Following on from my review of the Hershey's Symphony bar, I also found this Nestlé Baby Ruth at B&M Bargains. It's a bar I've never tried before as I generally avoid most American snacks...the inclusion of ingredients like "high fructose corn syrup" and such usually has me running for the hills! But for once I thought I would give one a try if only to prove myself wrong.
Baby Ruth is described as "Bursting with peanuts, rich caramel and chewy nougat" which sounded like a tasty and unique combination. We don't get many peanut butter products in the UK so I was pretty excited. Sadly, like many US candies it was a bit of a letdown. Firstly the chocolate isn't even real chocolate...it's "compound" chocolate, meaning that it's a mixture of sugar, cocoa and vegetable fat. This was evident in the taste - I couldn't taste any real chocolate influences at all. The main bulk of the bar was a slightly buttery flavoured chewy mass of peanuts. There was no real defining flavour; it was all very weak and tasted of just sugar and peanuts. It was pleasant enough if only because of the nuts, but the caramel was anything but "rich".
Overall, I found this Baby Ruth bar disappointing, but I'm not really surprised. Like many US candies it's mostly a mix of sugar, corn syrup and vegetable fat in varying proportions, which seems to be a continuing trend. It's even happening with mainstream UK chocolates now, although thankfully corn syrup hasn't started to infiltrate our products...yet. My apologies for being so negative with this review but it's something that really annoys me!
Found at B&M Bargains for 59p.