Skye Kingsbury Review: Nutella and Two Comparable Products

By Skye Kingsbury: A report on Nutella. Nutti,  and Fabalous Orange Hazelnut and Cocoa Spread.

All three spreads were served at room temperature on Ritz crackers. Lulu participated under protest.

First up: Nutti, a hazelnut spread with cocoa and milk.

The consistency is really thick. It doesn’t melt easily in my mouth. It is sticking to everything. I’ll have to wipe my mouth clean afterwards. It coats the roof of my mouth. It’s very chocolately. It’s not overbearingly sweet but I couldn’t eat much of this before it got to be too much.

It’s very smooth. Very rich. It is sweet. It’s got the consistency of shea butter lotion. It’s nice. I’d eat this. It would be excellent on toast but not as a sandwich. Then it would be too much.

The Nutti has more cocoa powder than Nutella. You can see the palm oil separating in the Nutti. It’s got less emulsifiers. It’s also got less calories per serving than the Nutella.

Second: Genuine Nutella.

Real Nutella is much sweeter than the Nutti. It’s cloying. The vanilla doesn’t taste real. It tastes off. The Nutella tastes more artificial than the Nutti. I taste the hazelnuts much more in the Nutella than the Nutti. It’s not as chocolatey as the Nutti. It’s much thicker than the Nutti. It’s almost unpleasant. I’ll eat the Nutti. I used to like Nutella as a kid but I can’t eat it anymore. The fake vanilla is so strong, it burns the back of my throat.

Third: Fabalous Orange Hazelnut and Cocoa Spread with 32% chickpeas.

I had to stir the separated oil and work it into an even consistency so be forewarned when you open the jar. Like a nut butter, it will separate!

It’s much gooier and a darker color, more like melted chocolate. It smells heavily of orange. The orange notes are prominent enough I can taste them. The cocoa is strong, with hazelnut undertones. I can taste a bit of salt. It isn’t as smooth and creamy as the other two, but I like it.

This is also nowhere near as sweet as the other two. It contains half the sugar of the other two and you can tell. It’s more like semi-sweet. It is insanely gooey. The inside of my mouth is coated with chickpea spread. It’s very good but the texture is noticeable. It’s not humus, but you’ll see the difference between this and the other two. It’s heavy.

Surprisingly, of the three, I like the chickpea spread the best. I expected this one — which claims to be vaguely healthier — to be the worst but it was the tastiest.

The Nutella is too sweet and too artificial. It’s way worse than I remember from eating it when I was a kid. Maybe it’s the fake vanilla giving it a plastic-y aftertaste.

The Nutti is better than Nutella.

On a scale of one to ten, the Fabalous Orange Hazelnut chickpea spread is an 8. The Nutti is a 6. The Nutella — which I expected to adore all over again — is a 4. It’s too sweet and the more I taste it, the less I like it.

If you’re not a fan of super-sweet, the chickpea spread is superior. If you spread it on bread, you probably won’t object to the not-quite humus texture the way you might when you eat it straight from the jar.

Skye Kingsbury Reviews: Ritter White Chocolate with Whole Hazelnuts

Ritter White Chocolate with Whole Hazelnuts

By Skye Kingsbury: This is my first time eating this variety of Ritter.

There’s very little scent. Most chocolate has a perfume. Milk chocolate has more of a scent than white and less than dark.

This chocolate smells like almost … nothing. It has a very faint floral scent and I’m pretty sure it’s the hazelnuts.

The chocolate is very good quality white chocolate. It’s smooth, creamy, melts in the mouth without being cloyingly sweet. Bad white chocolate builds up in the back of my throat and clogs it. This doesn’t. It’s yummy.

It’s also melting in my hands! It melts really fast, much quicker than a Hershey bar. I’m having to lick my fingers as I eat it.

There are whole hazelnuts and lots of them. They taste like freshly-cracked hazelnuts. Hazelnuts in every bite.

The chocolate has some texture, not just from the hazelnuts. It’s a bit of crunch. No idea what it is but I like it. It’s like crunching on granulated sugar in a really nice way. It’s a definite enhancement.

Mmmmmm.

Dimitri was unimpressed.

This is really good and I recommend it.

Toblerone Chocolate Report

The Toblerone box, waiting.
The Toblerone box, opened
Three kinds of Toblerone

By Skye Kingsbury: Hi. I’m Skye. I’m in my twenties and I have tastebuds that are distressingly strong. It often makes things difficult for me to enjoy and I tend to be very picky about what sweets I eat. Case in point: I now drink coffee black instead of with two sugars like I used to.

I’ve wanted to try Toblerone Chocolate for a long time because it’s supposed to be the good stuff. It’s Swiss!

[Note: Skye is assisted in today’s reviews by her cat Lulu.]

WHITE CHOCOLATE TOBLERONE

White chocolate, cut and uncut

So, white chocolate. This genuinely smells like white chocolate instead of Crisco that has had white chocolate whispered at it from another room. What a snap! Crisp! It’s very good. Sweet, kind of floral, fruity. Almost like what a flower should taste like when you smell it, one of the really strong scented ones.

There is definitely vanilla. The almond and nougat add a wonderful texture. I can taste the honey. It’s delightfully sweet but not overwhelmingly so. It’s not cloying. The honey adds an undertone, enough to leave the back of my throat burning. This is why I don’t eat a lot of honey even though I like the taste.

Lulu refuses white chocolate

The almonds don’t have a strong taste but they add texture. The nougat are little chewy bits like caramel but better. They don’t taste like caramel, but they have the texture like little sticky bits. Like toffee. They’re really good.

This is some quality tempered white chocolate. It’s rich! I couldn’t eat very many but it’s wonderful.

MILK CHOCOLATE TOBLERONE

Milk chocolate Toblerone cut and uncut

This has an equally nice snap like the white chocolate. It has a nice chocolate scent but not as floral or fruity as the white chocolate. It’s a real rich milk chocolate that coats the mouth. It’s not as sweet as the white. It’s not astringent but it’s definitely got more flavors, as well as a more well-rounded taste.

The almond flavor is more pronounced. I don’t notice the honey as much as the white chocolate. It’s there; I can feel it at the back of my throat.

Lulu sniffs milk chocolate

It’s very smooth, melting and coating the tongue. It’s like those nice high-quality cups of hot chocolate that you make by melting real chocolate and mixing with hot milk. That’s how nice and smooth it is.

The almonds and nougat are definitely there. The texture is really good. I quite like it.

It’s not nearly as sweet as the white but still definitely sweet. Not as much honey taste in case you don’t like honey. But the honey is there, faint but noticeable and not enough to be an irritant.

DARK CHOCOLATE TOBLERONE

Dark chocolate, cut and uncut

It smells of nice quality dark chocolate; darker, stronger, and more bitter. It smells like that 75% cacao that you can sometimes find.

It’s got a crisp snap. It’s more solid to my teeth than the other two. Very rich, mildly fruity. There’s almost no honey taste. It is dark, coating my mouth with dark, strong chocolate.

Lulu snubs dark chocolate

The almonds and nougat disappear into texture only. They have no taste, unlike the milk chocolate. Even without taste, their texture breaks up the dark chocolate. It’s smooth and rich. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was espresso powder in here because I detect a note — at the end — of floral fruit and coffee.

This is easily the strongest, most forward chocolate. If you don’t like dark chocolate, you won’t like this.


Conclusion: Overall, I recommend the dark chocolate, followed by the milk chocolate. The white chocolate was still very good but it was sweeter than the other two so I didn’t like it quite as much.

The Skye Kingsbury Chocolate Report

By Skye Kingsbury: Lindt Lindor White Chocolate truffles

1) Opening the bag: The odor is sweet, creamy, with slight fruity overtones. Perhaps a hint of vanilla? As the bag sat open, the scent disappeared.

2) The truffles were individually wrapped in gold paper. Unwrapping is easy.

3) Unwrapped, the truffle is very smooth, with the texture of a small rubber bouncy ball.

4) The outer shell is very smooth and melts on your tongue. It breaks, like a snap between your teeth. The taste is smooth, very creamy, coats the tongue. Definitely vanilla-flavored. There is a chocolate undertone, but very mild.

5) The truffle center gives way immediately to teeth and tongue. It’s overwhelmingly sweet to the point of being cloying. It tastes fake. Not vanilla, not chocolate. Just sweet but not in a good way.

6) The shell is great! The truffle center is not great. It’s like eating sweet shortening. Very Crisco-y. I’d eat the shells and avoid the truffle center. It coats the mouth like honey but leaves a burning sensation in the back of my throat. The shell’s taste doesn’t linger. The truffle center does.

7) I would not eat these again.

8) Dimitri sniffed suspiciously, then spurned the truffle. We wouldn’t have let him eat it. We just wanted to see what he thought.