Raffaello

buzz and billions

Have you ever looked into the eye of a Raffaello? Remarkable to behold when the outer wafer casing has been prised away by front teeth, shedding fine drifts of coconut shavings. Are Raffaellos like snowflakes, each inner spiral design unique? Nope, surely they’ll be entirely uniform – I’m imagining the machine that gently kerchunks and fuses the elements together into the perfect whole, greater than the sum of its parts. As you know, the Raffaello is a coconut-almond truffle that Ferrero introduced to the market in 1990. The Ambassador may have been really spoiling us with Ferrero Rocher at his reception party I guess, but the corner shop really spoils with its Raffaello: four tiny frosty planets in individual pleated papers, festively plastic-wrapped in white and red. You only get three Rochers to a similar sleeve. 

Though the real cornerstones of the corner shop are Buzz Sweets, the 59p or 2 for £1 packets in particular. I love the bright sight of them, but only like to eat the chocolate raisin ones (arguably too often). Scarce as hen’s teeth, I can map (some of) London by the newsagents that sell these rare jewels of the Buzz crown. Thankfully the one right by Finsbury Park Station stocks them, as well as cans of Fanta Lemon Zero Sugar – a small palace of delights all told. Just below Buzz in icon status / corner shop staples is Ritter Sport of course, and rum and raisin is the best, no question. (I did once – well, many times – interrogate this with a pal, and we ranked all the flavours, with marzipan and cornflakes both making a pretty good play for silver and bronze. I don’t care so much for the seasonal novelty flavours, but am reasonably open to flirting with the odd one.) 

I recently clocked the new Gold Billions Wafer, and I’ve tried it so you don’t have to. It’s not . . . good. Billions is a big reach, we’re barely skirting below-average wage. It’s nothing like the nostalgic, previously paper-wrapped Gold Bars of school lunch boxes and after-school snacks, the almost gritty burnt-caramel chocolate set thickly around biscuit. The chocolate of this new very different one is thick but waxy and strange and synthetically sweet. It’s supposedly a ‘cream-filled wafer bar with milk chocolate and white chocolate and caramel flavoured coating’ but I remain unconvinced. Though you do get the off-ratio ends of chocolate, thrillingly extended beyond wafer, like you sometimes get if you’re very lucky with a KitKat Chunky. Anyhow, my overall verdict is: sickly. I’ve bought the Billions at least three times.

Back to Raffaello innards. To me they recall a Vienetta in their intricacy, and I insist you watch videos of how a Vienetta is made, of which there are many (I have selected this one, which claims to be suitable for kids). Transfixing stuff. The Wikipedia page for Vienetta is studded with words like festooned, rippling, concertina and confection. One slice is never enough, though if a slice is meant to be just one of the portions inferred by the undulating concertina pattern, that’s obviously meagre and mad. It’s my (very chic!) go-to dessert when hosting, especially if it’s had to be a quick ShitTesco™ trip on the way home. No one bemoans Vienetta. Speaking of ShitTesco™, I often think of that time it was closed for a refurb / refit and we got excited that it might no longer be shit, then it reopened after much fannying about behind closed doors and literally nothing had changed at all. There’s probably something in that.