100 Calorie Klondike Bars - Vanilla

 Ok, it wasn't very nice of me to try and make people guess what this was:

Having read the blog title, you now know that hiding inside that nondescript white plastic pouch is the baby brother of the regular Klondike bar - the Klondike 100 Calorie per bar ( formerly slim-a-bear ). I thought they came in a few flavors, but checking the website, Vanilla appears to be your only choice unless you want the sugar free Krunch version.

Unfortunately I don't have a regular Klondike bar to show the size difference, but it is considerable. I once said that a regular klondike bar is devoured in about 9 bites (3x3). Well, baby brother is much thinner and could easily be taken out in 4 bites (2x2).

Ok, I was having a little trouble writing this review ....so I decided to have another one (that's the third one this week). I'm a man of few words, so I think this past week has cost me at least a month's worth of talking. Thankfully, a frozen treat dislodged some thoughts from my memory and got me going again.

The 100cal version is about a half inch thick, and without doing a direct side by side comparison to a regular klondike, my overall feeling is that the ice cream to chocolate ratio has been thrown off. We all know that the Klondike shell has a unique flavor all to itself. Not just chocolate, but there is a little something mixed in, but a nice overall balance is struck between the shell and the ice cream inside. When you bite into this treat, it's the chocolate that is trying to be the major flavor. Klondike chocolate has always had this mild coffee/toffee/mocha vibe to it, but with less ice cream to balance it out, it seems to be more potent here ...or maybe it is just more potent in general. It's not awful or anything like that, but it's not what I was hoping for either. That vibe also permeates that aftertaste as I'm left with a funky chocolaty aftertaste rather than a typical and fairly balanced regular Klondike aftertaste.

It's not 100% obvious in the picture above, but the artificially flavored vanilla low fat ice cream is bright white, but when isn't faux vanilla bright white in any low cal treat? hmmmm, wonder why that is? Oh well, a "stimulating" debate for another day. I tried a chunk of the ice cream by itself. It has decent texture, but the flavor is, well, beyond mild. I know it was a small bite, but I had trouble detecting any hints of vanilla (though this could have been due in part to the residual chocolaty aftertaste).

One thing to keep in mind is that while the ice cream is low fat, the box explicitly states "Not a Low Fat Food. See Nutrition Information for Saturated Fat Content."(that's the writing at the bottom/center of the box there). Here in lies my final point. Klondike has managed to shave off some of the total fat content, but the saturated fat content is still fairly similar to a regular Klondike bar.

Now think about this: would you rather have this plain little 100 calorie version OR would you rather try to control yourself and crack a regular Klondike in half? The unique Klondike wrapping is specifically designed to allow you to have some of the treat and still be able to rewrap it and save some for later, so why not break one in half, attempt to eat it slowly, and save the rest for tomorrow? Ok, I'm not sure I could do it either, but at least you could enjoy the real thing.