kandia dark chocolate lime cream
The Kandia name is almost 100 years old. In 1890, a chocolate factory opened in Timisoara. 27 years later, the factory was given the name Kandia (see the old Kandia logo). In 2004, the factory was bought by another Romanian chocolate producer, Excelent from Bucharest (see the old Excelent logo/ the new Kandia Excelent logo). The headquarters of the newly formed company was moved to Bucharest. Shortly after, the factory in Timisoara was closed and Ambasador (the wide and probably best known chocolate range from Kandia was discontinued. I did get to try about twenty Ambasador chocolates before that happened). Kandia-Excelent was then bought by the Julius Meinl Group. But the Kandia name stayed. During the next three years, Kandia-Excelent launched a lot of chocolate bars under the Kandia label. Kandia had a diversified basic range during that time (see another collage). And there were even more bars in the basic range - I distinctly remember there were three biscuit bars, more than one plain dark bar, there was also another filled dark bar, there were fruit cream bars... In addition to that, they also had a premium range called Kandia Moments, a range of small bars, a range of boxed chocolates plus quite a few special editions like the Kandia Ice-Cooling Special Edition (a summer edition which returned for a second summer in slightly different wrappers and which I am now sorry I never tried... because back then, I wouldn't touch white chocolate), the Kandia Yogurt or the Kandia White Chocolate Yoghurt Cream Special Edition.
In July 2007, Kandia-Excelent (Kandia and everything else belonging to Kandia-Excelent: ROM, Laura, Magura, Fagaras, Papi, Silvana, Sugus and Vis) was bought by Cadbury. The rebranding process meant not only that the chocolate bars and the wrappers were redesigned (though oddly, the Cadbury name only appeared in small print on the back), but also that most of the chocolates disappeared from the market. Kandia now meant only ten chocolate bars (picture of first five chocolate bars; picture of the other five chocolate bars) and a few chocolate boxes. There was some talk about whether Cadbury chocolate would start being produced in Romania. Well, I only saw (and tried, of course!) Curly Wurly and Chomp... and I thought they were horrible. Then, a little more than a year ago, Kraft bought Cadbury. And, since Kraft were already big in Poland and Romania (here, they already owned three of the biggest chocolate makers on the market - Milka, Poiana and Africana), they were forced by European competition laws to sell the factories owned by Cadbury in these countries. As a result, Kandia-Excelent was bought back by Julius Meinl.
This year, the wrappers were redesigned (they main color was changed from white to brown) and six new Kandia bars came out. First a Dark Chocolate Raspberry Cream bar (Romanian original: Ciocolata amaruie crema zmeura; that was probably the worst raspberry cream I have ever tried... such a pity, I actually like Kandia's dark chocolate) and a Dark Chocolate Hazelnut Cream bar (Romanian original: Ciocolata amaruie arema alune; which wasn't great either, but it was a lot better than the raspberry bar). And in the past few weeks, four more have appeared in stores: a Milk Chocolate Caramel Cream bar (Romanian original: Ciocolata cu lapte crema caramel; which I have tried, the caramel is horribly sweet and I'm not crazy about the milk chocolate either; and I don't know what's the difference between this bar and the old caramel bar... excepting the look of the wrapper), a Milk Chocolate Coffee Cream one (Romanian original: Ciocolata cu lapte crema cafea; which I haven't tried and I don't think I will), a Milk Chocolate Strawberry Cream bar (Romanian original: Ciocolata cu lapte crema capsuna; which I intend to try) and...
... a Dark Chocolate Lime Cream (Romanian original: Ciocolata amaruie crema lamaie verde). When I was little, there were some dark chocolates with lemon cream that I used to love. In the spring of 2008, Poiana (owned by Kraft) put out a dark chocolate bar with lemon cream - I instantly fell in love with it. A lot of people don't like it because they say it reminds them some old dark lemon cream bars (the very reason why I like it). But this was only my second chocolate with lime cream (the first one was a bar from Lindt a few years ago).
The 100g bar is divided into ten squares. Five of them have the Kandia logo on top, while on top of the other five one can read "iubire" (love), "emotie" (emotion), "tandrete" (tenderness), "bucurie" (joy), "sinceritate" (sincerity). As I've said before, I think Kandia's dark chocolate is rather nice. The filling is a fondant. I'm not a fan of fondant fillings, but somehow I liked this one.
Ingredients:
» Dark Chocolate cocoa solids 55% minimum (65%): cocoa mass, sugar, pure cocoa butter, emulgsifier (soya lecithin), flavouring.
» Lemon Cream (35%): sugar, hydrogenated vegetable fat, skimmed milk powder, whey powder, lemon powder (0.3%), emulsifier (soya lecithin), natural flavouring, colour (curcumin).
Storage: in a cool dry place.
Nutritional info per 100g of product: energy 560kcal, protein 5.9g, fat 34.5g (saturated 16.2g), carbohydrates 56.4g (sugars 47.3g), fibre 5.6g, sodium 0.04g.
Price: 2.98 lei; that's the equivalent of €0.7/ ₤0.6/ $0.95;
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