Kev's Snack Reviews

You can't beat M&S for peanutty treats. Yes they do get some of their confectionery range wrong but when they get it right, they get it oh so right...the Nutty Surprise Easter Egg was glorious, for example. Now they've only gone and created some delicious peanutty caramel chocolate treats in their bagged range, which judging by the amount of times are out of stock must be selling like hot cakes! I had put off trying these for ages, firstly due to my low sugar diet over Summer and secondly as I prefer to avoid dairy. But recently I thought what the heck, why not try them! Described as "milk and dark chocolate bars with a layer of soft caramel (19%) and a peanut butter (11%) and roasted peanut pieces (9%) centre", these are certainly not for anyone with nut allergies! They cost £2 for a 130g bag and are suitable for vegetarians. I ate these whilst on the go, as I often do. The bars are quite chunky, which certainly makes for a more satisfying eat. Biting i...

Recently, I was sent a batch of snacks to review including some of the new Nakd bars with a "New Recipe", so I thought I'd start with some of the more interesting flavours from the selection: Apple Danish and Banana Bread! The Apple Danish replaces the previous Apple Pie Nakd bar and I wasn't sure what the difference was so I looked it up...seems that this Apple Danish contains cashews rather than peanuts and almonds, and it also contains "fruit extract and concentrate" which consists of apple and carob. Nakd Apple Danish: This one tasted lovely with a subtle apple flavour and nice chewy texture. The natural spices are gentle and comforting and give it that authentic Apple Danish flavour. Although you could still pretend it's Apple Pie too! I really enjoyed this.  8 out of 10. Nakd Banana Bread: The Banana Bread one was perhaps even more exciting, replicating the classic banana cakey treat in bar form. It contains real bananas as well as walnuts...

Recently, Nestle launched a new range of Walnut-Free Whips, in Vanilla, Mint and Delicious Caramel varieties. The reasoning for this is that some people don't like the walnuts in the original Walnut Whips, and also to save on costs. I don't have strong feelings on this personally, since I never liked the walnuts on Walnut Whips anyway. I used to pick them off whenever I ate one and give it to my Grandad! So it's good news to me that Nestle have added some variety to the gooey mallows. I chose Delicious Caramel to review because who doesn't love caramel?! I found this three pack in Poundland with the other varieties, and they're available from other stores too. The Whips are individually wrapped and weigh 27.8g. They're described as "soft caramel flavour mallow in a milk chocolate shell". Cutting one open, the mallow had a slight yellowish caramel colour. Biting into it, I  could first taste the chocolate; it's super sweet and milky, st...

It was only a year ago now that I reviewed the Limited Edition Orange Daim Minis , and those were only in Poundstretcher for a limited time. Now Daim Orange is available again as a limited edition in regular sized bars in three packs, from Poundland. Hurrah! I don't know if these are an official UK launch or imports, but they do list the UK Cadbury website on the pack so I'm guessing they must be official. Described as "Orange flavoured milk chocolate with a crunchy almond caramel centre", there's 3 x 28g bars per pack. They had the same chocolate orange aroma as the Daim Minis did, and I couldn't wait to get stuck in! They tasted glorious! Lovely creamy orangey milk chocolate, with the crunchy almond caramel centre making them super duper moreish. As much as I enjoyed the Daim Minis last year, I think this bar form is much better - it's more satisfying and feels like just the right amount in one go. Not that it didn't stop me from reaching...

Pumpkin Spice Latte season is upon us and Halloween is but a week away, so it's only fitting that I review the only chocolate bar I know of (at least in the UK) to combine chocolate with the popular spicy flavouring this week. It took me a while to decide on whether or not to get this bar; after glancing at the ingredients I saw that it doesn't contain real pumpkin, but this is because it's not possible to add actual pumpkin to chocolate, Creighton's informed me on Instagram recently. So how do the other pumpkin spice latte elements work with white chocolate? By chance I spotted the last few bars of this limited edition in Fenwicks at the weekend and decided it was now or never: I had to snap one up! For £3.99 you get 100g of "spiced pumpkin flavour white chocolate with coffee". I couldnt be bothered waiting to get home to try this bar, so I did what I often do - ate it whilst shopping! Opening the paper wrapper it had a nice creamy and spicy aroma,...

When I heard Ben & Jerry's were launching their Non Dairy ice creams in the UK I was super excited indeed. There's a lack of variety in the Dairy Free market and so it's nice to see a big brand like Ben & Jerry's coming out with some quality flavours. They now do Peanut Butter Cookies , Chocolate Fudge Brownies and Chunky Monkey, all available from Tesco and Ocado.com. I couldn't try the first two since they contain gluten, but this Chunky Monkey variety doesn't - hurrah! Described as "banana flavour dairy free ice cream with chocolatey chunks and walnuts", this is made with almond paste and coconut oil, and costs a whopping £5.50 in Tesco. Not cheap! By the time I had got it home the ice cream was very runny, moreso than a regular half defrosted tub of Ben & Jerry's. This didn't bother me though since I don't like ice cream that's rock solid! Taking a spoonful, it was instantly melt in the mouth and had a st...

It's hard to find a good Gluten Free brownie, many of them are either too dry or conversely too fudge like. I've tried quite a few now and so far I like the Costa Gluten Free Brownie the best, but when I found these "Wonderfully Indulgent" Baked In Scotland, Specially Selected Gluten Free Brownies in Aldi (in Glasgow of all places!) recently I was super excited to try them. They're "hand crafted on the banks of Loch Ness with real Belgian chocolate" - how fancy! They cost £1.79 for 4 which is very reasonable compared to some gluten free brownies in shops. Opening the pack, they looked super squidgy and moist. I took a bite. The brownie was indeed very moist and squidgy, and very rich and chocolatey. These are super easy to eat, before I knew it I was onto my second piece! It's nice that they're squidgy rather than dry, but I did miss the more substantial texture of other brownies - I like a bit of bite to my brownies ( Costa's ...

The Salted Caramel trend has been going for at least a few years now, and it seems that companies are determined to put it in everything. Galaxy Salted Caramel is a few years old, and more recently we got Salted Caramel Kettle Chips . Nestle have got in on the act too and added a Salted Caramel variety to their Matchmakers range (which now bizarrely has been lumped under the Quality Street brand, even though Matchmakers never had anything to do with Quality Street). This is no doubt a replacement for the Matchmakers Yummy Honeycomb  which is still available in Home Bargains, although it could be old stock. You can pick these up for around £1 in most shops currently - Tesco have them at half price and they're also in Poundland and other discount stores for £1. They're described as "salted caramel flavoured chocolates with skimmed milk chocolate, dark chocolate and boiled sugar pieces". Yum - boiled sugar, sounds so enticing! Opening the box they had ...

This Christmas it seems to be the year of sweet crisp flavours for some reason. There's the new Kettle Discoveries Salted Caramel & Double Cream - which is actually pretty awesome - as well as these Candy Cane flavour Tesco Finest crisps. Last year we got a Rum & Cocoa Limited Edition from Tesco , which was really nice so I don't know why they haven't kept it this year. Even more so after trying these which were pretty horrible... Described as "candy cane flavour potato crisps" and costing £1 these are available from most large Tesco stores, along with more savoury flavours like Pigs in Blankets and Pulled Pork. They're suitable for vegans, and 100% of the sales will be donated to Fareshare and The Trussell Trust. Opening the bag, they smelled as you would expect: vaguely of toothpaste and not very inviting! They tasted pretty horrible. The flavouring is just a sweet, sticky minty powder, not the sort of thing anyone wants on a crisp. I...

When I first saw these new Salted Caramel flavour Kettle Chips I laughed. It seems a bit ridiculous to put the Flavour Du Jour (which is fast becoming the Flavour Du Yesterday!) on crisps, I mean who wants sweet crisps? Is it a new trend? (Tesco seem to think so - their latest weird Christmas flavour is Tesco Finest Candy Cane  crisps - click for my review!) I'm glad I put my reservations aside and gave these a shot though. They're only £1 in Tesco at the moment, and I thought they would at least make for an interesting review. They're described as "Hand cooked potato chips with salted caramel and double cream seasoning", and are Gluten Free as well as suitable for vegetarians. I tipped the bag right into a bowl and dug straight in - no messing about! They had a vague toffee-like aroma that seemed more savoury than sweet. Intriguing! And they tasted...rather amazing! Now I don't really know how to describe these other than moreish - they're ...

Todays review is a face off...well...a jelly baby off between the new Tropical flavour Jelly Babies from Maynards Bassetts vs the Original Jelly Babies. It seems incomprehensible that a new variety could beat the originals, so this will be interesting! Firstly, I must mention the new name: Jelly Babies were originally labelled as Bassetts, but Mondelez have put both the Maynards brand (which is on things like Wine Gums and Sports Mixture) and Bassetts (which includes the likes of Liquorice Allsorts - who can forget the character Bertie Bassett?) I'm not sure it's a good idea to lump two brands together like this, but I guess it fits with Mondelez' marketing strategy of making everything the same. First up, the Tropical Jelly Babies. These come in mango, pineapple and BANANA (ooh!) flavours so straight off they are at a disadvantrage of containing less variety than the Originals, despite the fancy flavours. But are they good flavours? Yes, they are as it turns out!...

Today's review isn't something I would usually feature, since it contains gluten. However on this occasion I decided to test this new Kitkat Chunky variety on friends and see what they thought of it. I was offered some of these to review and I can't turn down free samples! New York Cheesecake is an unusual flavour indeed for Kitkat, so how have they recreated the classic biscuit and cream cheese dessert? By putting the cream cheese as a layer over the wafer of course! Described as a "crispy wafer finger with a New York cheesecake flavour topping covered with milk chocolate", these are available in all supermarkets now in 42g bars for 60p or so. The bar is the classic Chunky design split into three sections. The cream sits nicely above the wafer, and breaking the bar apart it certainly has that familiar malty Kitkat chocolate aroma, with a faint smell of cream cheese. My friends commented that this tastes like the classic Kitkat Chunky with a cr...

Now normally I would reserve reviews like this for December, as that's the only time it's really acceptable to be eating festive snacks, however today's product is an exception because it's so good that I just had to tell you all about it! These are currently in M&S amongst their new festive range, along with Maple Bacon Tortilla Rolls, Christmas Pudding Ice Cream (fancy!) Chocolate Orange Ice Cream (do want!), Christmas Pudding Roulade and more besides like Salted Caramel Pinecones , Prosecco Caramels etc. For more goodies do check out my Instagram page! These particular snacks are selling like hot cakes - or hot tortillas - it seems; they're out of stock whenever I look in M&S. By chance I managed to nab the last pack on a flying visit to Glasgow, for a respectable £2 for 190g of "milk chocolate coated corn tortilla rolls with a cinnamon sugar seasoning". The milk chocolate is on one side of each roll and looks kind of chunky, with...

Mondelez have done a few questionable things in recent years, but perhaps the most questionable yet is their move away from organic chocolate within the Green & Blacks range. It remains to be seen if all G&B bars will no longer be organic, but so far they've been giving this new non organic Velvet Edition range quite a push in supermarkets. After the disappointing Almond & Blood Orange bar I wasn't going to bother trying any more of the range, however curiosity got the better of me with this Mint version. I do love a minty chocolate, and was curious how this might compare to the regular mint chocolate bar from G&B. The range is reduced to £1.50 at the moment in Tesco, which is still too much for inferior chocolate if you ask me. The bars contain 90g which I believe is less than a regular Green & Blacks bar. So not only are they non organic they're giving you less too. Way to go Mondelez! Do forgive my grainy photo, I took it as I was exiting...