Indian chocolates

[Monica Bhide]

Ever since I was a kid I have had a soft spot for Five Star.. (hint to those in India). I also love Cadburys...

are there new ones in the market today that are good? tell me about them

which ones are your favorite

do share.. inquiring minds want to know

[tryska]

cadburys and dots is it? (the m&m type candies?)

i also used to love this sweet called lacto-bonbon. does that still exist?

[gingerly]

something for everyonehttp://www.cadburyindia.com/

(click on the frolicking wench for an extra treat)

looks like parry's has been gobbled up by lotte-http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/751963.cms

i think they made the lacto bon bons or was it parle?-some variations http://www.nutrinesweets.com/

i love five star and dairy milk in the giant bars.anyone remember double decker in india?i can't understand why it vanished.

and if anyone sees those large ,flattened sweets with a whole cashewnut embedded in it-i want details!

[deliad]

cadburys and dots is it? (the m&m type candies?)

i also used to love this sweet called lacto-bonbon. does that still exist?

Those M&M type candies are called Gems and Gems they really are...

[worm@work]

Five Star was always my favorite and I loved double decker as a kid too. A friend of mine recently got me a box full of five stars from India but it was a bit disappointing. They;re no longer chubby like they used to be but have gotten smaller and slimmer and dont look quite as sumptuous and chewy as they used to look. I felt the taste wasnt the same either but maybe I'm just being one of those people who keep cribbing about how things were better in em 'good old days' :)?

I think cadburys made the most amazing milk chocolate (*sigh* how I love dairy milk) and I have very fond memories of the fruit and nut bars as well. I still end up buying a lot of cadburys chocolates from this one store that specializes in British foodstuff.

But the one form of chocolate I miss above all else is NUTTIES. I dont know what it was about them but for me, they were just magic. I had an uncle who would always remember to bring one of those flat, square tins of nutties on every visit. Needless to say, he very quickly earned the title of being my favorite uncle too :).

-w@w

[Milagai]

i also loved fruit and nut, and nutties, better than 5*

though i would happily settle for the latter if needed :)

right now kit-kats seem to be flooding the market and i like

those too.

i am hooked on britannia biscuits (elaichi, and pineapple+coconut stuffing

especially).

monica, i did remember your fondness for nilgiri chocolates

while in nilgiri's. but rs 70 a tiny box i couldn't...

even translated to $ :)

i britannia'd instead, much more reasonable prices.

milagai

[Monica Bhide]

Rs 70 a box? Are you kidding me.. they were a LOT cheaper when I was there.. not more than 20 i think.. Wow things have changed in Blore

[gingerly]

nutties yes but i loved the tins of caramels with a passion!and yes they don't taste the same anymore... why in My day.....drone ..blah..

[Swati]

My personal faves

Amul - Bitter and Amul - Orange (heavenly taste)

and of course, Nutties.... Nutties used to be a panacea for everything, even a visit to the Doctor

[Swati]

My personal faves

Amul - Bitter and Amul - Orange (heavenly taste)

and of course, Nutties.... Nutties used to be a panacea for everything, even a visit to the Doctor

[gingerly]

does anyone remember dr.writers?(they made cocoa too)who did that?

edit:

Dr. Writer's Chocolate and Canning Co., Bombay (Maharashtra)

not much.

Edited July 27, 2004 by gingerly (log)

[Monica Bhide]

cadburys and dots is it?  (the m&m type candies?)

i also used to love this sweet called lacto-bonbon.  does that still exist?

Those M&M type candies are called Gems and Gems they really are...

My dad used to add them to my birthday cakes when I was a kid. My son really likes them now..

[tryska]

like in the cake batter itself?

i've got one memory of eating gems at a circus my father took me to when i was really little. and promptly sicking everything up shortly after. it was a good time.

Edited August 4, 2004 by tryska (log)

[Monica Bhide]

like in the cake batter itself.

i've got one memory of eating gems at a circus my father took me to when i was really little. and promptly sicking everything up shortly after. it was a good time.

Nope - he had this big thing about baking the cake himself and then us kids decorate the cake with the gems. He is an engineer so we had to be precise -- it was always a hoot and a half!!

[tryska]

ahh....as frosting. i wounder what it would be like to make the usual pound cake recipe with gems in the batter?

[Monica Bhide]

ahh....as frosting. i wounder what it would be like to make the usual pound cake recipe with gems in the batter?

I bet you they would taste good in the batter too.

I am curious to know what some of the newer chocolates are -- my Dad got me one last time that had a curious orange flavor - cant say I cared for it much

Milagai - did you encounter anything new on this trip on the chocolate front?

Episure?

[Episure]

I was in the Nilgiri Hills - Ooty and Coonor, last week and came across the famous Ooty chocolates. There must have been at least a hundred shops stocking them and they were all similar than dissimilar. Almonds, Cashewnuts, Rum and raisins, Plain and Truffle were the common ones. I quite liked a version with mint cream center. All were priced at Rs. 400 to Rs. 450 a kg. . When I make them for myself it costs only Rs. 200 per kg.

Chocolates are to Ooty what Chikki is to Lonavala near Bombay. I wonder what would happen if Ooty started making Chikki and Lonavala did the same with Chocolates. An additional product line would do well for their economies.

I guess there is something about Hill stations that is conducive to consuming such goodies.

Edited August 10, 2004 by Episure (log)

[Vikram]

Its nice that everyone seems to like Indian chocolates so much, but I can't help wondering if nostalgia rather than taste is playing the major role here. I like Indian chocolates and god knows I've eaten my fair share of them - in my far off days in advertising I used to work on the Cadbury's account and 5 Star (their version of Mars) in particular and despite eating tons of them at that time - it was actually required in meetings - I still enjoy them.

But I would never suggest they are particularly good chocolates by international standards and I'm not talking the finest Belgian and Parisian creations, but just ordinary commercial chocs. They simply can't be as good because they're made for Indian retail conditions which are mostly non-air-conditioned, dumped in tin and glass containers in already hot and cramped shops, and with all the many threats of spoilage and pests.

There was in fact a major problem with pests that were alleged to have entered the chocolates last Diwali and in response Cadbury is now putting them out in supersealed packaging. What I'm talking about more is the climatic conditions which mean that the butterfat content has to be reduced and the sugar content increased to prevent the products becoming molten masses in most shops. It helps that Indians like sweeter chocolates - or have been conditioned to like them by being brought up on these chocolates.

So is this what people are longing for - the greater sugar content in the chocolates? Or the relative hardness and resistance to melting? Its possible I guess, but personally, given a choice between an imported Kit-Kat and an Indian one, I'd take the imported one (checking for expiry date, since there's an unfortunate trade in out of date stocks from other markets like Indonesia being dumped in India where consumers won't be able to read the expiry dates in Bahasa on the packaging).

Vikram

[Monica Bhide]

Vikram - I think you are correct in my case in the nostalgia part. I like the taste but I think it takes me back to another time more than the food itself... does that make sense? I dont long for Parisian chocolates the way i do for a five star bar! Its different somehow.

Now that i hear how they are made perhaps I will learn to love them from a distance

[gingerly]

association of course for the most part.continued eating indian chocs well after reading all about nickel and grime.heh!

since Episure has taken things off road by bringing up ooty chocolates(king star was the place to go way back and they made super stick jaw too),i'm adding milk lollies from kalimpong,kwalitys toffees from dhera dun,barley sugar twists from calcutta..

i have battle scars from my dealings with these

[Episure]

association of course for the most part.continued eating indian chocs well after reading all about nickel and grime.heh!

since Episure has taken things off road by bringing up ooty chocolates(king star was the place to go way back and they made super stick jaw too),

Few people may know about this but in Ooty, King Star is the first and largest maker of Chocolates and supplies to almost all the other outlets there.

There is a new kid on the chocolate block, he must be 25 years old only. He is the young son of a shopowner there - Modern stores. I had a long coversation with him about conching, blending raw stock, temperature control and generally spurred him into taking a further look into the science of chocolate making. He is now keen enough to take a course abroad and further his skills. One institute that comes to my mind is Barry Callebaut in Singapore. You all have any other ideas?

Gingerly, please use your unpatented world's best spider to ferret out info, sic em!

Gingerly

i'm adding milk lollies from kalimpong,kwalitys toffees from dhera dun,barley sugar twists from calcutta..

i have battle scars from my dealings with these

You've been around quite a lot, havent you.

[Shiewie]

Do they have Kandos chocolates in India?

We used to have Kandos chocolates here in Malaysia and I remember reading that it was an Indian brand. Besides from Candbury and Van Houten, I think most Malaysians children in the 70s and 80s would have grown up eating Kandos Crispy and Kiddies.

[Vikram]

We used to have Kandos chocolates here in Malaysia and I remember reading that it was an Indian brand.

I think Kandos was Sri Lankan, not Indian. I remember eating them too - not bad, slightly superior mouth quality to the Indian chocolates, though not on par with chocs from Europe.

Vikram

[Episure]

Kandos isMalaysian.

Their products are available in many countries though I have not seen them in India for a long time now.

The other Malaysian company is Selbourne which makes Raw stock and finds it way into many home made chocolates in India, well Mumbai at least. It has a nickel-y taste that Gingerly mentioned which none of the chocolate ladies admit.

Amul has recently introduced Cooking chocolate in two versions at a very reasonable price and it's taste is excellent even if I were to disregard it's infrequent (visually only) problem with 'bloom'. The same happens to After Eights in India due to the weather.

My advice to any chocolate freak is to buy an Amul ingot at Rs. 100 per 500g. stock it in your freezer and let it call you.

Edited August 11, 2004 by Episure (log)

[Shiewie]

Thanks for the pointers - now remember it. Kandos is (but you hardly see it around anymore) manufactured in Malaysia by a company that was previously called Upali (guess it has since changed its name) and it was started by a Sri Lankan.