Cereal #1 - Chocolatey Squares

Whoever invented the concept of chocolatey squares deserves a medal.
There are however so many varieties, do I go for well branded 'Krave' which is costly, or is there better choice in cheaper alternatives. Who has the time and effort to find out? Well, I have nothing better to do, so why not.
Through this I'm going to sample and review a variety of chocolatey squares and come up with the best option.

So let's dig in.

Cereal # 1
The first chocolatey squares I have acquired is Asda ''Chosen by you'' Choco Squares (see figure 1). The name sort of implies they must be good, as they were chosen by you, the well knowing public, so I was quite excited to open the box.

Figure 1: How can you refuse an offer from a cereal bear

Now first a few details:

• Asda choco squares were marked at the time of purchase (02/01/14) at 97 pence! Which when compared to a leading brand of choco squares (Krave) at £2.78, is a massive saving. So do we sacrifice taste and substance for a sub-pound cereal?

• The next detail I'd like to introduce is the concept of what I call the Milk Absorption Ratio (MAR) illustrated in figure 2. This is a number between 0 and 1 and is calculated in the following way:
• Add known mass / volume of milk to cereal.
• Wait 30seconds.
• Pass milk cereal complex through a sieve.
• Measure mass of milk remaining.
• Re-add milk to cereal.
• Enjoy cereal.

Figure 2: "I know of only one way to eat cereal, with science'':- Abraham Lincoln

Quite a simple calculation that will tell us how much milk is absorbed into the cereal, giving us a way of quantifying how soggy a cereal can be. There are other things I'm working on, notably a spectroscopic technique to measure colour change of milk post cereal consumption to determine how flavoursome leftover milk will be.

Right, back to the cereal.

First off, the calculated MAR was 0.12, so my guess in advance would be a fairly dry cereal. An initial taste with no milk produced quite a crumbly, powdery substance in my mouth, with little taste of chocolate, the dryness suppressed the senses, and with a MAR of merely 0.12, I thought little would change upon addition of semi-skimmed bovine lactate emulsion.

I was wrong, the choco-squares were surprisingly tasty, the 'pillow' was quite thick and managed to absorb some milk round the outer shell, that couldn't quite diffuse all the way through. The result of this gave a soft chewable exterior, but still a distinct satisfying crunch towards the middle. 

But what of the chocolate.

The thickness of the pillow left little room for much of a chocolatey core, and what chocolate was present didn't possess the soft consistency of Nutella or the inside bit of a Ferrero Rocher one would hope. Despite this, there was enough chocolate to satisfy my taste-buds giving occasions of a sweet almost almond flavour. 

So as time is fleeting i'll get to the final numerical review, which is measured out of 10 as my satisfaction with the variables labelled.

Price: 9/10 - I was overjoyed to see a sub-pound chocolatey square cereal 

Dryness:  6/10 - Cereal gave a satisfying crunchy texture, but was not too dry, nor too soggy.

Flavour: 5/10 -  quite sweet, although not in a chocolatey sense, I'm a bit suspicious of the no artificial flavourings remark, but hey ho.

Overall   6/10

Good job Asda, or should I say the public for choosing it.