Cadbury Mini Fingers: the small finger in five bags

Milk chocolate makes up 48% of a Mini Finger by the published recipe, and it shows: on a stick this short, the coating is the first and main thing you taste. The five small bags are the other half of the design, turning a sharing biscuit into a lunchbox one.

Smaller stick, more chocolate

Make a finger shorter and thinner and the coating takes up a bigger share of it. A full-size Finger already carries plenty of chocolate for its biscuit; a Mini Finger tips the balance further, until it eats like chocolate with a crunchy centre. That is also why they taste sweeter gram for gram, and why a cup with no sugar in it makes such a difference for the adult sharing the bag.

Each bag is a handful of short sticks rather than one bar, so it gets eaten stick by stick and splits easily between siblings. The published label for this product lists wheat, milk and soya, with a may-contain warning for nuts, so a coeliac or dairy-free household will need another snack. Small hard sticks also want an eye kept on the very young.

Built for the school bag

Here the portion is decided before anyone reaches for it: five bags of 19.3g, 96.5g in all, each sealed until it is opened, so Thursday's bag is as crisp as Monday's. Pack them in a rigid lunchbox rather than loose in a bag; the sticks are thin and will arrive in pieces if they end up squashed under a drinks bottle.

Warmth is the bigger risk. With chocolate on every surface, a bag left in a hot car or beside a radiator softens and smears the inside of the wrapper. It is only cosmetic, but nobody enjoys peeling chocolate off plastic. On hot days, the simplest fix is a lunchbox kept in the shade rather than on the back seat of the car.

Which Cadbury bag for which child

Choose by age and by occasion. For a pre-schooler who likes to sort and line things up, the Animals multipack in the same five-bag format is the better buy, because the shapes turn the snack into a game. From school age on, Mini Fingers make more sense: no sorting, just a quick handful. For a table of adults, reach for the full-size Dairy Milk Fingers in the 114g box or the 189g tray instead.

Keep them out of the tea: the coat melts away long before the biscuit softens. A quick dip in hot chocolate, taken straight out again, is about the limit. Stood upright around a cupcake or a small cake, they make a neat edging for a party. The adult sharing the bag is best served by a strong unsweetened brew or a black coffee.

The packs we stock

• Cadbury Mini Fingers Multipack Chocolate Biscuits, 5 Biscuits 96.5g (barcode 7622202050763)

What the label says

The published ingredient list for Cadbury Mini Fingers Multipack Chocolate Biscuits, 5 Biscuits 96.5g says it contains wheat (gluten), milk and soya, and it may contain nuts. A small pack like this can be reworked without fanfare, so what the latest UK box lists for allergens beats anything written here.

Ingredients, as published: Milk chocolate (48%) (Milk, Sugar, Cocoa butter, Cocoa mass, Vegetable fats (Palm, Sal and Shea in varying proportions), Emulsifiers (Soya lecithin, E476), Flavourings), Wheat flour (With added Calcium, Iron, Niacin and Thiamin), Vegetable oils (Palm, Rapeseed), Sugar, Partially inverted sugar syrup, Salt, Raising agents (Ammonium bicarbonate, Sodium bicarbonate), Flavouring. May contain: nuts.

Ingredient and nutrition data for this product: Open Food Facts (openfoodfacts.org), ODbL. For Mini Fingers the packet in your hand has the final say.

What to drink with it

• Yorkshire Tea Caramelised Biscuit Brew, 40 Tea Bags 112g: a biscuit-themed brew for the parent, with enough black tea behind it to stand beside milk chocolate.
• Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea, 80 Pack 232g: a dependable everyday cup, brewed strong and left unsweetened to balance a sweet bag.
• Dragonfly Organic Cape Chai Rooibos, 40 Tea Bags 80g: a spiced rooibos whose warmth gives creamy milk chocolate something to push against.
• L'Or Espresso Supremo Coffee Intensity 10, 40 Pods 208g: a short black coffee for the grown-up, bringing the bitterness the chocolate lacks.

Elsewhere in the Cadbury range

• Cadbury Animals Multipack Mini Chocolate Biscuits, 5 Biscuits 99.5g
• Cadbury Dairy Milk Fingers Milk Chocolate Biscuits Tray, 189g
• Cadbury Dairy Milk Fingers Milk Chocolate Covered Biscuits, 114g
• Cadbury Dairy Milk Fingers Salted Caramel Flavour Biscuits, 114g
• Cadbury Fingers White Chocolate Covered Biscuits, 114g
• Cadbury Snack Chocolate Covered Shortcake Multipack Biscuits, 5 x 20g

The full range is on the Cadbury brand page.

FAQ

How many bags are in Cadbury Mini Fingers? Five sealed bags of 19.3g, making 96.5g in all.

Why do Mini Fingers taste sweeter than normal Fingers? A shorter, thinner stick carries a bigger share of chocolate, so there is more coating for every bit of biscuit.

Do Mini Fingers contain nuts? The label for this product says they may contain nuts, and it lists wheat, milk and soya. Check the current pack for anyone with an allergy.

Can you dunk Mini Fingers? Not in tea. A very quick dip in hot chocolate is the most they will take.

Who makes Cadbury biscuits? Cadbury is part of Mondelez International, which took the Cadbury biscuits licence back from Burton's in 2016. That arrangement kept the baking in Burton's factories under a co-manufacturing agreement.

Curator's note: Keep the multipack in a cool cupboard and hand out one bag at a time. It is a biscuit people buy again rather than discover, and that is a compliment. Lee, teas.co.uk, Tunbridge Wells.

In short: Cadbury Mini Fingers: the small finger in five bags

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• Tea and Biscuits
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• Tea Pairing Principles: Reason, Don't Memorise
• Tea With Cake: The Pairing That Never Fails (If You Get It Right)
• Tea and Food Pairing: The Five Principles
• Tea with Chocolate: Pair by Cocoa Percentage
• Tea and Chocolate Pairing

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