McVitie's Gold Caramel Flavour Bars: The Pale Coating Explained

Where the brand's Club bars wear brown chocolate, the Gold wears a pale coating that tastes of butterscotch rather than cocoa. That single choice decides how it tastes, how it looks after a knock in a bag and what belongs in the cup beside it.

What the ingredient list shows

The published ingredients explain the bar better than its wrapper. The caramel flavour coating makes up 70% of it: sugar, palm oil and glucose syrup with dried whole milk, whey and skimmed milk, coloured with carotenes and paprika extract. Beneath it is a biscuit made with wheat flour, along with crisped rice that uses rice, wheat and barley malt flours, so there is more going on than a plain biscuit.

Note the word flavour on the front. Under UK labelling rules, calling a bar caramel flavour tells you the taste is carried by flavouring, not by an actual caramel ingredient, and there is no soft caramel layer to pull. Milk, wheat, soya and barley malt all appear in the list, so check the current pack if anyone at the table needs to avoid them.

How it compares with a Club

The brand's Club bars are its obvious neighbours: individually wrapped biscuit bars made for a lunchbox, a coat pocket or a desk drawer. A Club is covered in brown chocolate, so cocoa pushes back against the sugar. The Gold has no cocoa anywhere in its list, so nothing does. It is also the lighter bar: seven Gold bars make 124g, where seven Club bars make 154g.

The pale coating shows wear that brown chocolate hides, so a pack that has been knocked about in a bag can look scuffed even when every bar eats exactly as it should. Individual wrappers are the real reason to choose bars over a packet: the bar you open on a Friday is as fresh as the one you opened on Monday. If you want caramel with chocolate, the Club Salted Caramel Flavour bars are the brand's other route.

Putting bitterness back in the cup

With no bitterness of its own, the Gold relies on the drink to supply it. A strong black coffee is the natural partner, and a robust black tea brewed long does the same job with tannin in place of roast. Leave the sugar out of either, since the bar brings plenty. Milk in tea is fine, but a flavoured or sweetened drink simply piles sweetness on sweetness.

Keep it out of the mug. A fully coated bar has no bare crumb for the tea to soak into evenly, so the coating softens and smears before the biscuit takes up anything. Store it somewhere cool, too: the pale coating gives way in the heat sooner than brown chocolate, so a sunny windowsill or a car in summer is the quickest way to spoil a pack.

The packs we stock

• McVitie's Gold Caramel Flavour Biscuit Bars Multipack, 7 Bars 124g (barcode 5000168218663)

What the label says

Ingredients, as published: Caramel Flavour Coating (70%) [Sugar, Palm Oil, Dried Whole Milk, Glucose Syrup, Dried Whey (Milk), Dried Skimmed Milk, Emulsifier (Soya Lecithin), Colours (Carotenes, Paprika Extract), Natural Flavouring], Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Sugar, Palm Oil, Crisped Rice [Rice Flour, Wheat Flour, Sugar, Barley Malt Flour, Salt, Rapeseed Oil, Emulsifier (Soya Lecithin)], Partially Inverted Sugar Syrup, Raising Agents (Sodium Bicarbonate, Ammonium Bicarbonate, Tartaric Acid, Malic Acid), Salt.

Ingredient and nutrition information for this product, as published on the manufacturer's label. The pack in your hands is the final word.

What to drink with it

• Yorkshire Tea Original Loose Leaf Tea, 250g: Brewed strong from loose leaf, it brings the tannin this bar lacks and cuts through the butterscotch sweetness.
• Kenco Smooth Instant Coffee Paper Refill, 150g: A quick black cup at the desk, giving the butterscotch coating the plain roasted counterweight it lacks.
• L'Or Espresso Ristretto Coffee Pods, 10 Pods 52g: A short ristretto shot, the most direct counterweight to a coating with no cocoa in it.
• Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea, 80 Pack 232g: A dependable everyday black tea for the lunchbox flask, brewed strong enough to balance the sugar.

Elsewhere in the McVitie's range

• McVitie's Club Layers Orange, 39g
• McVitie's Club Mint Biscuit Bars Multipack, 7 Bars 154g
• McVitie's Club Orange Biscuit Bars Multipack, 7 Bars 154g
• McVitie's Club Salted Caramel Flavour Biscuit Bars Multipack, 7 x 22g
• McVitie's Dark Chocolate Digestive Biscuits, 266g
• McVitie's Digestive Pink Raspberry & Cream Flavour, Limited Edition, 232g

The full range is on the McVitie's brand page.

FAQ

Is there chocolate on a McVitie's Gold bar? No. The coating is a pale caramel flavour coating made with sugar, palm oil and milk, and no cocoa appears in the published ingredients.

Does a Gold bar have a caramel layer inside? No caramel is named in the ingredient list. Under the coating are a biscuit and crisped rice, and the caramel taste comes from the coating's flavouring.

How many bars are in a pack? Seven, each wrapped on its own, making 124g in total.

Does a Gold bar survive a dunk in tea? Not well. The coating smears before the biscuit takes up any tea, so eat it beside the cup.

What should I drink with a Gold bar? Something black and unsweetened, such as a strong coffee or a long-brewed black tea, because the bar has sweetness and no bitterness.

Curator's note: Hand one to the person who always picks the chocolate off a biscuit, and pour them a black coffee. It all makes sense that way. Lee, teas.co.uk, Tunbridge Wells.

In short: McVitie's Gold Caramel Flavour Bars: The Pale Coating Explained

More from the tea wiki

• Tea and Biscuits
• Biscuit Dunking Physics: The Real Science
• 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

Download as PDF