Friday 17th April 2020
After finishing my work for the day I decided all my hard graft had earned me a Crunchie – or a Crunchie fragment to be more precise. We had bought a multipack of them recently and to actually have the same amount of Crunchie as I remember having in a bar as a kid you would probably need to eat at least two thirds of the whole pack. Anyway, as I savoured the chocolatey morsel I noticed that it said ‘Do not refrigerate’ on the side of the packet. If it hadn’t have been so microscopic I probably would’ve choked on it… Do not refrigerate?! Why?! I had just taken the Crunchie out of the fridge where it had been nestled among various chocolate treats because surely any self-respecting chocolate lover keeps their chocolate in the fridge, right? I knew all about chocolate bloom – the white bits that can form on chocolate when it gets too hot, caused by fat of sugar content – and I think this also sometimes happens when chocolate is removed from the fridge… maybe it changes the taste a bit? But to have such a blunt instruction – Do not refrigerate – I found somewhat alarming. After a little bit of research I was relieved to find that chilling is only supposed to change the flavour of chocolate slightly – something to do with chilled chocolate aborbing other odours apparently – so it wasn’t going to do me any lasting harm. Phew!! (I have been storing chocolate in the fridge for years, so I suppose any ill effects would have presented themselves by now.) But why such a harsh comment on the wrapper? Did chilling a Crunchie really change the flavour so much that Cadbury needed to give you printed warning against it?! We obviously needed to find out. Fast forward three hours and and we had;
SAMPLE A: Room temperature Crunchie
SAMPLE B: Previously chilled, room temperature Crunchie
SAMPLE C: Chilled Crunchie
I knew which was which (because someone had to put them on the plates with the little labels), but jef and warp-girl were taste testing blind to remove bias. warp-boy also participated, but as he only talks in dinosaur roars his responses were not recoreded. To my surprise, the results were unanimous. Sample A: Room temperature Crunchie won hands down. Who knew!? Don’t get me wrong, I really quite enjoy a chilled Crunchie, but when tasted side by side with an unchilled one the difference was obvious. The flavours were much stronger in bar A and the honeycomb had a much better texture. As an after thought, we froze a forth Crunchie and tried it straight of the freezer. It barely had any flavour and was ridiculously brittle. The worst of the lot. Well…what could I say! Thank you Cadbury for your bold warning. My Crunchies will forever more be stored in a temperate cupboard.