Kev's Snack Reviews

Not content with just being a sweet, Percy Pig wants to change...into sauce! Equal rights for everyone and all that - who are we to stop Percy if this is what he dreams of? My initial reaction to this sauce was that it sounds a little bit weird, but nevertheless I had to purchase a bottle when I spotted them for £2 at Marks and Spencer. It’s based on apple sauce with the unmistakable Percy pig sweet flavour blended in. Now when you factor that Percy Pig is predominantly a mix of various fruit anyway, it doesn’t actually seem that weird. I had also bought some Fibre One Birthday Cake squares to review, so thought “why not combine them?!” I like to live wild like that! The sauce is pretty syrupy and really does taste like Percy Pig, albeit with more of an apple-y tang. It’s actually not too bad once you get over the weirdness factor. It jazzed up the Fibre One square nicely as it was a little dry and dull by itself - but I’m sure it would work much better on ice cream or pancake...

I do love some of the unique and quirky things Marks and Spencer come up with for their seasonal ranges. This Easter they’re doing everything from a rather rude looking Yoga Chocolate Bunny , a Prosecco Egg , a Jazzie Egg , a Blonde Egg , and now they’ve just added a Ruby Chocolate Egg to the list too! Something on the more affordable end that caught my eye in there recently though were these Milk Chocolate Hot Cross Caramels which are £1.75 a pack. They’re classic good quality marks and Spencer milk chocolates filled with a gooey spiced caramel, with flavours of citrus and raisin to replicate the authentic hot cross bun flavour. And they have pretty much nailed it! If you like hot cross buns and chocolate it’s safe to safe you’ll probably like these - they’re delicious! The caramel tastes luxurious; buttery and gooey and is just the right texture with hints of citrus and spices, and does indeed taste very much like hot cross bun! (As much a something can without actually havi...

As plain as they may be, I do often find myself munching on rice cakes as a quick “healthy” snack when on the go. My favourite ones are Kallo Dark Chocolate Coated Square rice cakes, and I’ve rarely ventured into trying the more fancy flavours now being made such as yogurt, berry etc., but one newbie to the rice cake world that caught my eye recently were these Marks and Spencer Salted Caramel Rice cakes. They’re priced at £1.30 for 6 and described as “whole grain rice cakes with a white chocolate and caramel coating sprinkled with crispy salted caramel flavoured pieces”. With that description I was hoping for something a bit like a Caramac/Blonde chocolate coating, but that’s not exactly what I got. It’s pretty much regular white chocolate with caramel flavouring and colouring added. Not to worry though because these are still very tasty! Most of the flavour comes from the crunchy pieces which are very flavoursome indeed, nicely balanced between caramel toffee like flav...

So M&S recently launched a range of Non Alcoholic drinks perfect for the festive season, from "G and Tee Total" to "Peach & Cranberry Cosmo" and several more. I believe there's also alcohol free bucks fizz and mulled wine too! I thought I'd try one of the flavours - the G and Tee Total Juice. This cost £1.80 and is described as "A refreshing combination of lemon & cucumber. Delicious on its own or add gin for a thirst quenching cocktail". Notice the last bit...add gin?! I thought these were being advertised as Alcohol Free and Tee Total. Make your mind up which marketing angle you're going for. The juice is made from water, pasteurized lemon and yuzu, with some added cucumber extract and sugar. I took a sip whilst out shopping, in much need of refreshment. And very refreshing it is! The yuzu brings a certain sour sharpness that is nicer than lemon or lime alone, whilst the cucumber flavour is faint but adds to the refreshing ...

So All Hallows Eve, or Halloween is nearly upon us...what better way to celebrate than with a Percy Pig review? Not just any Percy Pig of course, but Percy Pig with a spooky makeover! Yep, the "soft gums made with real fruit juice" are now pretty terrifying - the famous pig has been transformed into a bizarre pig-pumpkin hybrid! There's three colours: orange, pink and green. The green ones taste of apple whilst the others are orange and strawberry. As you can see all three are pretty scary - certainly not pigs you'd like to meet on a dark night! Luckily that's where the "tricks" end...the "treat" is in the taste - they are as fruity, juicy and downright delicious as you'd expect from Percy Pigs. The addition of the apple flavoured ones makes for a very welcome change and I enjoyed them a lot. The strawberry ones are classic pink Percy Pigs whilst the orange are very fruity. If you need some special sweets for Haloween this year, th...

A big thanks to Marks and Spencer Food PR for today's review; they're doing a pretty impressive range of Halloween treats to get your claws into this year (even a a Halloween edition of Percy Pig !), and kindly sent me these Witches Fingers biscuits. They've been around a few years now I think, and are basically tasty biscuit fingers made with golden syrup, with fondant icing fingernails. They may be simple, but they definitely look ghastly! Very fitting for any Halloween party. As we all know looks can of course be deceiving and thankfully they tasted delicious. The crunchy biscuit has a nice golden buttery flavour, owing to the golden syrup and real butter used in the recipe. The fondant icing finishes it off nicely with a little sweet vanilla flavour. It might seem a bit weird biting off fingernails and breaking fingers, but hey ho it's Halloween so such weirdness is OK! Overall, bravo M&S these are a fantastic product for Halloween and a lot of fun inde...

A big thankyou to Marks and Spencer Food PR for sending me a box of chocolate treats to review recently. I've already reviewed the Salted Caramel Mini Whips and Belgian Chocolate Wafer Bites , and now it's the turn of the Cookie Dough Bites! These have of course been around for quite some time now (my old pally Reaching For Refreshment reviewed them back in 2016) so I as wondering if these had changed at all since then. You can of course pick these up in Marks and Spencer stores for £2 in their confectionery aisles - they're described as "Milk chocolate and dark biscuit crumb with a soft white chocolate and biscuit filling". Now, once again with these being cookie dough containing gluten I couldn't eat them myself...much as I wanted to. So I passed them onto a friend who gave me his verdict. They smelled delicious, of course, with an unmistakable aroma that is the usual high quality we're used to from M&S chocolate. Nothing new there. The fil...

Today's review is another new snack I was sent as part of some samples from Marks and Spencer Food PR recently - a big thanks to them for all the treats, do stay tuned for more! These Belgian Milk Chocolate Wafer bites are new in their confectionery range and available in stores now. They're a bit like the Kitkat Pop Choc that are available in other countries and sometimes in the U.K. The difference between these and Kitkat Pop Choc is of course that the chocolate is better quality - in true M&S fashion it's not just any chocolate, but Belgian milk chocolate! This is coated in a shellac glaze to make it all shiny. They look somewhat like Maltesers, with perhaps a less sweeter and better quality chocolate aroma. I passed them on to a friend at this point for the taste test (since I can't do gluten), and the feedback was that they're very tasty with a nice malty flavour whilst the chocolate is creamy and good quality. The wafer is similar to Kitkat but...

A big thankyou to Marks & Spencer Food PR for sending me a fantastic box of new snacks to review recently, which included some upcoming Halloween treats plus some festive goodies! Since those "holidays" are quite some time away I thought I'd start by reviewing their delicious-sounding new Milk Chocolate Salted Caramel Mini Whips. I've reviewed an  M&S Salted Caramel Whip before so I was curious if these would be any different, or if they're the same thing in mini form. Described as "Milk chocolate filled with salted caramel flavour soft mallow (14%)", the bag contains 120g and I believe they'll cost £2 in stores. They're different to the one I've reviewed previously (which contained a layer of caramel) but that's not such a bad thing since the actual mallow in these tastes of salted caramel. Meaning - more salted caramel flavour! Opening the bag they certainly had a nice creamy chocolate aroma; definitely good qualit...

Following my review of the M&S Single Origin 100% Cocoa Dark Chocolate last week, today we have something perhaps a little more palatable to those not used to sugar free chocolates, a Single Estate 72% cocoa bar from Mindanao Island in the Phillipines. This bar is part of the new range at M&S which also includes a single origin White Chocolate bar. The bar is thinner than other bars M&S usually do, no doubt due to the need to charge more for less since these are from single estate cocoa growers. And to be honest that's no bad thing - the taste is much better than any average dark chocolate! For a 72% bar this was very flavourful, with an almost honey like taste as well as some sharper fruity cocoa flavours. I enjoyed every bite and savoured it since the bar was quite small. And despite being small I felt like I'd gotten a lot more compared to the larger dark bars. Overall, if you're a dark chocolate lover I would highly recommend giving this one a try ...

When I'm avoiding sugar I do like a good 100% cocoa dark chocolate bar. They're hard to find in most shops, but luckily thanks to Sainsbury's the Montezuma's Absolute Black is becoming widely available - handy for anyone on a low carb diet. But now M&S are here to challenge it with their own version of 100% cocoa chocolate, a Single Origin Fairtrade bar made in Peru. This bar costs £2 for 100g and is available in most of their larger stores. There's a Taste Profile inside the case, which mentions notes of red fruits and honey, as well as a whisky that pairs well this chocolate. Steady on M&S, are you trying to get me drunk?! Make no mistake about it, this is a very, very dark chocolate and one that I imagine is just too much for most folks. It's intense, and has that fruity acidic flavour that is common with unsweetened chocolate. The description of red berry flavours is quite accurate; this does indeed taste strongly of berries, and is quite com...

Today's review is somewhat more healthy than usual, since I've been on a bit of a health kick again recently. I'm a fan of toasted coconut chips to help  stay away from chocolate bars, however my major gripe is usually the price - they almost always cost a lot for a small amount! That was no exception with this new variety from M&S, which costs £1.20 for a little pot. Still I thought I'd give it a try to see how it compares to the likes of Ape Coconut Curls and Urban Fruit Coconut Chips . Unlike most toasted coconut chips these ones still have some of the shell on them, which may be a good thing or not depending on you. I suppose if you're looking for extra fibre it's a plus, but it certainly doesn't make them tastier. They were a bit tasteless to be honest. They were very fresh, I'll give them that, but there was no real toasty flavour. It's almost like they were too scared to toast them too much so they ended up somewhere in between regu...

Today's post is another Spotted In Shops (soooooo much new stuff lately!) and again it's for M&S who have been busy not just adding a new British Isles range  (complete with the weird Salt & Vinegar Caramels) to their confectionery offerings, but a rather decadent looking range of pastries to their desserts. One special addition in particular is this hybrid of choux pastry and a doughnut...the chouxnut! Available in Salted Caramel (of course), as well as... Rhubarb and Custard Chouxnuts: Plus there's some Strawberries and Cream Choux Buns : And the new Ultimate Chocolate Eclairs , filled with chocolate mousse and with white chocolate icing! Plus there's the fruity Blackcurrant Eclairs .. As well as these fancy looking White Chocolate & Blackcurrant Spheres : Plus they're doing some new vegan dairy free vanilla Coconut Yogurt Pots ... As well as Blueberry Coconut Pots ... Plus Mango & Passionfruit Coconut Pots ... There's al...

Usually it's random companies that go balls to the wall with weird and wacky new flavours, but this time it's good old "British" institution M&S that have brought out a range of not just any new treats, but a "Taste of the British Isles" range, sure to make any Brexiteer dance with joy. It includes products like the  Sea Salt and Vinegar Caramels shown above. Wrong, just wrong! What next, fish and chip truffles? (they probably do exist somewhere!) In more weirdness, they're also selling not just any nuts but British Beer Coated Peanuts ! Plus they're doing a variety of alcoholic sweets, such as Milk Chocolate Truffles made with Somerset Matured Vintage Cider . Plus a Gin Chocolate Collection for the gin lovers... As well as Craft Beer Fudge ! Plus, Fruity Summer Punch Mallows ... And Rum and Raisin Toffees . Now these sound more up my street! There's also Mocktail Jellies ... And the non-alcoholic and pure Unicorn...