Kasztanki - popular pralines from Poland

For a change now I'll review something from my local market - Kasztanki, one of my favorite Polish pralines.
The name means small chestnuts, but I have no idea why. They don't look much like real chestnuts, neither taste like them.

Kasztanki are coated with dark chocolate and have crispy cocoa-flavored stuffing with crushed wafers. They were introduced during communism by Wawel, one of the oldest Polish confectionery plant. Kasztanki quickly became very popular and they still maintain their popularity. I recommend buying a box of Kasztanki as a souvenir from your visit in Poland.

Wawel also makes a chocolate bar called Złoty Kasztanek (golden chestnut) that has similar taste to Kasztanki pralines. Personally, I prefer pralines because they contain more stuffing as compared to chocolate bar version.

Price (June 2012): around 12 PLN (3 EUR) for a 430g box

Marabou Apelsinkrokant

Here is another delicious tidbit we brought from Sweden. It's a milk chocolate with orange flavor and some crispy ingredients. On the packaging it states these are crisp cereals and almond caramel. The combination of ingredients is really tasty. It somehow reminds me the taste of brilliant Czech chocolate Studentska by Orion (which is worth another review, by the way), but maybe it's only because orange flavor.

I wish I'd brought more bars of Appelsinkrokant. Unfortunately I haven't discovered it's awesomeness before I unpackaged it back at home.
I've learned that IKEA used to sell Marabou chocolate, as well as other branded products from Sweden. Now they only sell IKEA-branded food. Next time I'm in IKEA I'll check if they have their version of Apelsinkrokant.

Marabou is the most successful Swedish chocolate brand with traditions in Sweden since 1916.The founder of Marabou was actually Finnish and already produced chocolate in Finland in late 18th century, under a different brand. From what I can understand from Marabou website they were producing Apelsinkrokant chocolate at least since 70s.

Price (June 2012): 32 SEK on airport for a 250g bar

Delicious green bars from Sweden

Let's start with cookies that became my favorite treat from Sweden. They are called "Punschrulle"  (eng. punsch bars) and you can easily spot them in a grocery store thanks to their characteristic brown-green-brown pattern.They are green bars dipped on both sides in chocolate with a  brown stuffing.

So how does it taste? They are very sweet with notable taste of marzipan, cocoa, oats and a rum flavor. At least that's how I perceived it :-) Then I made a quick Google search to learn more, and it revealed my two mistakes:

• First, I have to admit to my ignorance. What I described as rum flavor was actually punsch liquor, which is another Swedish specialty. Unfortunatelly I haven't tasted punsch, so I can't write much more about this beverage.

•  Oats doesn't seem to be mandatory, instead the stuffing should just contain crunched cookies. I don't know if it was just a coincidence, or those cookies should contain oats.. if any Swedish expert is reading this, please clarify with a comment :-)

Packaging: In grocery you can found Punschrulle made by couple different companies, but all seem to package 6 bars per box.
Price (Malmo, June 2012): Around 16-18 SEK per box. We've also spotted a special deal in COOP store: 2 boxes for 25 SEK.

Starting the blog

I've just came back from a short trip to Sweden few days ago and brought some Swedish sweets with me. While tasting those tidbits I've realized how much I like to try some local food whenever I'm traveling somewhere. Then I got the idea to launch this blog. The plan is to present here various snacks, cookies, dishes and sweets that are readily available and popular locally in some place, but hardly known outside.
I'm living in Poland and most my travel destinations are in Europe, so I'll be naturally focused on regional tidbits from Europe.