Free From Kitchen Salted Caramel Choc Slab

With Veganuary and the Rise of the Greggs Vegan Sausage Roll (thanks Piers!) in full force, it's nice to see more options for Dairy Free and Vegan snacks in shops. If only for those avoiding dairy, which I try to do as much as I can. Amongst some of the newbies in stores recently I spotted these new bars from The Free From Kitchen, who I believe make dairy free chocolates exclusively for Tesco. There's a Rich Brownie Choc Slab and this Salted Caramel variety, which I chose because I do love salted caramel!

The bars aren't cheap at £2.50 and I was a little apprehensive because I wasn't too impressed with the Original Chocolate variety in this range, but I thought I'd chance it since a few people told me on Instagram that the other bars in the range are nicer.

This is described as a "Milk free choc sea salted caramel bar made with cocoa and rice flour". The caramel pieces are made with corn syrup rather than glucose syrup, making them safer for those allergic to wheat (most glucose syrup is often derived from wheat). The chocolate contains 40% cocoa solids, as well as inulin and sea salt.

The slab is a decent 100g and fairly chunky, with a mild sweet aroma.

I broke a piece off and took a bite, expecting it to taste bad like the Original Choc Slab bar. And to my surprise...it wasn't too offensive at all, dare I say I even enjoyed it! The caramel pieces are pretty good, nice and crunchy and distract from the chocolate which isn't the best - think calendar chocolate. I think it's the rice flour that gives it an odd taste and texture as it doesn't mimic dairy very well.

Overall, this bar certainly makes a change if you're dairy free or vegan; it's quite unique in having crunchy caramel pieces added. Still, I don't think I'd pay £2.50 for it again as there's much better options available out there. I'd recommend the Waitrose 1 Indian Ocean Coconut Milk Chocolate as being the best of them all (it's like the Lindt Extra Creamy of dairy free chocolate!)