Ritter Sport – Cranberries and Hazelnut

At this point I feel like I’ve pretty much worked my way through most of the main roster of Ritter Sport bars available in the Frigid North, and then some. Today is one of those flavours where I’m not super thrilled or itching to try, but I’m not ethically or morally opposed to it so I feel obligated to try it. For science of course.

This milk chocolate bar contains cranberries and hazelnut pieces. I find hazelnuts to usually be a winner, but I’m not so sure about cranberries. It sounds like it should work in theory, being that it’s got a slight tartness to it which could help offset some of the sweetness of the chocolate. But as with many things that sound good in theory, execution can make or break a bar.

Somewhat aligned with expectations, I really only smell the milk chocolate. Can something smell sweet? Cause this smells kind of sweet. No hint of the cranberries but a slight nutty aroma of the toasted hazelnut bits.

As usual, their mold game is on point. So uniform.

As I usually say, I personally prefer darker chocolate and feel like the dark variety would work better here. The milk chocolate is a tad on the sweeter side, and I find the cranberries sweet enough that they don’t need milk chocolate, making it even sweeter. I say sweet but the cranberries aren’t that sweet on their own. They have a bit of a tartness to them but similar to raisins, they are dried so the concentration of sugar is more noticeable, and you do get that sweetness at the forefront. I had hoped it would be more tart, but sadly that was not the case.

The filling is pretty decent ratio wise.

Texture is very similar to the raisins and nuts bar, where the cranberries are chewy but not sticky, and the hazelnut bits give it a nice soft, pleasant crunch to it. If you enjoy chocolate and dried fruit as a combination, this is an easy win for you. If not, I feel like this would be a good option to dip your toes in, as the cranberries aren’t firm or hard enough to throw the textural experience off.

The bar can barely contain deez nuts.

Overall the execution leaves a few things to be desired but it’s not a bad attempt. I’d prefer the cranberries to either be less sweet, or the use of dark chocolate to balance the sweetness out. The texture is a good balance of chewy from the cranberries and crunchy from the hazelnuts. If I had to pick between this and the raisin bar, unless there’s rum involved I would actually consider this one the winner.

Quite a calorie dense bar.

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zbearviking

From the frigid, majestic North (Canada), hails a creature like no other. Is it a bear that took up viking-ing? Or a viking that turned into a bear? Perhaps it is beyond human comprehension what the creature truly is, much like Bigfoot or Nessie. What we do know, is that much like everything else in the universe, it is made of star stuff.