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Now here’s a range of chocolate bars that I still think of as being luxury ones, but only because back when I was a kid they were aimed at adults and so always seemed somewhat more exclusive than other bars. They always seemed to be tucked away at the back of the newsagent sweet shelves, next to the Bournville and Old Jamaica chocolate bars, which were also not really deemed for kids.
The range consisted of a curved segmented bar of chocolate, with each segment containing a dollop of flavoured fondant within. The type of chocolate used varied between milk and plain varieties, whichever was deemed to go best with the flavour of fondant. However, it’s recommended that you don’t scoff them too quickly, as they can be a bit sickly.
The first variety was the Fry’s Chocolate Cream. Personally I was never that fond of this particular one, as the fondant centre didn’t have a great taste in my opinion. However, I’m obviously in the minority as it will probably surprise you to learn that this chocolate bar could have been enjoyed by a Child of the 1880’s, as it was originally launched in 1866!
Next there were the Peppermint Cream and Orange Cream varieties. These were both much nicer and whilst they can be a little difficult to track down both of these flavours, and the Chocolate Cream, are still available. The Chocolate and Peppermint versions are usually easiest to find (I’ve personally seen both recently) but I don’t remember the last time I saw the Orange variety in a shop. However, if you follow the links on the flavours you can find somewhere to buy them on the Interwebs…
However, the Fry’s Cream story doesn’t quite end there. It’s sadly no longer available, but the Fry’s Five Centres bar, whilst it might have a different name, was so similar in style that it is considered part of the Cream range. As it’s name suggests, instead of having a single flavour of fondant it had five, which were strawberry, orange, raspberry, lime and pineapple. Yum!
Also, and whilst I can find nothing to back this up, looking at the flavour list from the Five Centres makes me think there may also have been single flavour varieties of the Cream bars in Strawberry and Pineapple – I have a very dim and distant recollection of bars in these flavours, though I could of course be wrong.
My grandmother got me into these, as they were her favourite. I really miss that Five Centres version! I seem to recall they were all strikingly different colours.
It’s scary to think that these chocolate bars were probably all well established when your grandmother was a child too! You can’t really imagine somebody popping to the shops for a chocolate bar in the late 1800s, can you?
The peppermint ones have long been my favourites. Nom!
I remember the multi-centre version too…probably wouldn’t be the same nowadays anyway, as they probably outlawed the e’s used in the colouring!
My favourite was and still is the peppermint cream, I would tolerate the five centres but only just. Still available I think.
I liked the way the dark chocolate had a glossy look to it that made the product seem more luxurious somehow.
I bought at sweet hamper from http://www.britishcandy.com a while ago, that had sweets like lovehearts, flying saucers and parmaviolets