Kev's Snack Reviews

Christmas is fast approaching, and while it might not be a White Christmas weather-wise (more like a washout-mas!) it now can be in terms of chocolate! Because you can get Cadbury Dream White Christmas bars with almonds, raspberries and rice crispies (available from Gb Gifts - Kevs10 gets you a 10% discount off all items). They've been selling out fast and I can see why! Now I'm a big fan of Aussie Dream white chocolate, maybe it's nostalgia since they stopped making it in the UK, but it does have a distinct "Cadbury" creamy flavour that I enjoy. So I was surprised that it actually played second fiddle in this bar and you could barely taste it! Yes, this bar is chock full of mix ins, from dried crunchy raspberries, crunchy roasted almonds and crispy rice pieces. Turning the bar over they're literally all that's visible on the bottom. I'm not always a fan of dried raspberries in chocolate to be honest, it can be either gritty or too tart...

Just a quick review for this one since we are approaching Christmas day fast now...I was sent this some time back by M&S PR along with other festive M&S treats and meant to do a review, but got side-tracked! (as often happens). It's classic M&S sweet milk chocolate, good quality and smooth, filled with a tasty salted caramel filling. It's gooey, buttery and has a nice level of salt to sweet flavours. Better quality than the likes of Cadbury caramel and highly recommend as a festive snack - especially once the post Christmas price reductuons start! Hope you all have a lovely Christmas filled with the tastiest of snacks - do keep an eye on my Instagram page for the latest! :)

Today's review is rather festive since we are fast entering the Christmas holiday period, it's for a brand I've always loved but don't buy unless it's a special occasion due to the price. Teapigs! Teapigs are well known for their "biodegradable tea temples" and have won Great Taste awards for their range - this particular flavour has won a 2016 Great Taste award. Costing £4.15 for 15 tea temples these contain a mixture of red rooibos tea, natural flavourings, orange peel, ginkgo leaves, orange blossom, cinnamon, ginseng, cloves and safflower petals. They're made in a factory that handles nuts. The instructions advise brewing for 3-5 minutes with water at 100c. But as usual I didn't really pay attention to this and left the bag in my cup for a much stronger drink! The tea is very nice and warming, and not too strongly spicy but gentle and subtle. Almost too subtle for my liking actually. Most of the spicy flavours are in the aftertaste which...

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 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...

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...

So as well as the Brussels Sprouts crisps I reviewed the other day, there were two other flavours in the "Christmas Dinner for Sprout Lovers" multipack from Walkers: Pigs in Blankets and Turkey & Stuffing. Both tasty, festive and pretty normal considering! The multipacks are £1 in Sainsbury's, and there's also another Christmas Dinner edition for " Sprout Haters " - with Glazed Ham, Cheese and Cranberry and also Turkey and Stuffing, available from Ocado. The cheese and cranberry ones sound like something I'd try! Back to today's flavours then; the Pigs in Blankets is pretty much smoky bacon, but perhaps with a stronger bacon flavour than the regular variety. It was hard to tell, but they're certainly very tasty and a welcome change after the vegetable-centric (that gets it's green from chlorphyl) Sprout Crisps! As someone mentioned in the comments of the last review, though...the bacon flavour does tend to repeat on you afterwards....

It wouldn't be nearly Winter without an assortment of weird new products on shelves, and this year is no exception - there's oddities like Christmas Tree flavour Crisps , Prosecco and Gin flavour crisps and even  Pigs in Blankets and Brussels Sprouts tea...so what's left? Brussels Sprouts crisps of course! I knew these were coming out, so they weren't much of a surprise when I spotted a multipack in Sainsbury's over the weekend...and straight into my basket it went. What a lovely shade of green! The multipacks cost £1 and are called "Christmas Dinner for Sprout Lovers", with two other flavours: Pigs in Blankets and Turkey & Stuffing (speaking of Pigs In Blankets - Asda are selling a huge " Pig in Blanket " for £5 - check out my Instagram page for pics!) I'll focus on the most unusual flavour from the multipack today - brussels sprouts! My most hated and feared vegetable, yet one I still keep trying in all its weird ...

It's that time of year again...September, the classic month to get in the festive mood prematurely! Yep, lots of Christmas themed snacks and gifts are now appearing in shops (plus a few Halloween things), and amongst all the niknaks this year is a new Matchmakers flavour! Initially I thought this might be replacing the Salted Caramel Matchmakers from last year, but it appears not because that's also available alongside this in Tesco Express, currently for a mere 75p. At that price I couldn't say no to a pack! Described as "Gingerbread flavour chocolates with skimmed milk chocolate, dark chocolate and boiled sugar pieces" these weigh 120g. Opening the box I was immediately hit with a sugary, slightly artificial but definitely gingery aroma. It was very strong indeed...I wasn't sure if I liked it to be honest! I did what had to be done: dug out my fancy festive star-shaped snacks dish and arranged the Matchmakers on it. It's surprisingly perfect fo...