Kev's Snack Reviews

So it was only announced last week that we'd be getting a Cinnamon festive limited edition Coca Cola Zero Sugar in the UK, and already it's in shops...hurrah! Right? This is now available from both Tesco and Sainsburys, for £1.25 for a 1.25l bottle. If your locals aren't stocking it yet though do be patient - it's sure to turn up soon. Is it worth the excitement, is it as festive and christmassy as we are all hoping, I hear you ask...? I was certainly very hyped to try this when I first heard about it - I've always liked cinnamon and spice flavoured drinks in Autumn, and pairing the flavour with Coca Cola sounded like a potentially great idea. It could have been a nice mixer for alcoholic drinks. But sadly it was a bit of a letdown. It doesn't taste bad at all, it's a typically sweet, refreshing and pleasant Coca Cola drink that we are all familiar with, it's just that the cinnamon flavour is only barely there. At first I couldn't taste it, ...

Just a quick run down of some recent Spotted In Shops finds this week...there's so many new products out it's hard to keep track, but rest assured I'll be doing the yearly Christmas & Halloween In Shops roundups soon! Firstly (above), this  made the rounds in the News  recently, it is of course Christmas Tree flavour crisps, available at Iceland! Would you try them? I haven't. Secondly - the fantastic sounding new Bailey's Chocolate Yule Log, available at Tesco. Yummo! In other weird crisp flavours, Gin has found its way onto crisps too. Waitrose are doing Pink Peppercorn Gin Hand Cooked Crisps! Bailey's Pumpkin Spice is back! Available at Tesco for £12. Or if you want a cheaper version, Aldi are now doing Specially Selected Pumpkin Spice Irish Cream Liquer for £6.99. Nestle Smarties Limited Edition Rudolph's Noses - red-only Smarties, exclusive to Asda for £1. Ed's Easy Diner is now in the freez...

Another review of The Protein Works today, following on from the  Salted Caramel Protein Cookies  today it's the turn of their Protein "Crunkies", which are not only gluten free but vegan. Hurrah! They're made with a mix of oats, sucralose, corn fibre, apple, sultanas, rice crispies and soy protein. So why are they called Crunkies? Beats me - they're pretty much cereal bars! There's a dark chocolate flavour coating on one side and the other side has raisins clearly visible. And they taste pretty good! The apple and cinnamon flavour is unmistakable, and gave me that warm feeling of autumn when cinnamon flavours are more common. Of course it goes perfectly with the raisins, as well as the rice crispies and oats. The dark chocolate coating adds a nice touch although I didn't feel it was necessary - the bar is nice enough as is.  All in all, this is a sweet and satisfying bar and the perfect snack for after a workout (if that's your thing!). It'...

Now normally I would reserve reviews like this for December, as that's the only time it's really acceptable to be eating festive snacks, however today's product is an exception because it's so good that I just had to tell you all about it! These are currently in M&S amongst their new festive range, along with Maple Bacon Tortilla Rolls, Christmas Pudding Ice Cream (fancy!) Chocolate Orange Ice Cream (do want!), Christmas Pudding Roulade and more besides like Salted Caramel Pinecones , Prosecco Caramels etc. For more goodies do check out my Instagram page! These particular snacks are selling like hot cakes - or hot tortillas - it seems; they're out of stock whenever I look in M&S. By chance I managed to nab the last pack on a flying visit to Glasgow, for a respectable £2 for 190g of "milk chocolate coated corn tortilla rolls with a cinnamon sugar seasoning". The milk chocolate is on one side of each roll and looks kind of chunky, with...

Whilst in 99p Stores over Christmas (god, that feels like a lifetime ago!) I came across these "Cboze" bars, produced by Kraft Foods. I've reviewed Cboze before, back in the early days of the blog and that variety was a Cherry flavoured fondant. See the review HERE . They seem to be a Bulgarian brand, and I must thank Katherine from Grocery Gems for helping me solve that mystery! The flavours on offer were Salted Almond, Crunchy Corn, Pineapple and Apple & Cinnamon. At 2 bars for 99p I decided to try the whole range! First up I tried Salted Almond . Curiously, it didn't taste very "almondy" or even salty! The flavour was muted and tame, with the almond giving a little crunch here and there but nothing outstanding...it tasted a little stale, in fact. Next I dived right into the Pineapple flavour...such a rarity in chocolate! The bar contained a milk cream filling with a layer of gooey pineapple "jam" oozing above it. It was very f...

There hasn't been many exciting seasonal chocolates this year, hence I haven't had many to review. However when I learnt of the new seasonal Limited Editions available at Aldi recently I just had to try them! There's this Plum & Cinnamon flavour, plus Apple Strudel and Pear varieties. The Plum & Cinnamon variety is described as "Five individually wrapped bars of milk chocolate with a lightly whipped mousse filling, with a plum and cinnamon flavoured topping". It's a similar concept to the Panna Cotta Moser Roth bars I've reviewed previously, with a gooey plum layer above the smooth cream. The chocolate tasted very nice, if a little bit sweet. Initially I got hints of summer fruits, but as I let the chocolate melt on my tongue, subtle hints of cinnamon started to emerge. If I were doing a blind taste test I would never guess this was plum flavour; it just tastes generically fruity, but it works well with the cinnamon and milk cream and...

When I spotted this "New" Snowball Crunch amongst Marks and Spencer's bagged range I was itching to give it a try. Not just because it's a new and limited edition Christmas product, but because it's popcorn coated with white chocolate and cinnamon - two of my favourite flavours! This combination sounded fantastically novel and I imagined it would make for a perfect tasty treat. Alas - it didn't turn out to be all that amazing! Mainly because it was too sweet, thanks to the dusting of icing sugar on the already overly-sweet white chocolate coated popcorn. The description on the pack reads "Toffee popcorn covered in white chocolate with cinnamon (34%) and dusted with icing sugar (9%)". That may sound like a small proportion of icing sugar, but it dominated the overall flavour of the popcorn - it was mega  sweet! All I could really taste was a strong, sugary milkiness. There was no real flavour of white chocolate, and only a faint hint of ci...