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Finnish chocolate reviews

This page is one of a series of international chocolate reviews.

Suklaapatukka, cutie patooties. Here are the goodies Lucy sent back from Helsinki.

Jarkko K— writes to point out that Smil Mintchoko is Swedish, not Finnish, and that Leaf chocolates are now only manufactured outside Finland.

A. Fazer Suffeli

Wafer with toffee filling 24% in milk chocolate 39%.

This pink-and-brown wrapper isn't going to win any fashion awards, but it's certainly an eye-catcher. The bar is a cross-hatched cuboid with an agreeable smell of cake mixture. The wafer inside — supplemented by a layer of white cream — is slightly too chewy, reminding me of a soggy ice-cream cone, but the bar tastes great. This one just scrapes the third star.

B. Fazer Pätkis

Mint truffle covered with milk chocolate (19%).

Fazer are to be rebuked here for having violated packaging convention and created a mint-flavoured product with no green anywhere on the wrapper. The bar has the size, shape and texture of a Cadbury's Fudge bar. Unfortunately, the mint truffle filling is a bit too pungent. I was left with the feeling that I'd just brushed my teeth.

C. Fazer Da Capo

Chocolate covered bar.

Chocolate-covered bar of what, I ask myself, but there is no English ingredients list. I try Google's translation service, which tells me that da capo means from head in Italian (suggesting a tasty brain bar) or something about castration in Spanish. The bar smells like the plump chocolate caramels we used to get from Woolworths' pick-and-mix, and the centre is a sort of dark, chewy truffle. I hope.

D. Brunberg Vadelma Tryffeli

Meaning raspberry truffle. Phew! The picture on the wrapper looked a bit too much like the vileness that is Turkish delight. Smells like a Raspberry Ruffle, which is perhaps to be expected when the name is only one letter off. It's thoroughly different, though. The plain chocolate truffle and the raspberry (in a layer of what I can only describe as jelly) are two separate stripes. The textures don't combine well, but the taste is supreme.

E. Brunberg Minttu Tryffeli

The minty cousin of the above. Once again, there's a layer of plain truffle and a separate layer of jelly. Yes, mint jelly. This might be acceptable on roast lamb, but it ruins an otherwise enjoyable truffle bar. I didn't even manage to Finnish this one. Ho ho.

F. Fazer Karl Fazer (Maya)

Milk chocolate with corn flakes (5%) and chili.

Oh dear, how did this get out of the lab? If the Finns were clamouring for a new chocolate sensation, they got it in spades. The wrapper depicts a Mayan idol, a red chilli pepper, and — inexplicably — two bees oh, they are stalks of corn. The chocolate, made crunchy by finely ground corn flakes, is unusually hard and requires a determined bite. And, wow, the chilli is definitely there: this bar is surprisingly fiery and leaves a slight burning in the throat. One star for unremarkable chocolate, bumped up to two by the insane genius of the ingredients.

G. Fazer Karl Fazer (Apple-Vanilla Yoghurt)

Milk chocolate filled with apple-vanilla yoghurt (40%).

I'd never heard of apple yogurt before, but after Maya this flavour was positively normal. The wrapper actually says "Karl Fazer filled with Apple-Vanilla Yoghurt", which would be a superb newspaper headline if the chocolate mogul was found mysteriously dead with fermented milk product leaking from— Anyway, the "yogurt" here is the solid variety sometimes used as a flapjack topping, but it's too sweet, occasionally gritty, and almost completely devoid of flavour. Blech. I think I just ate solid nothing with sugar on it.

H. Fazer Jim

Fruit flavoured foam (69%) coated with dark chocolate.

Jim, eh? What a hearty, wholesome name. Unfortunately, the name doesn't fit. The fruity foam really is foam (or skum in the Swedish ingredients list) and tries to spring back into shape as you chew it, while the thin coating of dark chocolate splinters and crumbles at every bite. I couldn't identify the fruit flavour — another turn-off — but I was vaguely reminded of Jelly Babies. This was the smallest of the bars, and I was A-okay with that.

I. Leaf Tupla White

White chocolate and hazelnut (9%) with cocoa nougat filling (60%).

The wrapper asks Miksi tyytyä yhteen? (I don't know, I've never yhted) and also boasts Goes Unlimited, which might mean that this white version is no longer a limited edition. What a strange bar it is, though: soft, chewy nougat surrounded by white chocolate speckled with hazelnut fragments. The closest British analogue is probably Mars (whose wrapper is extraordinarily similar) but there's something of the white Magnum ice-cream about it, too. It's not as sweet as Mars, and that can only be a good thing.

J. Leaf Maxi Tupla

Milk chocolate and almond (5%) with cocoa nougat filling (60%).

Once again, the nut-studded chocolate coating gives the impression that Tupla really wanted to be an ice-cream bar (perhaps a Feast in this case) but got lost on the way. I'm not usually a fan of almonds, but this is very good indeed: chocolatey all the way through, and al dente in the centre. It is a solid, filling bar that means business. By the way, Finnish for cocoa nougat filling is kaakaonougattäytteellä. Spaces and hyphens were banned during the German occupation.

K. Leaf Royal

This is samettinen pähkinäsuklaa, or what we'd call something-something chocolate in English. The wonderful smell of vanilla made me reluctant to eat it. You know, I could have just kept it by my bedside and periodically smelled it. Well, anyway, the chocolate contains small fragments of hazelnut and is divided into stingy narrow blocks that make it look like a radiator. Perhaps a shade too sweet for some palates, but definitely a winner.

L. Fazer Geisha

Milk chocolate with soft hazelnut filling.

Hmm. Mmm. These are like Rolos in shape and texture, but they're filled with hazelnut praline. In the immortal words of Roy Walker, "it's good but it's not right" — the reason being that the filling, while as nutty as anyone could desire, is rather too bitter. Great concept, though.

M. Namelli Maito

Maito means milk, and these round pills are pure milk chocolate. I don't think I've seen chocolate on its own in this form before: usually, the things you get in tubes are either soft-centred (Rolos, Munchies) or not chocolate at all (Softmints, Starburst). Well, it's decent chocolate, anyway.

N. Fazer Fazerina

Milk chocolate with orange flavoured truffle filling.

This one looks ever so fancy with its glossy stay-fresh wrapper, releasing a nice smell of orange oil when opened. The bar doesn't disappoint, either: its shape and texture are almost the same as the two Karl Fazer bars, but this time each block has soft orangey truffle inside. Comparable to a Terry's Chocolate Orange that spent too long on a sun-kissed windowsill.

O. Fazer Dumle Snacks

Milk chocolate with rice crispies (6%) and foamed caramel filling (50%).

Uh oh — again with the foam, and the whimsical clownishness of the wrapper doesn't bode well. Despite the plural name, Dumle Snacks is a single chocolate bar with a strange, sweetish, buttery smell. The caramel has a faintly bitter aftertaste and a thick, gloopy texture that can't quite be saved by the presence of rice crispies. Nice try, but needs work.

P. Marabou Smil Mintchoko

No English on the wrapper, but it does mention "Kraft Foods Nordic", so I wonder whether you can get these by another name in North America. Again, they're practically identical to Rolos, but loaded with a strong peppermint flavour that's more reminiscent of Poppets. Not bad.

Q. Fazer Susu (Double Pack)

Milk chocolate with rice crisp 7% and caramel filling 48%.

Looks like a Cadbury's Picnic (i.e. irregular and lumpy on top) but tastes more like a Twix. However, there is no biscuit base here: rather, there are rice crispies. Those Finns sure love their crispies! They go very well with the sweet-but-not-sickly caramel. Actually, this is just Dumle Snacks done properly.

R. Brunberg Riisi Patukka

There's no English anywhere on this garish flesh-coloured wrapper (except, oddly enough, "since 1871" in the manufacturer's logo), but the name means rice bar. The pleasingly irregular chocolatey slab weighs almost nothing and smells overpoweringly sweet. On the inside, the chocolate — which, at odds with the sweet smell, is darkish and bitter — mingles with bleached rice crispies that taste like bland popcorn. An interesting failure.