McVitie's Penguin Original Chocolate Flavour Cream Filled Biscuit Bars, 7 Bars 172.2g
Split one and the design is obvious: two crisp layers with something soft between them, so every bite runs crisp, soft, crisp. That alternation is doing more work here than the flavour is. On taste alone there is a single note of sweet cocoa from first bite to last, with no salt, no bitterness and nothing sharp to interrupt it, which is sweetness with no corner anywhere in it. Anyone wanting complication should look further along the shelf; the scores here come from people who want exactly this and get it every time. Seven wrapped bars across 172.2g makes this a box bought for a household rather than for one person. Wheat flour is in the biscuit and there is milk in both the coating and the filling, so it is out for a dairy-free lunchbox. Keep it somewhere cool, because the filling softens well before the coating shows any sign of it.
McVitie's Penguin Original Chocolate Flavour Cream Filled Biscuit Bars, in brief.
McVitie's Penguin Original Chocolate Flavour Cream Filled Biscuit Bars is the seven-bar box of the fully coated chocolate biscuit bar with a joke on every wrapper, picked into the Teas.co.uk selection.
Seven bars at 24.6g, 172.2g in the box. Two thin biscuit layers, a sweet cocoa cream between them and full chocolate coverage outside, so it is very sweet, one bar is enough, and it is not a biscuit to dunk: the coating goes into the mug first.
Seven bars at 24.6g each makes 172.2g in the box, according to the published pack listing.
Curator notes: the tasting profile is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description. We run same-day UK dispatch on every order placed before 2pm Monday to Friday. Storage notes and packing guidance are also published in the detailed Q and A tab below.
Curator’s notes
Read the full write-up
The Story Behind The Pack
The wrapper joke is not a marketing afterthought. It is the reason a great many people can still picture the bar decades after they last ate one, and it is one of the very few pieces of packaging in a British biscuit aisle that people read on purpose. A chocolate-covered bar is otherwise a difficult thing to make memorable, because the format is crowded and the differences between brands are small. Printing something to read while you eat solved that problem in a way no recipe change could have.
The construction has a practical logic to it as well. Two thin biscuit layers with a soft cream between them and a full coating on the outside gives you a bar that is light for its size, sets firm in a cool room and stays sealed until it is opened, which is exactly what an individually wrapped lunchbox bar has to do. The trade-off is that it is a poor traveller in warm weather: full coverage means the whole surface is chocolate, and a bar left in a warm bag will fuse to its own wrapper. The ingredient panel, the nutrition table and the allergen statement are printed on the current UK pack. The tasting profile is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description.
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes.
Our Commitment To The Planet
- The pack that arrives is the current UK retail pack rather than an import made to a different recipe for another market.
- Individually wrapped bars waste less than a loose pack in a household that eats one at a time, because the six you have not opened are still sealed. In a household that eats three at once, the opposite is true.
Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference McVitie's Penguin Original Chocolate Flavour Cream Filled Biscuit Bars, 7 Bars 172.2g, please cite teas.co.uk.
The story behind McVitie's
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes.
Our commitment to the planet
Sourcing and packaging details are printed on the current UK pack; the brand page carries the fuller story.
The taste profile
How does it compare
A fully coated, very sweet bar needs a drink that can cut through it rather than join in. Strong black tea does that, and so does plain black coffee. What does not work is anything sweetened or anything weak, because the bar has already taken the sugar as far as it goes and a sweet drink turns the whole thing into pudding. The second rule is not to dunk: the coating is the first thing to go and it goes into the tea.
The Everyday Mug
The Lunchbox And Cold Milk Route
Made with this tea
The Strong Mug
How to make The Strong Mug with a Penguin Original bar.
- 1 Penguin bar
- 1 bag strong black tea
- 200ml water at a full boil
- A little milk
- Brew one bag in 200ml straight off the boil for three to four minutes. The cup needs to be strong enough to have an opinion.
- Go easy on the milk and skip the sugar entirely. Sweetening the cup turns the whole thing into pudding.
- Unwrap the bar and read the joke. That is not optional.
- Eat it beside the mug. Do not dunk; the coating will be in the bottom of the cup within a second.
The Cold Milk Serve
How to make The Cold Milk Serve with a Penguin Original bar.
- 1 Penguin bar
- A tall glass of cold milk
- Pour the milk straight from the fridge.
- Eat half the bar on its own and notice how sweet it is.
- Drink, then eat the second half. Fat and cold suppress sweetness, so the cocoa comes forward.
- Skip the tea entirely on a warm day. This is the better pairing and it always was.
What you'll end up with: The same bar tasting less sugary and more chocolatey, for the price of using a different glass.
Packing One Properly
How to pack a Penguin Original bar for a bag or a lunchbox.
- 1 wrapped bar
- A rigid tub or a side pocket
- A cool bag in summer, optional
- Put the bar in a rigid tub rather than loose, so nothing presses on the coating.
- Keep it away from the sunny side of the bag. A warm bar welds itself to the wrapper.
- Add an ice block in hot weather and put the bar next to it, not on top of it.
- Open it flat if it has warmed up, so the coating stays with the bar rather than the paper.
What you'll end up with: A bar that opens cleanly at lunchtime, which is the whole reason for buying wrapped ones.
The Fridge-Cold Bar
How to make The Fridge-Cold Bar with a Penguin Original.
- 1 Penguin bar
- 30 minutes in the fridge
- Black coffee, optional
- Chill the wrapped bar for half an hour. Not the freezer; that makes the biscuit dense and dull.
- Unwrap and eat it cold. The coating snaps instead of smearing and the sweetness drops noticeably.
- Pair it with a plain black coffee if you want the contrast sharper still.
- Note that a chilled bar sweats if you leave it out, so eat it soon after it comes out.
What you'll end up with: A coating that snaps and a bar that tastes noticeably less sweet.
Brewing the perfect cup
What’s in it, what to know
Inside the pack
| Typical values per 100g, as published | Per 100g |
|---|---|
| Energy | 520 kcal |
| Fat | 27g |
| of which saturates | 15.2g |
| Carbohydrate | 62.8g |
| of which sugars | 40.8g |
| Fibre | 2.5g |
| Protein | 5.3g |
| Salt | 0.2g |
Ingredients and allergens. Per the published ingredient list for this barcode it contains wheat (gluten), milk and soya. Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.
Ingredients, as published for this barcode: Milk Chocolate Flavour Coating (29%) [Sugar, Vegetable Oils (Palm, Shea), Cocoa Mass, Dried Skimmed Milk, Dried Whey (Milk), Butter Oil (Milk), Emulsifiers (Soya Lecithin, E476), Natural Flavouring], Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Sugar, Palm Oil, Glucose-Fructose Syrup, Fat Reduced Cocoa Powder, Raising Agents (Sodium Bicarbonate, Ammonium Bicarbonate), Natural Flavouring, Salt.
Ingredient and nutrition data for this barcode: Open Food Facts (openfoodfacts.org), ODbL. The pack in your hands is the final word.
| Component | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Chocolate coating | every face | Full coverage, sweet and soft-setting rather than snappy, which is what makes the bar feel generous for 24.6g. It is also why the bar cannot be dunked and why it fuses to its wrapper in a warm bag. |
| Chocolate flavour cream | the middle layer | Smooth and cocoa-led, and noticeably sweeter than the coating around it. This is the layer doing most of the talking. |
| Biscuit layers | two, thin | Light and crisp, and there for structure more than flavour. They keep the bar rigid enough to survive a lunchbox and give the cream something to sit between. |
| Count and weight | 7 bars, 24.6g each | 172.2g in the box, according to the published pack listing. |
Pack: McVitie's Penguin Original Chocolate Flavour Cream Filled Biscuit Bars, 7 Bars 172.2g; an outer box of seven individually wrapped bars. Best before the date printed on the pack, and best kept cool, dry and out of the sun.
The count and the bar weight are as given in the published pack listing.
Sourcing & blend. McVitie's Penguin Original Chocolate Flavour Cream Filled Biscuit Bars, 7 Bars 172.2g is a McVitie's line, and the bar is one of the few in a crowded format that people can describe from memory. The reason is on the wrapper rather than in the recipe: printing a joke to read while you eat solved a problem no reformulation could have, which is that chocolate-covered biscuit bars are very hard to tell apart. The construction is conventional and sensible, two thin biscuit layers around a soft cocoa cream with a full coating outside, giving a bar that is light for its size, sets firm in a cool room and stays sealed until it is opened. The pack you receive is the current UK retail pack rather than an import made to a different recipe.
What is in McVitie's Penguin Original Chocolate Flavour Cream Filled Biscuit Bars, 7 Bars 172.2g, and what is not:
- In: seven individually wrapped chocolate-coated biscuit bars with a chocolate flavour cream filling, 24.6g each.
- No cocoa origin claim: we make none. The declaration and any certification are on the current UK pack.
- Not a dunking bar: the coating leaves for the bottom of the mug within a second, which is an editorial description of how it behaves rather than a claim off the pack.
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Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference McVitie's Penguin Original Chocolate Flavour Cream Filled Biscuit Bars, 7 Bars 172.2g, please cite teas.co.uk.
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