Kev's Snack Reviews

Today's review is special thanks to Candy Planet, a company selling American themed snacks hampers on Amazon - to see their full range click here . There's various selections such as Reese's, Harry Potter chocolates, Hershey's and more. This particular hamper contains a variety of Snickers bars not found anywhere else, such as Hazelnut, Salty & Sweet, Espresso and Fiery. I was super excited to try them! The box arrived very well packaged and sealed with plenty of bubble wrap, via Tracked Delivery. I was impressed that it wasn't damaged at all because most deliveries like this inevitably end up squashed in some way! I started out by trying the Salty & Sweet Snickers . I assumed it would be salted caramel, but it turns out the sweet and salty flavour comes from the nougat. And it's darn delicious! I've become bored with regular Snickers over the years as they've amped up the sugar content, but here the salty element balances out the s...

A big thankyou to Home Bargains who recently sent me a box of various snacks that vare available from their stores. Amongst them, were these Bohme Chocolate bars. They're pretty cheap in store (19p or so) and are pretty tasty to boot! Bohme is a German company and the bars consist of dark chocolate and fondant creme fillings, in orange and lemon flavours. They're vegan and dairy free - always handy if you have allergies. The bars contain 5 generous chunks of dark chocolate, which is quite thick. The fondant creme filling is quite firm with nice sweet citrus aromas. They both taste pretty darn delicious. The chocolate is standard semisweet dark chocolate, nothing fancy, but the creme fillings are where all the action is. You need to have to have a sweet tooth and enjoy fondant chocolates to appreciate these - think the fruit cremes from Quality Street and Roses. The Lemon variety had the edge for me, but the Orange was a nice variation too and did remind me of the ora...

A while back I reviewed The Protein Works Salted Caramel Protein Cookies and Crunky Bars, and since then they've been busy and developed a Salted Caramel Cookie Peanut Butter, which they kindly sent me to review. As well as that there's also a Deep Choc Dive Brownie variety. They are of course high in protein and perfect for any pre or post workout boost, combining indulgence with #macros! Suitable for vegetarians, but not vegans. Both are available from theproteinworks.com Starting with the Salted Caramel Cookie variety, this is described as "The finest roasted peanuts, luxurious caramel, cheeky cookie pieces and that TPW magic". It's free from palm oil and high in monounsaturated fats. Opening the lid, it has a nice strong peanutty aroma and smelled unmistakably moreish. I gave it a stir and wasn't sure where the cookie pieces were...turns out they were hiding! (I think some had sunk towards the bottom of the tub a little). The taste is of course, s...

Recently I spotted Meridian Cocoa & Hazelnut Butter spreads reduced to £2.20 at Morrisons; I've had my eye on them for a while but the price always put me off...until today! It's a shame hazelnuts are such an expensive nut because it really is one of the tastiest around - it's no surprise that Nutella is so popular! In fact Nutella was at the forefront of my mind when trying this - it almost seems like a healthier and more natural take on Nutella (which as we all know has a lot of sugar and palm oil, despite how tasty it is). By contrast, this is made with 75% roasted hazelnuts, 10% honey, 7% cocoa powder, 5% coconut and sunflower oil. So it's more of a nut butter than a sweet spread, but still! I suppose a better comparison would be the innards of a Ferrero Rocher - it certainly has a similar crunchy texture. I opened the lid and things didn't look good - some of the oil had separated and there was a layer on top of the spread. Eek! I attempted to mix i...

Today's review is another new snack I was sent as part of some samples from Marks and Spencer Food PR recently - a big thanks to them for all the treats, do stay tuned for more! These Belgian Milk Chocolate Wafer bites are new in their confectionery range and available in stores now. They're a bit like the Kitkat Pop Choc that are available in other countries and sometimes in the U.K. The difference between these and Kitkat Pop Choc is of course that the chocolate is better quality - in true M&S fashion it's not just any chocolate, but Belgian milk chocolate! This is coated in a shellac glaze to make it all shiny. They look somewhat like Maltesers, with perhaps a less sweeter and better quality chocolate aroma. I passed them on to a friend at this point for the taste test (since I can't do gluten), and the feedback was that they're very tasty with a nice malty flavour whilst the chocolate is creamy and good quality. The wafer is similar to Kitkat but...

A big thankyou to Marks & Spencer Food PR for sending me a fantastic box of new snacks to review recently, which included some upcoming Halloween treats plus some festive goodies! Since those "holidays" are quite some time away I thought I'd start by reviewing their delicious-sounding new Milk Chocolate Salted Caramel Mini Whips. I've reviewed an  M&S Salted Caramel Whip before so I was curious if these would be any different, or if they're the same thing in mini form. Described as "Milk chocolate filled with salted caramel flavour soft mallow (14%)", the bag contains 120g and I believe they'll cost £2 in stores. They're different to the one I've reviewed previously (which contained a layer of caramel) but that's not such a bad thing since the actual mallow in these tastes of salted caramel. Meaning - more salted caramel flavour! Opening the bag they certainly had a nice creamy chocolate aroma; definitely good qualit...

Today's review is a quick one as there's not a lot to say about this new Smarties Scaries Halloween Edition. It seems Nestle are doing a lot of limited edition Smarties now, following from the success of the Unicorn Edition and Orange Limited Edition ...I'm guessing a Christmas version will be next! I received these from @gbgifts , a new company selling snacks boxes with a variety of fantastic treats, from old classics to new limited editions. To a Skittles gift box please check out my Instagram page - we are doing a joint competition this week! These Smarties are simply described as "Milk chocolate in a crisp sugar shell" and are basically brown-coloured milk chocolate Smarties and orange-coloured orange flavour milk chocolate Smarties. Which is pretty good because Orange Smarties are always a bit more special than regular ones (if you like orangey chocolate of course!). There's not much to say about them other than they taste as sugary and swee...

I was recently offered to try some new snacks called Corners, a type of crisp made from...popcorn! Who doesn't love popcorn, right? Well they've only gone and pressed them into Doritos-style chips in two flavours: Sweet & Salty and Sea Salt. These are available from  https://www.popcorners.com/ and are Gluten Free, Vegan and never fried. Pretty clean! I started by trying the Sea Salt variety as I was in a savoury mood. They're a bit like corn cakes, which if you've ever tried them you'll know are rather similar to Rice Cakes. However these are thinner and of course, more crisp like... I poured them into a bowl and started eating. Yum - they're super moreish! The only way I can really describe them is addictive; there's something about the combination of corn and salt that makes it hard to stop eating. I didn't think the Sweet ones would beat them to be honest... I'd rate them 8.5 out of 10. I wasn't sure about the Sweet and Salty on...

Today's review is rather special, it's for a new range of Organic "Rich Dark" high cocoa bars from Divine, makers of Fairtrade ethically-sourced chocolate. The bars are certified Vegan, Soil Association Organic and verified by the Non GMO Project. Some pretty high credentials right there! I was offered the range to review by Divine recently and of course, couldn't say no since I'm such a convert to darker chocolates. What intrigued me by this range was the inclusion of various flavours like Ginger, Lemon, Turmeric etc...all very healthy and super food-ish, and interesting pairings for dark chocolate! The fairtrade cocoa is sourced from Sao Tome, a forest-covered volcanic island off the west coast of Africa. It was the first African country to grow cocoa and in 1913 was the biggest producer in the world, earning it the title of "Chocolate Island". Mmmm, who wouldn't want to live on a Chocolate Island? Starting with the Refreshing Lemon var...

Following my last Spotted In Shops post I've been itching to try this Cadbury Bournville Orange bar. It's described as New/Old because it was last available in 2009, nearly ten years ago! I vaguely remember it along with the Old Jamaica version, and am glad it's been brought back - you can't beat the combination of orange and dark chocolate when it's done right. These are available for £1 from various stores, including Iceland Foods (where I found it) and Poundland. The bars contain 100g and are described simply as "Chocolate with orange flavoured pieces". I was pleased to see a return of more traditional-looking chunks in this bar; yes they're smaller than they used to be, but at least they're not curved like they tried to make Dairy Milk. The orange pieces can be found nestled within the chunks and there seemed to be quite a decent amount of them (they make up 12% of the bar). Firstly, the chocolate itself tastes as you'd expect; se...

It's that time of year when all the new products are being launched - hurrah! Let's celebrate with another Spotted In Shops post... First up is the above bar of Bournville Orange Dark Chocolate which I spotted in Iceland Foods. It costs £1, is Dairy Free and has a "New Old!" label on...because this isn't the first time Cadbury have made this bar. It was around many years ago (2009!) along with an Old Jamaica Bournville , just before Cadbury were taken over by Kraft.  Other new developments from Cadbury are their Darkmilk range; a rich and creamy chocolate with a higher percentage of cocoa than Dairy Milk (but still containing milk, obviously). Currently available for £1 from Tesco in an Original variety... Plus Roasted Almond. Does this sound like your kind of thing? Let me know in the comments! A rather strange product Cadbury have launched is this Sweet Shop style bag of chocolates, that includes Dairy Milk, Caramel, Fudge and E...