These are the Original Neapolitan Wafers from Manner, invented in 1898! Let’s take a look and see if we can figure out why they’re so popular…

The Original Neapolitan Wafers are Manner’s classic and best selling product and have become a symbol of Viennese culture and lifestyle. | Manner

So at a glance your brain might make the association between this Neapolitan snack and the Neapolitan ice cream that plagued my childhood. Plagued? Well, yes.

It was somehow the only flavour that ended up in the freezer and I really didn’t like it. The flavours were artificial and I hated the mixture of strawberry, vanilla and chocolate. In fact, I suspect that’s where my slight dislike of chocolate ice cream began. If you give me a choice, I’ll head towards vanilla based ice creams 99% of the time.

Manner wafers are made of five layers of tender wafers filled with four layers of delicate hazelnut cocoa cream, containing 12% hazelnuts in the cream.  | Manner

This wafer from Manner though? It’s nothing like that ice cream. There’s no strawberry in sight and it’s filled with rich and sweet, chocolate hazelnut flavours.

The crisp, light and airy wafer is naturally the same as used in the Lemon version. The sweet hazelnut chocolate paste they’re layered with is honestly a little too sweet for me… but if you’re a Nutella lover, you’ll be right at home. And that being said, even though they’re slightly too sweet for me, they’re still incredibly addictive and very hard to put down.

I really like the Manner wafers, being by far the best I’ve tried in this genre of biscuit. The punchy hazelnut chocolate paste is in plentiful supply too! They’re good, even if they’re not quite for me.