Bennetto Raspberry Dark Chocolate Mini Bars product reviews

I had to try these because they sounded so amazing. Dark chocolate and freeze dried raspberry bits was something I could imagine as tasting pretty good so I requested some. When I opened the box and found these inside I was stoked because I wanted to try a couple of things out.

Eating the first bar went as good as I expected. The chocolate was dark but not too bitter. Enough of that deep flavour to make me aware it wasnt packed with milk and sugar but not so dark that it was bitter and harsh like 70% choc is. The wrapper said this was about 60% so that was good enough for me. My only issue was that there just wasnt enough of it. I could easily have eaten both bars in one sitting and still wanted more but I wanted to try a few things out with the other bar.

Living out of a caravan stuck out in the wop wops on roadwork sites means I don't have access to all the appliances a normal house has. A small bench top oven and a small portable gas cooker are the closest I get to being able to cook stuff so making muffins in batches of 6 is about as far as I can go. I broke the second bar up into small chuncks and made up a batch of muffins. I have a basic recipe I use and add flavours as needed, so I tossed in a few spoons of cocoa powder to make them a bit chocolaty and jammed chucks of the second bar into the middle of each blop of batter.

Once they were all cooked, I let them cool for a bit while I headed out to town to grab some supplies. I got back about half an hour later and they were ready to eat. The muffin only had a light chocolate flavour because I didn't want to make them too strong, and the chuncks of this bar had melted in the middle and were just starting to solidify again. Perfect time to eat them. So I did. I cut two of them in half and popped them in a bowl with some vanilla ice cream on the side and got stuck in. It was easy to get the flavour of the chocolate and the raspberry bits added a really nice crunchy texture to the centre filling.

Would I buy more of these? Maybe. But it would have to be for a special reason because they are not as affordable as the ugly mass produced bars. If you want to support fair trade and eat better chocolate then get these bars.

Raspberries and chocolate are two of my favourite things so when I saw a yummy chocolate available for review in this exact combination I waited in anticipation to see if I was one of the ones lucky enough to try it which luckily I was and with me trying to eat healthier this was a very welcomed treat in my books.

With 2 beautifully presented mini bars of chocolate in my box of goodies I decided to eat one as is and put one aside for trialling out in a product. The chocolate on it's own was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G and so much better than I expected, I was thinking it was going to be chocolate which was flavoured with some sort of raspberry essence or oil, but instead I was treated to a rich and creamy dark chocolate which had lots of yummy, bright red freeze dried raspberry pieces throughout it. With the raspberries throughout this chocolate was packed with flavour a smooth dark chocolate with lots of fruity raspberry tones throughout which created the perfect combination, it was hard not to eat it all at once.

With one bar of chocolate remaining I decided to whip up some chocolate muffins which I topped with a dollop of cream and fresh raspberries, to top them off I cut the bar of chocolate into 8 pieces and added them to the whipped cream, this was the most welcomed addition to the muffins with my whole family loving it and asking for more to eat (which sadly there was no more of).

The packaging is beautiful and features a New Zealand bird on the front, the pastel pink background really makes this stand out and I love the addition of the little green leaves, seeds and cocoa beans that are on it. Even more beautifully presented however is the chocolate inside of the packaging which has prints of the cocoa bean which makes it very attractive. Each bar of chocolate has 4 small rectangular pieces, just the right amount for a serve.

Made in New Zealand and being fair trade and vegan free this is a product I am more than happy to buy again. It would make a great gift to add to any gift baskets or hampers especially with Christmas coming up, I will be buying again.

When chocolate products come up for review who can resist putting in their request to try some right?! I was stoked to have received some of this Bennetto dark chocolate in my latest review parcel and was excited to try. I did manage to resist trying it until I had decided what to make with it - otherwise I would have found it hard not to eat both bars as they were!

The packet is very vintage looking, and fits with the product being simple and natural. Looking at pictures online I can see that each flavour has its own colour which would make it easier to identify your favourite flavour when looking on the shelf of a supermarket or shop. The packet opened easily enough and inside was one chocolate bar that had 4 pieces carved into it. My partner and I shared the bar, so we had two pieces each. Upon taking my first bite I was first met with the flavour of the dark chocolate and then the flavour of the raspberries came through. They certainly turn what would be quite a bitter flavour into something zingy and amazing!

Having the challenge of making something with the product I didn't want to pick one of my usuals. Being a chocolate that is organic, fair trade, carbon neutral and created with simple ingredients I wanted to come up with a way of using it that was a little healthier than all of the options that first came to mind! Deciding to make some bliss balls for my snacks during the day I decided to try it in the bliss balls! A nice healthy treat with a little added extra special treat - what could go wrong?! My work is a nut free environment so I wanted to try and find a bliss ball recipe that didn't use nuts, and settled on one that was based on coconut and oats with some dates (and a few other ingredients). I mixed the bliss ball mix together as instructed and then prepared the chocolate. I cut one 30g bar into 8 pieces and began the rolling process. I began to form a ball with the mix in my hand and placed a piece of the chocolate in the middle. It did create quite big bliss balls so I probably could have made the chocolate go a little further by cutting it a little smaller. I waited for the bliss balls to set before trying. What an amazing lift it gave to the bliss ball recipe. I love oats and coconut just as they are, but to get the hit of dark chocolate and the amazing flavour of the freeze dried raspberries it certainly lifted the bliss balls. I think next time I would break it up and mix it through the mix rather than a big chunk in the middle, but have already been researching where in Dunedin I can get the chocolate from so I can make these again. By spreading the chocolate over 8-10 bliss balls I think this spreads the cost out a little more too, as at $3 per bar it does seem a bit steep for only 30g of chocolate.

I love chocolate and am definitely a fan of quality over quantity and this is what Bennetto Natural Foods delivers. Their bars are 30 grams which equates to 4 small rectangles of chocolate in each bar. The mini bars are beautifully presented in pink foil wrapper with cocoa beans, leaves and a bird wearing a blouse on the front! The chocolate itself is a rich dark colour and you can see the 4% of dried raspberries in each bar. Each mouthful delivers a slightly bitter taste followed by the crunchy sweetness of the raspberry. The flavours work really well together and at the end I was left with a few raspberry seeds to contend with.

My daughter had made some cupcakes and I thought I would spruce them up with some Raspberry Dark Chocolate on top. The chocolate melted easily and was easy to apply to the cupcakes. My eldest daughter is not a dark chocolate fan and when she saw them she was a little hesitant to try but was pleasantly surprised when she did. The raspberries in the chocolate really made a difference and transformed a simple, plain cupcake into a delicious, tasty morsel!

Although the cupcakes were delicious with the chocolate on top, I have to say I personally preferred the chocolate in it's simplest form. The mini bar is so rich and delicious it is a chocolate that you savour and enjoy rather than needlessly consume. Although 30 grams doesn't sound like much, the intense flavours mean that it is more than enough. I particularly liked that this is a Fairtrade Certified chocolate, the ingredients are organically grown and it's carbon neutral so I actually felt good about eating it! It is a little more expensive than your generic blocks of chocolate but if you are looking for a delicious, quality treat, then this is it!

I am a self-confessed chocoholic, although I tend to favour milk chocolate over dark chocolate. While browsing through the KIWIreviews website I came across a product to review that caught my attention instantly. The product was packaged in a mini bar form, and was wrapped in a light pink wrapper with a delightful looking bird on the front. Upon further inspection I saw that the product was a Dark Chocolate and Raspberry chocolate bar from the Bennetto Natural Foods Co. This sounded delicious so I requested to try some, and thankfully I was lucky enough to be chosen.

Once I received the product, the wrapper was even more visually appealing than in the photograph. I was impressed to see that this product is organic, Fair-Trade certified, and vegan, the 30g size would be perfect as a gift or to keep for a sugar hit. I opened the foil packet right up, and was surprised to see that there was a pretty pattern of leaves on the chocolate. I snapped the bar into 4 pieces and popped a piece into my mouth, the flavour of raspberry packed a punch that's for sure! Once I got used to the initial sharpness of the raspberry, I thought it complimented the 60% cocoa dark chocolate very well.
Looking at the chocolate once broken you can see the deep colour of the chocolate, and embedded throughout that is the vibrant colour of the dried raspberries. I found that I could not refrain from eating the whole bar in one sitting.

While making a batch of cupcakes I decided to roughly chop the chocolate and sprinkle over the top of some vanilla icing. Oh My Goodness!! The taste was amazing, with the contrast between the sweetness of the cupcake and icing, and the sharp bitterness of the dark chocolate with raspberries. Needless to say these cupcakes did not last long in this household. I would recommend this product to all people that enjoy a quality chocolate, it is just the right size to get a taste for the flavour, I hope in the future that the company will make this in a larger chocolate block.

60% cocoa containing chocolate and organic freeze-dried raspberry pieces. A very simple product. As far as the cocoa percentage goes, it is on the lower end of the 'dark' spectrum; this means that while it has a slight bitterness to it, there is still a large amount of sweetness to the flavour. If you have tried any of the ViBERi range of freeze-dried fruits, you would know that the freeze-dried fruits often maintain their shape, so the change in shape during the drying process occurs internally, creating an empty shell that crunches when you bite into it.

So together, we have a rich chocolate bar, that has a small amount of bitterness, filled with little zingy crunchy raspberry pieces full of intense fruity flavour. An overall rich and sweet experience. The bars themselves are quite thin, which is good as the dark chocolate can be overwhelming if there is too much in the mouth at once, so it allows better portion control.

A product that I very much enjoyed nibbling on, just taking small bites and rolling it around the mouth, spreading the rich flavours around, waiting for the intermittent intense bursts of raspberry.

I'm not one to really experiment with things, as I am a simple man. If it requires too many ingredients I don't bother making it, so my pantry is often very much empty as each ingredient is allocated to a specific meal. But I thought I would see how well the product worked with other sweet products. I chose to try it as a topping to the Puhoi Valley Divine Berries pot of yoghurt; a rich, plain yoghurt, with a blueberries and blackcurrant sauce on top. the bar grated very easily, and required a surprisingly small amount of chocolate to completely cover the top of the yoghurt. Combined with the berry sauce, the flavours were overpowering, but once I got through to the plain chocolate, it created a lovely flavour profile.

But I much prefer it as a chocolate bar. It doesn't need to be used for more than that. The strength of the flavour allows me to nibble on it slowly, instead of chowing down on the whole bar (which I have done in the past to an entire cashew Cadbury kingsize bar before). There is enough sweetness to combat the bitterness from the cocoa, and the size, while tiny, is more than suitable for a single serving.