Kev's Snack Reviews

The relaunch of the Wonka brand in the UK was announced only a few weeks ago - to much controversy (apparently the calorie content in these bars could have a "devastating impact on children" !) - so I was very surprised to see these Millionaire's Shortbread bars in a newsagents recently. Oddly, they didn't have the "Chocolate Nice Cream" variety which was also supposed to be launched along with this bar. The bar is described as "Milk chocolate with a caramel filling (50%), containing biscuit pieces (6%)", and contains vegetable fat in addition to cocoa butter. It's quite thin and comes in 4 blocks which have the Wonka "W" printed on them. The press release  describes this bar as "Just like the classic sweet treat: it's the tasty combination of delicious caramel and shortbread pieces covered in smooth milk chocolate". What's confusing though is that this bar doesn't contain any caramel whatsoever - or at le...

It's not only Cadbury that have been busy releasing new products this year. Galaxy have also gotten in on the act and relaunched their chocolate range to include this new Honeycomb Crisp variety, as well as a Nut Crunch variety. I found this large bar in Morrisons for £1.39 and it's described as "Smooth and creamy Galaxy chocolate with crispy honeycomb pieces". It comes in both small and large bars and bears the familiar Galaxy slogan "Why have cotton when you can have silk?" The packaging has been updated slightly, and the chocolate comes in a fancy-looking gold paper wrapper: The chocolate itself looks great and has the new "curvy" shaped blocks that Galaxy introduced a few years ago. It smelled delicious - there was a familiar milky Galaxy scent but with an added butterscotch aroma. The chocolate tasted extremely creamy and smooth, as Galaxy chocolate is famous for. The honeycomb added an extra depth of deliciousness - it was bu...

Hershey's chocolate has a bad reputation here in the UK. Most people find the taste odd , a complaint I hear time and time again. I don't remember it being particularly special the last time I tried it (years ago!) but when I saw this Whole Almonds variety for 40p in a discount store recently, I thought I'd rediscover it and see what all the fuss is about. To my surprise, it didn't taste too bad. There was no weird flavour from the chocolate at all, infact it was pleasantly milky and chocolatey. I liked the thickness of the chocolate pieces, and the almonds added a nice crunchiness. It wasn't particularly special or amazing by any means, but it was a decent chocolate bar for a mainstream brand. Infact it made a nice change to eat chocolate that wasn't quite as milky as Cadbury's chocolate. The bar contains 27% cocoa solids which is actually higher than Cadbury Dairy Milk, which might explain why it tasted a bit richer and less milky in comparison. ...

Having slowly made my way through most of the Polish range of Milka bars, I thought I would give this Milka Caramel a try. The packaging caught my eye mainly because it looks reminiscent of a famous UK caramel chocolate bar -  Cadbury Dairy Milk with Caramel . I wasn't expecting it to taste great, since my experiences with Polish Milka chocolates have been a bit lacklustre so far. And I was right. The caramel didn't offer the same delicious buttery taste as Dairy Milk with Caramel - it just tasted overly sweet and without any real flavour. The chocolate itself tasted ok but was very sweet. Overall, I find it hard to recommend this Milka Caramel bar. I'm not sure if there's a similar one on the German market but if there is I'd imagine it's much tastier than this. I should point out that this is different from the Milka Caramel Cream  we currently get in the UK. Price : Just over £1 at local import store.

When I saw this jar of "Tender Cactus In Brine" in the reduced section of a local department store I just had to buy it. How could I not? Because whilst this may be a normal foodstuff in some parts of the world (just guessing there), here in the UK it is downright unusual. When I think of Cactus I imagine those prickly green things from Roadrunner cartoons. Or the miniature houseplants that don't need much watering. I never realized they could be - gasp - eaten! These particular cactus' - or is that cacti? - are a product of Mexico "for UK use". Nice to know they've been made especially for our use! As well as brine the ingredients also list onion, spices, peppers, sugar and coriander. Opening the jar they smelled pretty much the same as a jar of jalapeno peppers. And that's kind of how they tasted, although perhaps milder. They had a somewhat sticky goo coating them which I found a bit off-putting. I wasn't too keen on the flavour to be h...

A big thankyou to the fantastic Monster Sweets for sending me these Milka Schoko Drops to review recently! Monster Sweets are always on top of the latest American and European snacks releases - do check out their great range of stuff. Being a fan of all things Milka I was really excited to try these. They reminded me of the Weihnachts Minis I reviewed last year but sounded a lot more promising. They're basically a milky cream filling surrounded with Milka alpine milk chocolate and then coated in a crunchy candy shell. They're similar to Smarties and M&M's but the cream layer means the texture is quite different. The shells come in only white and purple colours to fit with the Milka branding, which I think looks really cool and unique. The milk chocolate tasted rich and creamy, just like regular Milka chocolate. The milky layer added an extra level of creaminess and tastes kind of similar to the cream in Kinder milk chocolate bars. The crunchy shell fin...

Another day, another new product from Cadbury. This time it's the turn of these mini versions of the  Cadbury Wishes Chocolate Star that is usually sold over the Christmas period. They're called Little Wishes and include the truffle part from regular Cadbury Wishes in mini star-shaped form, plus pure milk chocolate stars. Like regular Cadbury Wishes, 10% of the profits from these will go to the Make A Wish Foundation . The profits will be at least £50,000 in the UK and go towards making the wishes of children fighting life-threatening conditions come true. I'm sure everyone will agree that this is very appropriate and heart-warming for a Christmas-themed product! The chocolates are straight-up Cadbury Milk Chocolate, so of course they were going to be tasty. They're described as "Solid milk chocolates and milk chocolates with truffle centres" but there's little difference between them - the truffles are slightly softer to the bite, but that's ...

Being a longtime fan of peanut butter I've always hoped that some company would make one with chocolate in. There was a glimmer of hope when Whole Earth did peanut butter with chocolate chips a few years ago ( see review here by Foodstuff Finds), but I haven't been able to find it since. So when I spotted this new Sunpat "Choc-a-Nut" spread in Asda I was very excited...I thought my wish for a chocolate and peanut butter spread had finally come true! Alas, turns out it had only half come true. This isn't peanut butter infused with chocolate, but rather a smooth peanut butter paste with added cocoa powder and vegetable oil to make it more spreadable. It tasted good - very rich, nutty and smooth in texture, and pretty much like someone had combined smooth peanut butter with chocolate spread. But it lacks something. I think the problem is that it uses cocoa powder for the chocolate flavour, giving it a strong cocoa taste but not much creaminess. It's a ...

As well as the After Eight desserts I reviewed yesterday, I also picked up these new Quality Street Green Triangle desserts from Morrisons recently. They're described as "Creamy chocolate and hazelnut flavoured dessert" and are "inspired by" the hazelnut praline green triangles from Quality Street. Unlike the After Eight desserts these don't contain two different layers, just hazelnut flavoured chocolate dessert. They come in pairs like the After Eight desserts, which is quite handy because I immediately opened the second pot after finishing the first one! I enjoyed these a lot more than the After Eight desserts. They tasted very nutty and chocolatey and fitted the flavour of the Quality Street Green Triangle perfectly. They were very sweet though, and two small pots were enough to give me a nice sweet chocolatey hit. Overall I thought these desserts were very nice, although they made me wish that Nutella did their own version. They'd sur...

Many thanks to Aarun on Twitter for letting me know about these new Nestlé desserts. There's two new varieties - Quality Street Green Triangle and After Eight. They're currently on offer at £1 per 4-pack in Morrisons along with other varieties such as Rolo and Milkybar. The After Eight desserts are described as "Delicious dark chocolate and mint flavoured dessert" and are made with 60% fresh milk. The pots weigh 70g each and come in pairs of two: Each pot has a layer of mint-flavoured dessert at the bottom with a dark chocolate layer on top: The mint portion tasted somewhat like white chocolate and was very sweet and creamy, whilst the dark chocolate portion was more cocoa dominant. I enjoyed the combination and the fresh mint flavour went well with the chocolate layer. The desserts were very tasty but I was a little disappointed they didn't have a more intense minty taste like real After Eights. They were a bit tame in comparison, but pl...

When I spotted these Walkers "Blonde Chocolate Caramel Thins" in a 99p Store recently, my snacks radar perked up. "Blonde chocolate? What on earth is that?", I thought. Reading the box unfortunately took away some of the mystique - they're described as simply "Coloured white chocolate thins with a caramel flavour filling". Not natural blondes then! Speaking of "Blonde chocolate", it seems to be a new term in confectionery and one I've only seen coined in the description of the new  Valrhona Dulcey chocolate so far (which I'm yet to try due to the cost!) It refers to a type of caramel-flavoured white chocolate in a similar vein to Nestle's Caramac . And that's kind of how these "blonde chocolate thins" tasted - like Caramac, but much sweeter. Opening the box they actually looked like a Caramac version of After Eights. I got quite excited as I've never seen a product quite like this before. Un...

Just a quick review for these Maoam Pinballs. They're not really anything new and I'm sure most of you will have seen them in the shops countless times. They're very tasty though and well worth a try if you like sour sweets! I picked these up in Discount UK for about 99p but they're available from most supermarkets. They're apparently from Maomix (which sounds like a catfood brand to me) and are "so good they've got their own bag". I've never tried Maomix but I agree they're very good indeed. They're very chewy and with a nice sour tang that isn't  too sour but just about right. The fruit flavours are refreshing and I really liked the apple and strawberry varieties. They also come in orange, cherry and lemon flavours. Overall if you're a fan of sour sweets I would highly recommend these - they're not overbearingly sour but achieve a nice balance of pleasant fruitiness and slightly sour tanginess. Price : around ...

In the early-mid 2000's, Nestle UK went a bit mad and tried lots of different Kitkat flavours and varieties. I thought it'd be fun to compile a list to remember them by here. I plan on doing more features such as this in future as I love to reminisce over snacks that are long gone! These Kitkats were all released over a period between around 2003/2004 until about 2006. Kitkat Blood Orange (Halloween Limited Edition): This had a blood orange flavour cream in-between the wafers. I don't remember it tasting anything special. The tagline was "Have many spooky breaks". Kitkat Christmas Pudding (Christmas Limited Edition): These were only available in multipacks and tasted horrible. The "christmas pudding" flavour was achieved through the use of artificial flavours and was very unpleasant. Kitkat White Lemon and Yoghurt: This was the first new Kitkat variety launched in the early 2000's and was expected to boost flagging ...