Kev's Snack Reviews

Recently, the lovely Monty from Monty Bojangles sent me a fantastic truffle hamper to review. I felt like Christmas had come early! There were truffles of every kind, but the ones I'm going to review first are the Scofflets, which are bitesize truffles available in 100g sharing bags from Waitrose stores. There's three varieties which include a Caramel & Cookie version, but today I'm only reviewing the Sea Salt and Maple & Hazelnut due to my gluten allergy (boo!). Hint of Sea Salt: So lets start with the Sea Salt variety. I wasn't expecting much, because these aren't salted caramel just salt. Salt can either enhance or spoil a chocolate, so how does it blend with Monty's truffley delights? Quite well as it turns out! They're creamy, chocolatey, smooth, melt in the mouth, with the lick of salt adding a moreish edge that enhances the flavour further. They're certainly nicer than your average chocolate truffle, and quite easy to scoff a lo...

There's an increasing array of new fancier chocolate bars appearing in Sainsbury's stores recently, amongst them various Montezuma's varieties and also these new boys on the block: Doisy & Dam. I've reviewed their White Chocolate with Lemon, Baobab and Poppy Seed before, and really enjoyed it, so I was very eager to try some more flavours when they were on offer in Sainsbury's recently. This one is organic and vegan, containing 74% cocoa solids and with the inclusion of maple syrup, toasted brown rice and himalayan pink salt. Quite the bold combination! The toasted rice is clearly visible on the underside of the bar, and the chocolate itself has a strong maple aroma. It tastes interesting. The maple is very prominent, with a sweet syrupy almost earthy tone, that is almost too much combined with the rich dark chocolate. It's a very bold flavour, so if that's your thing you'll probably love this. Personally it was just a bit too much fo...

I do love a new M&S chocolate bar, and they've been adding quite a few varieties to their own label range recently. There's interesting flavours such as Liquorice and Blackcurrant, Clementine and also this; Butterscotch and Maple Syrup. I don't think I've ever had a maple syrup flavour chocolate before so I simply had to give it a try. It comes in the rustic cardboard style packaging that features across M&S's new bar range. This bar contains 32% cocoa solids and the cocoa is fairtrade, single origin from the Dominican Republic. It's described as  "Milk chocolate with salted butterscotch pieces and maple syrup" and is suitable for vegetarians. The chcolate itself is very smooth and creamy with a good flavour, definitely more flavoursome than M&S's standard milk chocolates. The butterscotch adds a nice crunchy, slightly salty kick and the maple syrup flavour creeps in behind it. It's subtle and perhaps not as prominent a...

Recently some new Eat Natural bars appeared in my local Tesco Express, I've never been a fan of their bars to be honest as I find them rather sugary and unhealthy for a "natural" snack bar, but it seems they have upped their game and reduced the sugar whilst increasing the protein content. Always a good thing in my book! They're also wheat, dairy and gluten-free so are suitable for us folks with various intolerances as well as being vegetarian. Yay! For £2 you get three 45g bars, which I must admit I thought was a bit steep. But you have to pay for your health, I guess! The bars smelled nice and peanutty with a hint of maple syrup. They were kind of sticky, but not overly so, they still held their shape despite my warm hands. They tasted pretty decent! Not too hard and not too chewy, not too sweet, with just the right amount of maple flavour and crunchy nuttiness. They were very filling and satisfying, I didn't feel the need to eat another after ...

So this week I've decided to review only gluten free snacks. I'm sensitive to gluten and have been off it for a while now, and have been a bit disappointed with many of the gluten free choices out there. It's mighty hard to find a good gluten free cookie in the shops, in fact it's impossible to find the gooey, buttery fresh ones, so we're left with only the dry, shelf stable kind to nom on :( One of the new kids on the (gluten free) block is Udi's, a brand popular in America that has only recently made its presence felt on UK shores. They make various bread rolls, bagels, toaster pastries, and more. My local large Tesco stocks a few of their Cookie varieties, which usually cost £3.50 (too much for my budget!) but when they're half price I sometimes buy a pack. They're currently half price in Tesco again and for £1.75 I decided to give this "Dark Chocolate Chip, Pecan Nut & Maple Flavour" variety a try. You get ten cookies in a p...