Less Calories, Less Flavour (Cadbury Highlights Instant Hot Chocolate)

Member Name: cazkins

Product:	Cadbury Highlights Instant Hot Chocolate
Date:	03/07/09 (105 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice new packaging

Disadvantages: Lacks taste

Nothing beats a lovely, warm, rich and creamy hot chocolate. I know that hot chocolate you make at home by adding water to powder wont be the same as a hot chocolate served up in a cafe, but after trying Options Belgian hot chocolate, I know they can be much better than Cadbury's Highlights! I have to admit, I'm quite disappointed with this product, and regret buying something that tastes like slightly chocolatey water.

Highlights are a range produced by Cadbury's and include other sweet treats, such as brownie slices. The premise is that you're getting all the quality chocolate flavour of Cadbury's without such high fat/calorie content. Their hot chocolate range sounds very appealing, and now looks equally tempting with the new packaging. I've seen a reasonable amount of advertising for their Highlights hot chocolate in magazine and such like, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, or in this case the drinking.

A twin 22g sachet is a good way of testing out their range before buying a more costly big jar of the stuff, and I wish I had tried this first. The sachet costs 47p, and the 220g jar costs around £2.87 (Tesco). The new packaging is mostly brown with a blue lid, and has colourful little swirls on the front.

Highlights is a simple and quick way of making your own hot chocolate at home. You simple add the required amount of powder into your mug and add warm (but not boiling hot) water, then stir well. They suggest you use 3 teaspoons of the power, though I think this depends on how big your mug is, but you can easily experiment and very how much power you use to suit your taste depending on how rich and chocolatey you want your drink.

Each cup, with the recommended amount of teaspoons of the powder, contains 40 calories and less than 1% fat. Compared to other hot chocolates, this is quite good. Generally speaking, similar powder products contain an average of 100 calories, with many of the more 'indulgent' brands containing more.

All of this sounds good on the surface; all the rich chocolateyness of Cadbury's without the calories. However, just because it has less calories it doesn't mean the product should skimp on taste. I say this because I usually drink Options Belgian hot chocolate, which is rich and delicious. In comparison, Highlights is like drinking water with a bit of chocolate residue floating around.

Okay, maybe it's not quite that bad. But it's poor enough to make me positive I wont be buying this again.

Mixing the powder is fairly easy, although you have to mix it very well with you spoon because you always get small clumps of powder which float on the surface. Once you've got it all mixed in, you can sit back, put your feet up, and enjoy. It does smell nice, and so I was quite surprised at how the taste didn't live upto my expectations. The taste lacks richness as the chocolate tasted far from the lovely Cadbury's flavour I was looking forward to. Because of the lack of chocolate flavour, the texture just seemed watery. I poured this into a clear mocha glass, and noticed the consistency and general appearance wasn't as opaque as I think it should be. I seems like either the powder doesn't mix too well, or the powder just lacks the Cadbury's richness that it promises.

I've tried adding more powder, but, alas, I couldn't get this powder to produce anything worth drinking. I'm sure some people will disagree with me, but I just can't see the positives to Highlights. That said, it's not the worst I've tried, but I do prefer the regular Cadbury's hot chocolate. I've had that in cafes, such as Asda, and that tasted lovely. But perhaps they had to use a whole jar to get the taste so rich...

I've also been unfortunate enough to be fooled into buying the fudge variety, which was even more disappointing!

Therefore, I wouldn't recommend this. I'm sure others would disagree with me, but perhaps it is after trying Options Belgian hot choc, for which I've already written a review, that I have higher expectations of instant hot choclate. In my view, Options beats Highlights in the taste test hands down.

Summary: Not a product I would recommend