Needler's Turkish Delight

Needler’s are brand that I wasn’t terribly familiar with (only knowing the name from ‘caramel cups’ tubs in sweet shop) so when I picked this up, I felt I'd better check out a little background information. But, it seems like even the totalitarian grip of Google cant offer up much about the company… And after a few miss directed searches, I discovered they were founded in the 1890’s, and are now owned by Ashbury chocolates, the manufactures of many supermarket own brand chocolates (and infamously criticised by Gordon Ramsey, even though the chocolates that bear his name are also produced by them). But I tried to put this aside, and consider the bar on its own merits, whatever they may be…

The bar featured several blocks of rose Turkish delight encased in chocolate. This outside layer looked similar to Bournville chocolate, with a semi dark colour and a claimed 30 percent cocoa mass (min). Whilst Bournville is far from gourmet, it sadly turned out to be several paces ahead of this. The greasy low quality chocolate had a lack of melt and split like warm chocolate, with little snap. I initially thought of the uneasy melt-free texture of U.S chocolate, and upon inspection I noticed the bar is exported to the hot climate of Australia. At least I knew the bar didn’t intentionally mean to offend!

The filling though had no such excuse, and was lacklustre in its contribution to the bar. A synthetic composition meant there were none of the floral perfumes associated with authentic Turkish delight, and was in truth, rather bland. In fact, that seems to be the best way to sum the entire experience up, not offensive, but entirely forgettable.