The duck and I actually wanted to write about German Easter candy last year, but back then we were fully occupied with being secretly lazy. This year, when we were sitting in our bedroom craving chocolate, the duck and I decided that we should catch up on this missed opportunity, partly because we’re always looking for an excuse to “try” some chocolate, partly because one of the things that we miss most about living in Tokyo is having lots of seasonal snacks to try out. In Japan we loved seeing how the seasons changed and how we could always count on the local Konbini (or grocery store) to stock up on new snacks to accompany this fascinating change. Last December we wrote about Christmas cookies, Glühwein, and other Christmas treats, but we did not actually review any of them. That shall finally change today! With an inside Easter for two coming up (social distancing is cool, everyone! All the hip kids do it!) the duck decided that we should taste test the one seasonal food that we missed in Japan: our favorite Easter candy, the chocolate egg! Germany doesn’t have the Cadbury creme egg. In fact, I don’t even know what kind of Easter candy is typical for Germany. I do, however, know what all the grocery stores are selling around this time.
Because we are still trying to limit our beloved grocery shopping trips to as few as possible these days, the duck and I decided to go exclusively with what we’d find at Aldi.
They had quite a few varieties to choose from, but since the duck and I pride ourselves on being extra expenditure enemies I went with just the ones that jumped out to me (quite literally. The duck had dived into one of the Easter candy bins and was rummaging through its chocolaty contents like a raccoon in a trashcan after Thanksgiving. I caught three bags of chocolate candy that flew my way, grabbed the duck, and made my way to the cash register while keeping a solid 2-meter distance from my fellow shoppers). I’m quite happy with what we got, though one of the three varieties isn’t even egg-shaped. But it’s chocolate, so it counts. This time around the duck and I probably won’t be able to write such fauxetic phrases as ‘they tasted like a steady chocolate-float ride through a peaceful matcha stream in the middle of (the week-long) cherry blossom season, just without all the crowds of sakura-admirers and instead with some extra sugar sprinkled on top’. (Wow!)
Berlin doesn’t give us those kinds of vibes. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. At all. Let’s get to the testing:
Rate eggspectations
You will never be able to escape from our recycled puns. Sorry. Also, we did have some eggspectations before testing these chocolaty Easter treats: They were supposed to taste like actual chocolate (not this waxy stuff you sometimes find in the shell of filled chocolate treats or as icing on top of cakes) and they should have a filling that’s not too heavy or sweet but have a potential to add a little sweetness, you know, in the figurative sense, to our socially distant Easter. Being the unfortunate chocolate snobs that we are, the duck and I felt no fear at all that any of those eggs could possibly disappoint us (heh).
This is how the three varieties scored individually and very subjectively:
Blätterkrokant
This was the first variety the duck picked because we had mentioned chocolate balls filled with nut brittle toffee as part of our baker’s dozen of German Christmas treats last December. We decided that Easter was the perfect opportunity to finally try this – apparently very exclusive – seasonal Christmas treat in the shape of an Easter egg.
The eggs are exactly what is promised on the packaging: chewy nut brittle toffee covered with a semi-thin layer of chocolate. We actually like the chocolate, but it doesn’t taste like 100% milk chocolate to us which might be due to the strong flavor of the filling. We have actually never tried Blätterkrokant before, so we did not know exactly what to expect beforehand. We did expect it to be crunchy, which it fortunately is, but it also has this very chewy caramel quality. The flavor of the Blätterkrokant filling makes us think of ground-up sugar-glazed hazelnuts which also reminds us a bit of caramel. Since the duck and I, unfortunately, have a rather tricky relationship with this sugary confection we aren’t too impressed. Combined with the milk chocolate shell the filling is a tiny bit too sweet for our liking and a tad too nutty in the nut-to-chocolate-ratio. Since those eggs are relatively big, their sweet taste paired with their size makes them a little too ‘heavy’ for us.
Personally, we’re not fans and award them 2/5 ducks.* If, however, you love chewy caramel and nutty fillings paired with milk chocolate, this might be the German grocery store chocolate egg for you!
Crunchy chocolate almond
For a change in nuts, the duck decided to go with something almond-flavored next. It was hard to pass on the plain milk chocolate and milk chocolate cream-filled varieties, but we knew that it had to be a bit more exciting and specific than that if we really wanted to do a taste test (truth be told, little milk chocolate filled chocolate eggs are our Easter staple – so there’s not much left for us to test anymore). Anyway, these eggs sounded very promising, because they appeared to be crunchy (rather than chewy) due to those little crispy balls in their center and we don’t really mind almonds all that much, I think.
The chocolate shell itself tastes pretty similar to that of the Blätterkrokant egg. It does complement the chocolaty almond filling pretty well. Together the shell and the filling are sweet but not overwhelmingly so. The little crunchy balls remind us a lot of miniature Maltesers and they do a great job at adding a certain lightness to this rather big chocolate egg. The almond cream could be a tad lighter (in taste and texture), though, which is why we decided to deduct a duck (or maybe we just deducked? All that time inside is getting to me). Otherwise, this thing is pretty great in our opinion!
4/5 ducks.
Milk filled chocolate bunnies
Yeah, the third variety wasn’t even egg-shaped. But since we love kinder Chocolate and those Aldi brand chocolate mice with a milk cream and nut filling (from now on we shall call them “the milky two”), we were pretty excited to try those milk filled chocolate bunnies.
First of all, let’s talk about the shape: They’re super cute! This doesn’t add anything to the taste but it just had to be written out. The chocolate cover looks and tastes like regular milk chocolate and is a bit thicker than that of the actual chocolate eggs we tested. The milk filling is exactly what it says it would be: milky. For most people that would be a good thing. The duck and I, however, thought that the milk part was a bit too heavy for our liking. It’s hard to pinpoint where this sense of “heaviness” comes from, maybe just from there being more filling or from it not being broken up by anything, as is the case with “the milky two” (respectively)? Or maybe it’s the milky aftertaste? Anyway, we think that the filling could be much lighter because, even though it tastes good, we find it a bit overwhelming. If, unlike us, you actually love milk, I don’t think there would be anything wrong with those cute little chocolate-milk-bunnies. We award them a good 3/5 ducks (if it wasn’t for the comparison with “the milky two”, this might have been a solid 4); will gladly eat, but might not buy again.
Okay! This was our first snack test in a while. Maybe we’ll do more of them if we discover other fun seasonal or interesting looking snacks in Germany (I know Ritter Sport does some seasonal flavors, so, if some of them sound nice, we might actually do a test of those? Do you have any recommendations or things you’d like us to try?).
For now, we’re wishing you a great weekend and hope that you did or will get to spend some quality time with plenty of chocolate and maybe even your family!
We’d love to hear about your favorite Easter or spring-themed treats.
Take care!
(And please don’t eat as many chocolate eggs in one sitting as we did.)
* Please note that we love chocolate. So, 2/5 ducks in chocolate are at least 3/5 in general candy. We might not buy those eggs again, but you can bet that we ate them all!
The Duck in... side 