Kev's Snack Reviews

As ridiculous as it's been to have this Spirit of Summer range from Marks and Spencer out wayyyy before Summer even begins, Summer is almost around the corner...and I know of a certain chopsy pal who might even start buying some stuff from them soon...but I thought I'd start early, and get myself in the mood. After all the weather has been pretty pants (at least it has where I am), so what better way to lighten the mood than fudge?! This isn't just any fudge...this is of course M&S Spirit of Summer Cocoa & Pecan "soft Penuche fudge". Penuche is a new word on me, so I googled it to find that it means fudge made with brown sugar rather than white sugar. Here's a more in-depth article about it for anyone interested. For £2 you get 132g of  "a mix of brown sugar fudge with pecan nuts and cocoa", some of the chunks are cocoa flavoured and the others are regular fudge with pecan nuts added. It all smelled very inviting!  Both ...

Whilst out in the sun recently and in dire need of refreshment, I thought, why not try those new coffee lollies from M&S...they've got to be better than boring old mineral water! I must admit, I'm getting a bit leery of Marks and Spencer's Spirit of Summer range; they've started labelling regular products like Cheese & Tomato pizzas as "Spirit of Summer"...which I think is pushing it a bit...but I'll leave that rant for another day!  These lollies are made with a mixture of water, coconut water, coconut milk, sugar, colombian coffee extract, and pectin. They're dairy free although not suitable for nut or dairy allergy sufferers due to manufacturing methods. Boo! I want to say I loved these lollies, but I was a bit underwhelmed. I was expecting them to be creamy, but they were a bit watery for my liking. I also felt there could have been a stronger coffee flavour - the coffee extract is only 1% of the ingredients. They're k...

When I first saw this new product in M&S's Spirit of Summer range I was very excited..."pineapple and white chocolate, what a unique combination!", I thought. Until I read the small print, and my excitement turned to sadness. That's because not only does this contain interesting additions such as coconut and popping candy...but chilli too. Urgh! What were M&S thinking, ruining an otherwise tasty product with chilli?! I point blank refused to buy it. Then a few days passed...my curiosity started nagging at me...someone on Instagram said it doesn't taste too bad...so finally I decided I had to try it, if only to find out what pineapple, chilli, coconut, popping candy and white chocolate would taste like mixed together. And I'm glad I did! Although this wasn't as great as it could have been because of the chilli...it's still a very tasty and moreish snack! The pineapple chunks are all differently sized, there was a nice mix of both ...

M&S have gone a bit mad recently and launched a whole new "Spirit of Summer" range...in April. I can only assume this is to make extra sales since it's nowhere near Summer yet. The range has a lot of unusual (and expensive) items, many including chilli with chocolate, plus there's the  Peanut Butter Cookies reviewed here by The Review Addict. I can't eat them sadly due to the (evil!) gluten, so I made do with these new "Milk Chocolate Smothered Crunchy Jumbo Salted Corn" snacks instead. I've eaten chocolate-coated corn before, so I kind of knew what to expect: these are very different from popcorn, they're halfway between a savoury and a sweet snack. The sweetness comes from the chocolate, but in every other respect they're totally savoury. The pieces of corn are quite thick, larger than what's shown on the front of the pack, all with a generous coating of milk chocolate. Biting into it gives way to a large chunk of salty ...