For this chocolate, the first flavor to come out was sweetness, not chocolate. By the time the chocoa flavor arrived, the sweetness was nigh overpowering, and really prevented me from enjoying the cocoa flavor. I didn't detect any nutty or fruity notes like many other, better, chocolates have. I can't tell the British what to like, but for me, this chocolate was just way way too sweet. Primarily that's why this chocolate only gets a 2 rating.