Kev's Snack Reviews

When I heard about these new Popcorn flavour Tic Tacs thanks to Grocery Gems I was a bit overly excited to find them...Popcorn is an unusual flavour variation and I was curious how it would work in practice. These cost me 65p, which is about standard for Tic Tacs although I'm sure you can get them cheaper elsewhere.  This is a limited edition flavour for the UK, but it's also available in other countries and seems to be rather popular...I searched for them on Instagram, and the amount of hand selfies would make a Snacks Warrior blush! So I've decided to go against the trend and am providing zero hand-selfies this time! (boo!)  These Tic Tacs are basically very sweet and have a strong artificial popcorn flavour. At first I kind of enjoyed it, but then there's this aftertaste that tastes too much like toasted corn...it's very weird, and I found it quite sickly to be honest. I can't deny that these taste like what they're meant to, but in this...

I loooove carrot cake, but sadly I haven't eaten a lot of it since I went gluten-free. Most supermarkets do gluten-free versions but I find them rather dry and am often left disappointed. Boo! So when I saw this new ice cream from Perfect World in Tesco recently I got rather excited; carrot cake combined with ice cream sounds like it might potentially solve the dryness issue! Alas, this Ice Cream doesn't contain any pieces of carrot cake, but it does have a whole lot of other good things going for it. It's dairy free (but not egg-free, so isn't suitable for vegans, sadly), it contains no added sugar; it's made with a mixture of xylitol, erythyritol and stevia instead. It's also high in vitamin A, Vegetarian Society Approved and suitable for diabetics. That's pretty good going...who knew ice cream could be nutritious?! The description reads "A non-dairy carrot cake flavoured frozen dessert with sultanas (6%), walnuts (4%) and sweeteners"...

Not content with the rather funky and tasty White, Milk & Dark Chocolate bar they brought out last year, Marks & Spencer have expanded their chocolate range further to include this rather cool looking "Crazy Orange Loaded" bar. Whilst the name is a bit clunky, the bar design is rather fantastic...it's reminiscent of the Cadbury Marvellous Creations bars with their irregular blocks, but a lot more elegant: Also similar to Marvellous Creations, it contains a mix of different sweets; orange chocolate beans, tangy orange jelly pieces, and milk chocolate nibs. As if this wasn't enough, the chocolate is orange flavoured and contains a top layer of milk chocolate and a bottom layer of dark chocolate. This was definitely an interesting bar. I really enjoyed the orange flavour, it's lovely and refreshing, and much nicer than Terry's Chocolate Orange. The chocolate beans added some extra orangey crunch whilst the jellies were chewier and tangier......

This will just be a quick review today of this Bounty Spread with Coconut Flakes...for a more in-depth technical analysis see the Snacks Warriors review. I saw this on offer along with the Milky Way variety in Tesco for £1.50 recently, and since I haven't been able to try the new Twix Spread as it contains gluten (boo!) I thought I'd drown my snacks sorrows and splurge on this instead. I've always been curious what Bounty in spread form might taste like...now I wish I hadn't! It just didn't live up to its name to be honest. It's a sickly, milky spread with the addition of a small percentage of coconut flakes. Initially I thought it would be white chocolate, but no, it's just a milk spread. I don't know why they didn't make it milk chocolate since Bounty bars contain milk chocolate? Puzzling... Overall, this is a sickly, unhealthy concoction of milky vegetable fat that doesn't do Bounty bars justice....I won't be purchasing again...

The Easter Bunny had been early in my household and she goes by the name of the Snack Warrior...yes, a big thankyou to the lovely Reaching For Refreshment  who just celebrated her one year Bloggerversary for sending me some Easter goodies recently! She knows I'm a sucker for anything sweet, so I bow down to her for sending me this White Chocolate Lindt Gold Bunny. I can't eat regular Lindt Gold Bunnies as I'm allergic to the barley malt they put in the chocolate (why they do this I have no idea!), so this white version is a godsend for anyone with gluten issues. He is without doubt one of the best Easter bunnies around, cute and shiny with his little bell. I haven't taken photos of him broken apart...I think that would be rather cruel and trauma inducing...but needless to say he tasted DEE LICIOUS! Lindt really do know how to make great white chocolate; it's the creamiest, smoothest one around from a commercial company, kicking the arse of Milkybar any day...

Coffee is amazing. Fact. So is chocolate. Combine the two together? Perfection! But what happens when you remove the cocoa solids and replace them with ground coffee? Let's find out! M&S have created what must be a first for the UK market, a coffee and cocoa butter concoction that "melts in the mouth like chocolate but has a coffee kick". Why they haven't called it mochalate I don't know...I suppose it wouldn't roll off the tongue easily! The ingredients comprise of cocoa butter, sugar, ground coffee (29%) and soya lecithin. For £2.50 you get 5 small bars; each 12g bar contains 45mg caffeine which is equivalent to half a 30ml M&S dark roast espresso. When I saw these in M&S I noticed there was also a latte variety, but as a lover of intense rather than milky coffee there was no doubt these would be ending up in my basket! I ate my bar with a cup of coffee (what else?!) to intensify the experience further and tucked in. Taking a bite...

I'm not sure what makes the recipe for these limited edition Cadbury Creme egg ice creams "new" exactly as I don't recall having eaten them before...perhaps the inclusion of "goo" is new? I'm not sure but if anyone knows please leave a comment! Anyway for the sake of keeping up my Easter spirits I thought I'd give these a try when I spotted them for £2 a box in the Co Op recently. You get three individually wrapped ice creams per box, and they look a bit like magnums, but rather misshapen. There's supposedly extra space on the sides to hold the Creme egg filling, but I think Cadbury's just couldn't be bothered to invest in decent moulds to be honest...they look weird and lumpy: Not one to let such trivialities stop sugar getting in my mouth, I promptly took a bite, expecting vanilla fondant goodness. But I didn't really get any. Initially all I could taste was the rather plain ice cream, which wasn't very distinc...

I spotted these new Black Magic mini eggs in Wilkinsons recently, and for the sake of trying a mini egg that's hopefully a bit richer than the sickly sweet stuff Cadbury's put out I thought I'd give them a whirl. They're £1.50 a bag, and contain foil-wrapped plain chocolate mini eggs with a softer dark chocolate truffle centre. They're pretty bland to be honest. The dark chocolate tastes kinda awful, almost stale and woody as Nestle's dark chocolate tends to be, whilst the filling is just a waxier variation of the same thing. These aren't true "dark" chocolates of course, I forget the exact percentage but I'm sure it was below 50%. The only redeeming feature is that these aren't a sickly sweet sugar overload like Mini Eggs or Creme Eggs. Overall, these are a bit pointless really in my opinion, there's Lindt 70% cocoa mini eggs out there (Tesco sell them) so I'd say stick with those instead if you famcy a dark chocolat...

As many of you may know (well those of us who review snacks as a hobby anyway) Cadbury's Easter products are a bit rubbish now. Creme Eggs no longer use Dairy Milk chocolate (and sales have fallen as a result), sizes have shrunk, vegetable fats have been added, and their Mini Eggs are now a code word for sugar bombs. Nevertheless they're still the gold standard for crunchy coated chocolate mini eggs, they've somehow managed to perfect this Easter treat. I still keep searching for something better quality though. I've tried the Chicky Choccy Mini Eggs from Marks and Spencer ( reviewed by Mrs One Treat here ), which were good quality but still lacked the "it" factor that makes Cadbury Mini Eggs so special. So the search has continued, and has led me to Aldi! These Dairyfine Mini Eggs are one of Aldi's "clones" of famous brands; Dairyfine is clearly supposed to be their version Dairy Milk, so I thought it'd be interesting to see how these...

Finally, it's here, the elusive new Hot Cross Bun flavour Easter limited edition from Butterkist, hurrah! These are currently available from B&M bargain stores, Home Bargains, and now Aldi too. I saw this in Aldi just the other day for 99p so couldn't resist picking up a bag. It's described as "popcorn coated with a bun spice flavour toffee" and contains 150g per bag. It certainly smelled very zesty and spicy, with a strong citrusy mixed peel aroma. I've heard mixed things about the taste from other bloggers so I wasn't sure what to expect, but thankfully I'm pleased to say I really enjoyed this popcorn a lot!  At first I was a bit skeptical. As I scooped out a handful and crunched on it I didn't notice a particularly strong bun spice flavour, but it seems that the flavour hasn't been evenly distributed and some popcorn pieces tasted stronger than others. The thicker toffee coated pieces tasted lovely, very sweet and spicy and to b...

There's been a lot of new Cadbury products lately, so when I spotted this "Dairy Milk Silk" bar in Poundland I first assumed it was another Dairy Milk variation Mondelez were throwing at the UK market. However on closer inspection I found that it's actually made in France, for Mondelez South Africa. What it's doing in British Poundland stores is anyone's guess, but in the name of Snacks Science I had to give it a try! With a name like "Silk" I thought perhaps it was a creamier variation of regular Dairy Milk, because why else would they attach it to the name? Turns out, it tastes exactly the same as regular Dairy Milk, in fact it was somewhat inferior to regular British Dairy Milk, which is saying something since ours is pretty rubbish these days!  I'm putting the difference in taste down to the ratio of ingredients, this bar is obviously produced for a hotter climate hence a different melting point, so I'll forgive them the...

When I first heard about this new Galaxy Duet flavour I was rather excited; I haven't been able to try the other flavours in the Duet range since they contain gluten, but luckily this one doesn't...hurrah! It also sounded a bit unique and different for a chocolate bar: it contains a layer of toffee caramel down one side and a mixture of crunchy toffee and popcorn pieces down the other. Since this was my first time trying a Duet bar I was surprised by the shape: it's two thin chocolate fingers stuck together, but isn't sectioned into chunks so you can bite into both at the same time (the hand selfie returns...careful you don't faint Snacks Warrior !): I took a bite from one end and got a nice mix of both the caramel and popcorn sections. The caramel was lovely and gooey and pretty similar to what you get in a regular Galaxy Caramel. The popcorn was a bit undetectable to be honest; there was a vague sweet and savoury crunch from it but nothing that screamed ...

Last year I reviewed the Dark Chocolate Chocologic bar and was a bit down with it, but a lower sugar version of a milk chocolate bar? Now that makes a bit more sense! The Chocologic range, which includes a hazelnut bar as well as Dark Chocolate is on offer at the moment in Tesco for £1 a pop, so I decided to give this Milk variety a go and see what the fuss is about.   It contains 60% less sugar than standard milk chocolate, which is pretty good going. It's sweetened with a mixture of stevia and inulin fibres, as well as milk of course. I like that it's foil-wrapped, that's not something you see often with chocolate bars these days. Taste-wise it wasn't too bad for a lower sugar milk chocolate. It has a nice milky flavour and because of the lower sugar content isn't as throat burningly sweet, letting the milk shine through more. It's not exactly a luxury chocolate hit but if you're on a low carb diet this will definitely feel like a treat. The s...

Recently Butterkist announced two new Popcorn varieties, one is the elusive Hot Cross Buns Easter variety, and the other is this Yogurt Coated variety. This is apparently a "first" in the popcorn world, no yogurt coated mass-produced popcorn has been made before, so claim Butterkist. I found these in Poundland with the rest of the Butterkist Popcorn range, and for £1 you get 160g popcorn which is pretty reasonable (the RRP is £1.49). Basically it's very sweet, creamy coated popcorn with a slightly yogurty tang. It tasted more sweet than tangy to me which is definitely a good thing, and I was under no illusion at all that these were a "healthy" snack despite the yogurt! (Though we can of course pretend!) It was very moreish and the lighter, less sugary taste of the yogurt coating made it easier to eat than regular sugary Toffee Popcorn. Overall, these are a great new addition to the ever-growing Popcorn market, they're very moreish and perfect for...

I wasn't too interested in trying this New Aero Mousse Caramel variety when I first heard about it, not after the boringness that was the original Aero Mousse Bar I reviewed last year. However for the sake of saying "I tried it" I decided to give it a whirl when I spotted it in a random newsagents recently, and thank goodness I do give things another chance because it turned out to be a rather tasty (if not very tiny) chocolate bar! For 75p (!) you get a mere 34g of chocolate, and it's not even all chocolate, a large proportion of it is vegetable fat. Despite this, Nestle have had the audacity to list the calories of a mere mouthful of the bar (half!) on the front of the wrapper, and the back even says "re-close to save some for later". I'm sorry Nestle, but no sane person is likely to do that when there's barely enough chocolate to feed a mouse! On the wrapper the bar is described as "smooth milk chocolate filled with bubbly milk chocolate ...

Recently Mondelez/Cadbury decided to copy their Milka range from Europe and bring out these "Big Taste" bars under the Cadbury brand. Why they can't just directly import the Milka versions is beyond me...I guess us Brits will only buy chocolate if it has the words Cadbury Dairy Milk slapped on it?! As an FYI, the Milka "Toffee Ganznuss" version of this bar is currently available from B&M Bargain Stores for only £1.99 (check out the lovely One Treat At a Time's review ), and also please do check out The Snack Warrior's review of all three Dairy Milk Big Taste bars . I didn't fancy splashing out three quid per bar, and I'm allergic to gluten so I couldn't try the Oreo variety, so it was a toss-up between this or  Triple Choc Sensation (click for Nibbles & Scribbles review). This sounded like the more luxury bar out of the two, so into my basket it went! Sadly there's no hand-selfies this time ( The Snacks Warrior ...

So it's round 2 of the Chocolate Button-Off...yesterday we had Milkybar Milkshake Mix Up , and today entering the ring we have...dun dun dun...good old Cadbury's! Yes, Cadbury have finally brought out a new product that the people actually wanted and have put Dairy Milk Buttons and White Chocolate Buttons in a sharing bag together...genius! I'm not actually being sarcastic when I say this is genius, it genuinely is a good idea. Everyone loves Cadbury Buttons, they're so moreish and addictive despite the poorer quality Dairy Milk they use in them these days...mix them with White Chocolate Buttons and you've got a winner! I found these in B&M Bargains for 99p, but they're also in Home Bargains and have started appearing in Poundland stores too. Seems like the discount market got first dibs on them! There's 115g of buttons per bag and there seemed to be a good amount of both Dairy Milk and White Chocolate buttons, although (hand selfie aler...

Both Nestle and Cadbury have recently launched two opposing versions of mixed chocolate buttons, Cadbury with their Dairy Milk Mixed Buttons (review soon) and Nestle with this Milkybar Giant Buttons Milkshake Mix Up...but which shall reign supreme?! Sadly it won't be Nestle! These Milkybar Giant Buttons Milkshake Mix Up contain a mixture of regular Milkybar Giant Buttons as well as Chocolate Milkshake flavoured buttons. Yes, that's right - not actual chocolate buttons but chocolate flavoured buttons. As you can see in the pic above (hand selfie alert!) the chocolate milkshake buttons look a lot paler than real milk chocolate buttons, more of a malty kind of colour, and that's how they tasted really; malty, milky, and very sweet without much chocolatey flavour. I was very disappointed, but I suppose they are called Milkshake Mix Up so it's no surprise they're more milky than chocolatey. I do think Nestle missed an opportunity here to make something rathe...

Recently, Cadbury added a bunch of new products to their Dairy Milk range as they do so often these days...things must be tough in old Cadburyland with the need to bring out so many new bars constantly!  They're recycling the Milka range that Mondelez already produce in Europe, and right now you can buy Cadbury Dairy Milk Big Taste bars at Sainsbury's - check out my snacks pal Reaching For Refreshment aka The Snacks Warrior's review of them.  They're also doing these new Medley bars, which are known as Milka Collage in Europe. They're supposed to be a more "luxury" bar aimed at women of a certain age, because presumably only a woman of a certain age would buy a bar of the sloppily presented chocolate you see below?!  I kid, of course...it wasn't too bad, to be honest. In fact opening the wrapper I was surprised by the nice tangy smell from the dried raspberries. As a fan of tarter fruit flavours I was looking forward to this flavo...