Kev's Snack Reviews

A big thankyou to Baboo Gelato for today's review, they kindly sent me some of their Gelato range recently and it's been quite a delightful experience to say the least! Baboo Gelato is handmade award winning ice cream, from Bridport, Dorset and is available from Delis in the Bridport area, although will gradually be expanding as other stores stock them. If you're interested in seeing these please do let local stores know! Baboo use organic milk from a local farm and a lot of the fruit comes from their own rambling garden. It's lower in fat content than traditional ice cream, and more intensely flavoured. The range I was sent had some lovey varieties, there's the super moreish Bah Humbug, based on butter mint sweets, Brandy Gelato which is appropriately boozy, Crystallized Ginger Gelato, Pear Sorbet which has won a Great Taste Award, and an alcoholic Gin and Tonic sorbet. Starting with my absolute favourite from the range - Bah Humbug! This has a festive d...

A big thanks to Yeoman Foods for sending me their new Mash Pots range to review recently. I hadn't eaten instant mash in quite a while and didn't know it came in handy pots like this, much less with added flavours. The Yeoman Mash Pot range is all Gluten Free, made from real potatoes, suitable for vegetarians, with no artificial colourings and is ready in 30 seconds. Just what you need for a quick snack! There's 4 flavours - Chicken, Beef, Onion and Cream which should be available from Heron Foods, Home Bargains, The Range and Poundstretcher now. I started with the Chicken variety. Opening the lid revealed the potato granules and herbs - it had an aroma that reminded me of Chicken cup-a-soup. I added hot water as directed, which transformed the mixture pretty quickly into a tasty, buttery mash. I was surprised by just how buttery it tasted actually - the addition of real cream in the ingredients makes a big difference. I don't know how they've achieved ...

A big thankyou to Booths for sending me one of their Christmas Hampers to review recently. Booths are a company based in Preston specializing in luxury gifts and have quite an impressive range indeed, with everything from wines, coffees, chocolate hampers, alcohol baubles and more. To see the whole range do check out their website:  https://gifts.booths.co.uk/ The hamper they sent me was the Luxury Christmas version, containing a varied selection of everything you could need for Christmas; from Christmas Cake Slices, Scottish Shortbread, Truffles, Coffee, Tea, Mulled Wine and more! The hamper is all packed in a lovely wicker hamper, perfect to re-use for picnics. It's generously filled to protect the contents, with a festive message and a Booths themed bag on top. A nice touch! The hamper is filled with an All Butter Scottish Shortbread assortment, as well as Iced Christmas Cake Slices. Both great quality products, with the shortbread being handma...

Today's review is for something a bit different, a new type of healthy ice cream featuring ingredient of the moment: avocado! Not just avocado, but that other superfood of the moment  - coconut! Yes they've only gone and mixed the two together to make a healthy, vegan, gluten free, nut free and soya free ice cream! It comes in two varieties: Original and Raw Cacao and is available from ocado.com and Waitrose. Fravocado kindly sent me some samples to review and below are my thoughts on each variety. I'll start with the Raw Cacao because this was the one that divided my opinion most. It's made with Coconut Milk, 15% Avocadoes, Agave Syrup, Coconut Oil, Cacao Powder, Lime Juice, Vanilla Extract, Guar Gum, Xanthan Gum and Salt. Opening the lid, it was super solid; practically a block of ice and even after waiting over half an hour it took a while to become scoopable. Eventually I decided to shave bits off with a spoon and eat it that way - hence the appearance in ...

As far as Dairy Free/Vegan chocolates go I'm a huge fan of the Waitrose 1 Indian Ocean Coconut Chocolate bar. It's hands down my favourite, it's pretty much like a Lindt Extra Creamy as far as Vegan chocolate is concerned. But when I spotted these mini bars of Coconut "Enjoy" raw chocolate in Asda's Free From section recently I was intrigued to see if they would taste similar - they contain creamed coconut and are described as Milk Chocolate, although have a high cocoa percentage - 65%. They're Organic and made with Peruvian Cacao, costing £1.99, which is a little off-putting for such a small bar but if the quality is good surely it's worth it? The bar comes in ten small squares and has a rich and coconutty aroma. Definitely no average chocolate. The taste surprised me - it's super creamy but also very rich from the high percentage of cocoa. It's a nice balance of flavours, neither being too intense nor too sweet. I wouldn't s...

One of the perks of being a food blogger is not just the naughty foods you get to eat, but doing unspeakable things like opening advent calendars before December...the horror! We've all done it before though, right? Luckily on this occasion the calendar in question was more guilt free than eating an entire chocolate filled calendar...that's because it's full of healthy-plant based protein, is gluten and refined sugar free and suitable for vegans. Hurrah! But doesn't that defeat the point of an advent calendar...aren't they meant to be a daily dose of naughtiness leading up to Christmas Day? I'm not sure the answer to that but calendars are certainly getting more fancy these days...you can get Gin, Wine and Beer calendars for around £40 from Iceland, or a large Wine Advent Calendar at Aldi for £50. Because why not spend the festive season sozzled?! Thankfully there's saner options for those of us looking after our health, such as the very dull soun...

A big thankyou to Elizabeth Shaw for sending me this Christmas "Luxuriously Tempting" Biscuit Selection pack to review recently. This is a box containing three packs of unique biscuit varieties; Mint and Cocoa, Coconut and Hazelnut and the very festive...White Chocolate and Cranberry! These are available for £5 from Sainsbury's stores in the Christmas gifts aisle. The White Chocolate and Cranberry biscuits certainly looked the part and are described as "chocolate biscuit with cranberry flavour caramel, cranberry flavour pieces and rice crisps in white chocolate". Cutting it open, you can see the chocolate biscuit layer and red coloured caramel sat above. It's an interesting combination, mixing creamy white chocolate with the more bourbon-like cookie base, and the tartness of the cranberries makes it feel almost like a blackforest flavour? This is offset by the sweet caramel, and the rice crisps bring a nice crunchy element that works well with t...

It took a while but I've finally gotten around to trying the New Cadbury Darkmilk. This is available now from most supermarkets in an Original and Almond variety, and I found this Original one for £1.50 at Tesco Express - a bit more than I'd like to pay for Cadbury chocolate but hey, it's supposedly better quality so maybe it's worth it?! The bar has been billed as a richer alternative for those who like chocolate that's both creamy and dark - a tough challenge it seems. The bar weighs in at 85g and contains a minimum of 40% cocoa solids, substantially more than Dairy Milk but less than a semi-sweet dark chocolate. The presence of milk is of course what sets this apart, hence the name Darkmilk! I really wasn't too excited at the prospect of trying this; I was assuming it might be like the Milka Dark bars  that Mondelez produce in other countries, which although aren't bad they're not what I really want from a bar like this. But it took me by su...