Forrest's Energy Balls (Mars Maltesers)

Member Name: litefoot

Product:	Mars Maltesers
Date:	30/07/05 (5900 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Sweet chocolate taste; no other product like it

Disadvantages: Not enough in a bag!

This is my fourth consecutive chocolate review so you may think I'm getting fat. Well, to that let me say you're absolutely damned right. *scowls*

Picture the scene... you're playing Ten-pin bowls with your friends. Your turn to bowl finally arrives. You walk towards the cluster of bowling balls and pick up your chosen weapon. As you walk forward with your bowling arm swinging, something strange happens... the ball becomes lighter and turns dark brown... you stare in disbelief and look around...suddenly the other balls are the same. An urge to chomp into the ball strikes you... chomp chomp... mmm a sweet honeycomb centre...

If only Maltesers were all that size! :)

A bit of history first. Maltesers are produced by the Mars company.

Mars began in 1911 when husband and wife Frank and Ethel Mars hit upon the idea of making butter cream candies at their home in Tacoma, Washington. I was surprised at this - I always thought Mars was a British firm!

Nine years later, Mr Mars and his son Forrest visited a drugstore (that'll be a chemist, then) and decided it might be worth making chocolate that incorporated malted milk. The eventual result of this was the Milky Way bar. Well, that's not strictly true because the Milky Way bar, when released in Europe, was renamed the Mars bar!! Confusing eh? So all this time we've been eating Milky Ways? Or have we? 'A Milky Way a day helps you work rest and play?' Read on...

Mars began producng other brands, including M and Ms in the 1930s, Snickers, Twix and of course Maltesers. They also began to produce pet food (Whiskas and Pedigree), and, would you believe, Uncle Ben's rice.

Mr Mars Snr offered his son the chance to start his own firm, giving him 5000 dollars and the Milky Way recipe. Forrest Mars made his way to England where he came up with the idea of adding caramel to the Milky Way and coating it in chocolate. Eventually the *real* Mars Bar was born! (I wonder if the man and his product gave any inspiration to the film Forrest Gump... remember the line 'life is like a box of chocolates...')

And what about Maltesers? In the late 30s, Forrest Mars continued to experiment. He produced a small, spehrical shaped piece of dough containing malted milk and expanded it inside a vaccum. It was covered with milk chocolate. Originally he named them Energy Balls, but this amused the british public so he changed the name to, yep, you've guessed it, Maltesers :)

Enough of this history lesson, back to the review. This is my opnion on the 37g standard bag of Maltesers.

The Maltesers come in a small bright red bag with a white logo and Malteser images dotted around it. Each end of the packet has a serrated end allowing it to be ripped open easily. Alternatively, grip one end with both hands and pull gently in both directions, this way you won't make a big tear in the bag causing Maltesers to spill out and roll into dark corners.

There were 17 Maltesers in my bag, although I gather it can vary by a few. Annoying and the first negative to this chocolate - I'd expect the same amount as everyone else gets!

You can already smell the milk chocolate. Actually the smell is somehow different compared to other chocolate such as Dairy Milk (it is made by a different company, after all). The chocolate smells much sweeter. A good start, I like variety in my chocolate.

Pop the first Malteser in your mouth. It definitely tastes much sweeter than Dairy Milk and very pleasant. The Malteser consists of a light honeycomb centre coated in milk chocolate, as described above. So far all you can taste is the sweet chocolate - you are not at the honeycomb stage yet. I wonder what this chocolate would taste like in solid chunks?

If you've read my other chocolate reviews you'll know I believe that chocolate should be eaten to last as long as possible and with Maltesers it is no different. Roll the Malteser around in your mouth and let it melt slowly. See if you can get rid of all the chocolate and just leave the honeycomb centre. Munching destroys the Malteser too quickly, but you can do it once or twice later on, if only to mix things up a bit :)

After the chocolate has melted away, you reach the honeycomb centre. By this stage the honeycomb will be soft so is likely to dissipate very quickly. The honeycomb has a light crunchy feel which has a sweet taste but slightly different to that of the chocolate. Unsurprisingly honey-ish! While some chocolate snacks have similar tastes and textures, the Malteser does not have many close cousins. It has a relatively unique taste. The closest relative, I would say, is the Crunchie bar, which is more crunchy and sticky, and hence clings to your teeth in a way that no other chocolate snack does. Maltesers don't give you this problem.

You can also bite your Maltesers in half. This way the honeycomb is a little more crunchy because you are biting straight into it and it hasn't been softened in your mouth. A nice method if you like the crunch, but they don't last as long.

Nutritional information (per bag, 37g):

Energy 2751kJ
179kcal
Protein 2.9g
Carbohydrate 22.8g
Fat 8.5g

The fat content is relatively low for a chocolate snack bar (certainly better than it's stable mate the Mars Bar, which has 17g, more than double the amount!). This is a great plus. Although, you can't help wishing that there were just a few more Maltesers in the bag. This is where the King Size bag is more satisfying but more expensive.

Maltesers' standard size bag usually costs about about 40p on average, depending where you shop. If you have one of those cheap shops such as Home Bargains in your town, have a look inside as they sometimes stock them. I bought mine there for 25p :) They have also been known to stock the
large 175g bags for 89p (instead of the usual £1.50 you pay everywhere else). Maltesers King Size bags have eight or nine extra ones and cost about 55p on average.

Maltesers are one of my favourite chocolates with a fairly unique taste so I thoroughly recommend them. The only downside is the small and varying number contained in each bag so I'll give this snack a rating of four stars.

Ingredients: Sugar, Skimmed milk powder, Cocoa butter, Glucose syrup, Malt extract, Cocoa mass, Vegetable fat, Lactose, Demineralised whey powder, Milk fat, Emulsifiers (E442, Soya lecithin, E492), Wheat flour, Hydrogenated vegetable fat, Gelling agent (Pectin), Raising Agents (E500ii, E341i), Salt, Flavouring, Milk chocolate. Contains milk solids 14% minimum.

Maltesers
Maltesers King Size
Maltesers 100g bag
Maltesers 165g bag
Maltesers White
Maltesers White 165g bag
Maltesers 146g box
Maltesers Hot Chocolate Malt Drink
Maltesers Low fat Milk Drink
Maltesers Ice Cream


MARS CHOCOLATE

http://www.mars.co.uk (The official website for Mars but not much information on Maltesers)

Summary: Sweet tasting chocolate with a light honeycombed centre