A few months ago, I attended the wedding of my wife’s best friend. She and her husband live deep in the mountains of Pennsylvania and are part of an awesome hipster collective populated by various actors, artists, and miscreants. It was a fun time and will probably remain the only wedding I will attend in which references to Star Wars, zombies, and Fight Club were all made during the ceremony. Yea. The ceremony.
And they had donuts instead of a cake. I know!
They recently sent me this Cadbury Flake. I bet even their mailman has an ironic moustache.
Legend has it, and by legend I mean a Wikipedia article referencing a Cadbury website page that no longer exists, that the Flake was created in the 1920s when an employee noticed that when the excess chocolate from the molding process fell to whatever surface it fell to, the chocolate landed in this bizarre, wavy, flakey form you see before you.
As the Wikipedia link led nowhere, I just went to the Cadbury website and did a quick search for “Flake” using their stupidly corporate search function. The search query yielded eight results, three of which were links that led back to the home page, and none of which led directly to a page about Cadbury Flake.
When I finally tracked down the Flake page (Home Page > Our Products > Today (WTF?) > Bars > Cadbury Flake), I was treated to lots of helpful information about the bar and its history, and I walked away much more knowledgeable about the product.
Or I was given a 38-word paragraph about the Flake making process being a “closely guarded secret” that “no other chocolate manufacturer has ever managed to recreate” along with a picture that was measured less than 3 inches across.
When I finished punching my monitor repeatedly and replacing it with one from my backup monitor bin, I got to work on this review.
Cadbury Flake is milk chocolate poured out in thin ribbons, and then through some arcane act of wizardry, is folded back on itself. Somewhere during this process the bar takes on an unusual structure that is very crumbly and indeed flakey.
The chocolate is good. It’s Cadbury milk chocolate. You’ve had it. Though with the flakiness, it did seem just a tad dry. I guess you’ve got to make some tradeoffs when you’re dealing with such high level secrets.
The crumbling phenomenon is interesting. I’ve never had a chocolate bar that has behaved in such a way. When you bite, the chocolate collapses all over the bottom of you mouth, coating it in tiny flakes.
Another place the chocolate collapses to? EVERYWHERE ELSE!
I don’t know how you feel about candy bars, but when I decide to have a Snickers or a Twix, I’m not doing it while relaxing on a chaise lounge with an array of bibs, napkins, plates, and vacuums at my disposal. I’m usually eating them on the go or in the car, or occasionally as I’m paying for them at the gas station.
This Flake bar is by no means a mobile confection. It gets all over the place. I found myself eating it over the sink while assuming the Philly Cheesesteak Position: wide stance, butt out, and with a 45-degree forward lean. Had I been eating this as part of my usual home snacking routine, I’d still be picking chocolate shards out of my ample and luxurious chest hair.
I like this bar. It’s tasty and worth the texture experience, but it is a smudgy workplace disaster waiting to happen. I’d recommend going at it outdoors on a non-windy day while wearing dark colors. And if you can’t be bothered with all that, Just let it melt a little in your car. Then you can laugh at it, feeling all-powerful, having just taken away its only reason for being.
Sometimes you just feel like destroying something beautiful.
The Cadbury website is reason enough.
Food Junk 
This is was very funny review. If you don’t win that Best Food Humor Blog award, I’m going to shoot that Tupac hologram with a holographic gun.
I would advise against that. You don’t want holographic Nate Dogg coming after you.
Hey, if you are interested in this kind of thing, there is a history of chocolate written by one of the Cadbury descendants. It has a lot of details about chocolate prices in the 18th century but it also has a lot of details about Cadbury bars. Here’s the link to the book on Amazon:
I might pick that up, thanks
Try eating it in the bath!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMwMKJhaf7A
In the UK, Cadbury’s produce small, unwrapped flake bars which are then stuck into ice cream cones and called 99’s. Ala this… http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Flake#_
Great blog, by the way.
I want one of those! And thanks.
I was going to comment about 99’s but you beat me to it! They are by far the best way to eat a flake. it majorly helps with the crumb situation too.
that ice cream cone thing looks great! in general i’m not a huge fan of these flake bars – although the ‘minis’ are better in that they can be popped in your mouth! of all the ‘crumbly’ chocolate, violet crumble is my favorite.
Great review enough to warrent me having to read it outloud to my colleague who was wondering what i was chortling at. In the same crumbly messy vein is the Carbury’s Twirl, slightly smaller but very good
Haha thanks! Don’t know if I’ve ever had a read aloud before!
so are we going to be in for some more british chocolate reviews!? they’re all so good and so much more exciting than most of the ones over here.
Terry’s chocolate oranges just released “segsations”, boxes of individually wrapped chocolate orange segments with varying flavours…one of them has pop rocks in it
I will be looking into this!
Your problem is that you only ate one.
It takes persistence, experimentaion and repeated failures to perfect a crumb-free technique; my figure was testament to my dedication in this field…
BTW Us Brits also have “Galaxy Ripple” for the less patient, which is a slightly creamier chocolate flake, dipped in chocolate, which does tend to reduce the shatterage.
I want to eat that just because it’s called Galaxy Ripple
Hahaha, practice makes perfect
Man, I used to eat these when I was in London and in Namibia. I hate that an American food company bought Cadbury and closed the English factory. (That is so suckish. {I like that word-I just made up; must make note of it}). Anyway, found this cool looking Korean confectionery company called HAITAI. You might want to give some of these foods a whirl, if you can find them.
http://eng.ht.co.kr/product/product_list.asp?pcode1=1&pcode2=4
Have fun at the Pie festival. I live four hours away from Celebration. If I have to drive that far, forget the pie-I’m going to see the Mouse!
I remember these from my study abroad days in London, if little else. Silly beer. Anyway, they are usually served stuck into ice cream cones which conveniently catch the falling flakes. Brilliant.
Oh, another thing I remember is Aero bars, chocolate with the scientific addition of air bubbles. Less chocolate for the price? Or the best thing since Dippin’ Dots? You must try!
You don’t have Aeros in North America?
Not even the mint ones?
That’s harsh!
They are around, but quite pricey. Too fancy for the gas station candy varieties.
Nope. They can be found, but are super pricey. They are not the gas station candy isle fare.
I love Flake! After years of getting chocolate stains on the sofa or in the folds of my jeans, i’ve sorta found my flake-eating-technic… twist open the end of the wrapper and carefully pull it apart, don’t open it all the way. Place the Flake in the palm of your hand with the seamside up and hold it with your finger and thumb in place. Now direct the Flake to your mouth and position the open wrapper end under your bottom lip, take a careful bite. With you other hand guide the remaining flake towards your mouth. Optional for extra measure (especially if you’ve got a white carpet) you can use your other hand under your chin to catch any escaping crumbs. Since it looks really stuipd with your face burried in the wrapper, i would’nt advice using this technic in public/company. And don’t breath out or in too deeply 😉
Congrats on the “Best Food Humor Blog” nomination!
And for goodness sakes don’t sneeze!
Thanks! And that technique description made my day. You are awesome!