Chocolates with a gooey centre

I love chocolates with a gooey centre. Caramello Bears and Turkish Delight immediately come to mind. But I was surprised by a filling I recently found in one of my treats. My latest fave when it comes to chocolates are those that contain a peanut butter centre (the brand name has been withheld for obvious reasons). These chocolates come in a waxed paper cup, individually wrapped in foil and then sealed in a plastic bag.

I noticed when unwrapping the foil of one that the confection had a hole in the top of the chocolate (pictured left) and that the hole appeared to contain a web. After carefully paring back layers of the sweet with a razor blade I came across a burrow in the peanut filling that contained a caterpillar, pictured below right. It emerged soon afterwards appearing none to please by the intrusion, pictured below left. Examination of the rest of the packet revealed that about 10% of the chocs had been similarly infested.

Google Lens identified the caterpillar as a Mediterranean Flour Moth larvae (Ephestia kuehniella) a pest of cereal grains and flour worldwide that has been introduced into Australia. Given that this grub was found in chocolate and not flour I suspect it is the larvae of one of the other moths of the Pyralidae family, all of whom look similar but infest different foodstuffs. To positively identify the culprit the only thing to do is to put the affected chocolates into a container, watch the lifecycle unfold and then identify the adult moth.

That is of course unless someone in the meantime finds the container and eats the contents. Love those gooey centres.

Watch this space.