Kev's Snack Reviews

I was recently sent some of the new Freaks of Nature Cherry Bakewell puds to review by the creators - thanks so much guys, it's really appreciated! Freaks of Nature make vegan and gluten free desserts that are available from Waitrose and Ocado, without the use of allergens like soya, eggs, dairy etc, however they do contain nuts. These cost £2 and are apparently the worlds first free from and vegan cherry bakewell hot pudding. They consist of light almond frangipane sponge on top of a layer of sweet cherry sauce, and flaxseeds are used in place of egg as a binder. The desserts come in reusable glass ramekins, similar to GU puds, and contain 100g of dessert per pot. They can be heated in the oven or microwaved for a fast dessert. I loved these! The almond sponge is nice and light with a good nutty flavour, and the sprinkling of almond slivers adds some crunch. The cherry sauce underneath was a lovely surprise - it's sweet and flavoursome and really captures the essence ...

A big thanks to GU for today's review as they kindly sent me some vouchers to try some products from their range. One that I went for that I've been curious about for a while were these Chocolate and Salted Caramel and Hazelnut and Chocolate spreads, which were on offer for £2 in Sainsbury's (I believe Asda, Tesco, Morrisons, Waitrose and Ocado stock them too). They are both gluten free and suitable for vegetarians and contain no palm oil. I started with the Salted Caramel and Chocolate variety. They describe the spread as velvety and boy they are not wrong! This stuff is silky AF...moreso than any other chocolate spread I think I've ever tried. They're usually either greasy or too firm, so it's nice to see that's not an issue here. The caramel flavour is spot on, it's not particularly salty but just enough to elevate it from regular caramel, and boy is it delicious. I was eating this stuff from the spoon and it's so easy to get carried away!...

These days it seems you can now get marmite in almost anything you wish, and the latest concoction dreamt up by the snack gods seems to be this marriage of marmite and peanut butter. A match made in heaven or just an abomination? Your love or hate of the yeast spread will no doubt be the deciding factor in that... These are available on Ocado as well as in Sainsbury’s stores, which is where I bought this from for £2.50. I don’t usually buy peanut butter but on this occasion was very curious.... It’s suitable for vegans which is one of the big marketing points for it - yeast extract  is a common vegan flavouring used in everything from crisps to cheeses, as it gives that umami flavour that some say is meaty. But how does that work in peanut butter? Well it’s very strong and salty! Definitely not as bad as you might imagine - the salty flavours work well with the already savoury peanuts, but make no mistake this is no “sweet” peanut butter, so if you like it salty and savour...

I've had quite a few interesting snacks from A Taste Of The States now, and recently they have started stocking more Australian varieties. The Cadbury Dream we all know and miss was sadly out of stock so I went for a Cadbury Top Deck instead - you know, those bars we used to get in the UK many moons ago? It's a simple combination of a base layer of Dairy Milk and a top layer of Cadbury Dream white chocolate. This may sound pretty standard but it turns out it's a winner! The Dairy Milk layer tastes pretty familiar, although I maintain that Australian Dairy Milk is a little better quality than our UK version. It seems creamier and less waxy. The upper layer of Dream is pretty sweet and creamy and like Dream used to be, and perhaps it's better mixed with Dairy Milk so you get a mix of sweet creaminess and cocoa mingled together. This is a great bar and super moreish. Overall, not much to say other than that this is a fantastic bar that they should never have ...

Many thanks to Nature's Charm for sending me some of their Vegan Coconut sauces to review recently. I've featured them before with my Condensed Coconut Milk review, and I really enjoyed that so was even more excited to see what these were like.  It's hard finding dairy free alternatives to popular products, but luckily the market is gradually expanding to cater for all, and these fit in nicely. They are made with coconut milk, coconut sugar, sea salt and other natural ingredients.  The Matcha sauce was the one I went for first because I didn't expect to like it and wanted to get it out of the way. It's made with coconut cream, cane sugar, matcha powder, coconut oil, calcium carbonate, salt and water. When I first took a spoonful it was as I expected; the earthy green tea flavour that I'm not a big fan of mixed with super sweet coconut. After seeing a post on Nature's Charm's Instagram I decided to try make a matcha latte with it and see if that tast...

A huge thanks to Hungry Squirrel who kindly sent me some of their of tasty nut butters to review recently. They are a Scottish company based in Deeside and their nut butters are all vegan, gluten free and some are even sugar free. One has also won a "Healthy Choice Scotland Food and Drink Award". Woo hoo! The flavours they sent me were Chai Spiced Almond, Royal Raspberry, Almond Espresso and Crunchy ABC Mix. And I have to say I loved them all and can see why the ABC mix has won an award. The ABC Mix consists of almonds, brazil nuts, cashews and sea salt - no sugar! And it honestly didn't need it - it tastes creamy, nutty, salty and savoury all in one - presumably the cashews give it a natural sweetness. The brazils give it an earthy taste that mixes well with the other nuts. I seriously loved this and couldn't get enough! The Almond Espresso one I was very excited to try...because I do love coffee! It's almond butter with added ground coffee, agave sy...

Since the Cadbury Darkmilk surprised me with how nice it was, I thought I'd review one of its new competitiors in the form of this Galaxy Darker Milk. The name itself amuses me - it's almost a sly implication that it's darker and thus better than Darkmilk. But is it? Firstly, it contains very different ingredients to Cadbury Darkmilk. The cocoa solids are 33% (much less than Darkmilk's 40%) and the ingredients contain lactose and whey protein, as well as palm fat. The Cadbury Darkmilk is already ahead of the game in that respect since it doesn't contain palm fat. Firstly I have to say I like the block design of this bar - it's sleek and curved and a lot nicer than the Darkmilk. The 110g bars are available from Tesco and Asda now for around £1.50, and there's also a Hazelnut variety. Unfortunately it has a very odd taste. When I first bit into it I was taken aback a little...it tasted smoky?! I thought I must have gotten a bad bar. This odd...

My apologies to Degustabox for being so late doing a full review of their boxes lately. They've sent me a few so far which I mentioned on Instagram but haven't found the time to do a full review of. The February box I've already mentioned so I'll skip to the March box which was quite interesting, with a nice mix of both healthy and naughty snacks and some drinks and even a beer for good measure. If you haven't heard of them before Degustabox are a surprise box delivered each month on a subscription basis - although you can opt out at any point. The products included work out as being cheaper than what you'd pay in shops, and they showcase small producers, unique products and brands you may not have had a chance to try before, which I think is a nice idea. To check them out see their website:  https://www.degustabox.com/en/ This months box was an interesting mix...from Chum Fruit Bites which I'd never heard of before, and the packaging is amusing with ...

Sweet Little Drinks recently announced a new Cream Egg flavour rum to coincide with Easter, and lucky for me they kindly sent me their new creation to review. Thanks so much Sweet Little Drinks! You can find it on their website along with several other interesting gin, rum and liquer flavours. There's combinations like Bounty, Rum and Raisin, Banoffee Pie, Donut, Pear Drops and...Maple Bacon! I was of course super curious if this would taste like Cadbury Creme Egg. Note that it doesn't use the actual words Crème Egg, which I presume is because of copyright, but we all know that's what it’s meant to be. The alcohol percentage is 18%. I chilled it in the fridge, and after a long stressful day poured some into my Root 7 glass. The perfect glass for a drink like this. It has a strong sweet vanilla aroma, which is reminiscent of Crème Egg as much as is possible. And it’s dangerously easy to drink...it's soft, sweet with a lovely strong vanilla edge...and there's...

Nestle recently sent me some of the new Smarties Limited Edition, or rather "Llama Edition" to review (I know, jammy so and so etc), and I have to say I am very pleased that Llamas are now becoming the new Unicorns, at least with Nestle anyway. The unicorns have had their day and need to be put out to pasture thanks very much! Of course, with them being Llama themed they get their own colours...which are apparently pink, red, yellow and purple. I don't know who came up with the colour scheme but I guess it works. As well as that there's 4 different bag designs with different puns on, which is...fun. Things like "No Probllama" and so on. The Smarties taste like any Smarties, sweet and delicious of course. It's a shame there's no orange ones in there and also that there isn't any new flavours, though I understand there's some difficulty producing flavoured ones due to costs and manufacturing processes etc. All in all, these are ...

If you've ever been to a Flying Tiger store you'll know they're chock full of cool items, from gifts to quirky homeware and more importantly for me...food! They're a Danish company with stores in over 30 countries - to find your nearest one you can check out their website for a store locator. If you've ever been to one please do let me know in the comments! These "Only for Royalties Eggs" were kindly sent to me to review and are available in stores now for £3, they're quirky chocolate hollow eggs themed after Royalty - so perfect for couples! There's a lot of hollow Easter Eggs out there with varying quality, but these seem pretty decent in comparison to some - the chocolate is creamy and melts nicely. Presumably Danish chocolate is a step up from our British stuff! There's no vegetable fat in the ingredients, but please be aware they're made in a factory with wheat and nuts if that's an issue for you. The coloured decoration is ma...

Alcohol isn't something I often feature on the blog, as I'm not a big drinker really but when I was offered some samples of this new Brothers Cider Parma Violet flavour I couldn't refuse! Whilst it might sound rather...weird...I'm a sucker for novelty and this really piqued my interest. I never much cared for Parma Violet sweets as a kid, but combined with sweet, refreshing cider? It might just work. I certainly wasn't expecting a huge crate of it to be delivered to my door - thanks so much Brothers! This cider is available from B&M stores, although I haven't spotted it there yet myself, and apparently it sold out really fast due to its popularity when B&M got it in. I've been informed by Brothers that it should be back in stock in the next week and also that they'll be selling it on their online store . I chilled the cider and drank it from one of my fancy Root 7 Geo Glasses (which have now appeared on Great British Menu!) The cider...

As I wrote about in my review of Randoms Squish’ems , the Rowntree's sweets range has had a bit of a switchup, with the Randoms Foamies variety from the original bags now getting their very own selection. Hurrah! Nestle kindly sent me some to review recently and I was super excited to receive them - they're currently available from Tesco, while the Squish’ems are available from Poundland.  The sweets come in a variety of "on trend" shapes, which I have to say look really quite cool, and they get bonus points because they didn't even include a unicorn. Hurrah! Instead they've gone for... A mermaid! There's also a gnome, watermelons, and of course a rainbow: Plus...a pug?  And of course the symbols of modern life, hashtags and @'s... All of the sweets have pink and orange and white and orange colours, and I have to say...I think these are the best Randoms bag yet! I've always loved foam sweets since being a ki...