Kev's Snack Reviews

Today's review is for a rather interesting product, one sent to me by Austrian Chocolate producer Zotter recently. They do a rather extensive and delicious range of chocolates, many in unique flavours you'll see from no other company, especially in their hand-scooped range. They offer shipping to the UK from their Online Store - do check them out! I chose some of their Dairy Free and Vegan bars to review, and one that tickled my interest was this "Choco Nougat" bar made with coconut sugar and rice milk. It comes in a long block, looking similar to a Toblerone, with indentations to break pieces off. There's a variety of uses for this chocolate, as indicated in the wrapper above, from melting, cake decorating, fudge making etc. It's basically a sort of Dairy Free Fudge/White Chocolate mixture. The coconut sugar gives it a caramel like flavour and colour, whilst the addition of rice milk makes it creamy and white chocolate like. It certainly smelled lik...

Last week I reviewed the Orange and Mint bars from Pana Cacao, but wait...there's more! A big thankyou to the UK importers for sending me samples of the range recently - there's flavours such as Cherry, Strawberry & Pistachio as well as today's review: Fig & Wild Orange and Raw Cacao. Pana Cacao is an Australian company producing raw, organic and handmade chocolates using minimal ingredients and sustainable materials. They're suitable for vegans, dairy free, soy free and use coconut nectar and agarve syrup instead of white sugar. You can find them in the UK in various health food stores, as well as Pana's UK webstore: https://panachocolate.com/uk/shop/ The bars each comes in boxes containing 45g in paper wrappers. Each has an individual design, which I think is a nice touch and makes it feel more special (see above). Starting with the Fig & Wild Orange variety, this contains 14% figs as well as wild orange essential oil, plus spices like car...

I was recently sent a selection of chocolates from the UK importers of Pana Cacao, an Australian company that produces raw, vegan, organic and handmade chocolate bars without the use of dairy or sugar. Instead they use agave and coconut syrup, cacao butter and raw cacao. Today I'm reviewing the mint and orange bars, which are some of the simpler flavours in the range but very tasty ones indeed. The bars come in recyclable boxes printed with vegetables ink, and each contains a 45g bar with a paper inner wrapper. The chunks have messages printed on, such as "Love your insides" on the orange variety... And "Love the earth" on the mint one: I've tried a few Pana bars previously, and was a big fan so I was super excited to try these flavours... The Orange variety contains raw cacao, dark agave nectar, tangerine and orange oil and spices like cinnamon and carob. The first thing I noticed biting into it was just how fudgey and soft it was, it was more li...

A big thankyou to Coco Caravan for today's review. They kindly sent me some of their Raw Vegan Chocolate Caramel Eggs recently so I was super excited indeed - it's rare to get a vegan caramel! These are available from Coco Caravans website and consist of 8 raw dark chocolate eggs, containing a runny caramel made with coconut blossom sugar, coconut cream and oil and cashew nut paste. A caramel made without dairy - yay! I like the simple and non pretentious packaging - they're wrapped in simply brown paper which feels rather rustic, plus makes it easy to recycle. When trying to take a pic of the innards I accidentally squashed it - oops! As you can hopefully see above the caramel is super sticky and runny. The eggs are two halves stuck together rather than a whole shell completely filled with caramel. I took a bite, and it wasn't quite what I expected. The flavour is earthy and punchy, and definitely that of a raw chocolate. It was nice and flavoursome and...

I do love Ombar chocolates, if you can’t tell by now from my previous reviews of their bars! Not only are they dairy free and vegan they’re also made with “raw” cacao which is quite a rarity amongst chocolates. This gives them a sharper more authentic cocoa flavour, although it may not be to all tastes I personally rather enjoy it. I’ve been keen to try this Ombar Centres Raspberry for ages now, I've seen it in shops locally but kept umming and ahhing over whether to buy it. Luckily I was offered some of the range along with the new Karma Bites snacks to review recently so I couldn't say no to that! Weighing 35g this usually costs around £1.99. It’s a lot , but bear in mind this is high quality organic raw cacao made by a small company. It’s worth the price, and nicer than other raw chocolate bars on the market. The bar contains a centre of coconut cream and raspberry powder and is coated in 60% cocoa chocolate. I cut a piece off the bar so you can see the centre - lo...

After the disappointing Loving Earth Coconut Mylk Bar , I thought I'd review something a bit tastier for #veganuary, this time it's Chocolate Tree's Coconut Milk & Sugar 55% cocoa bar. I found this in the same vegan store as Loving Earth Coconut Mylk, and it's priced higher at £4.65 for 80g, but boy is it worth the extra money. I've tried a few coconut milk chocolate bars now in the search for something tasty, the best one so far being the Waitrose 1 Indian Ocean Coconut Dark Chocolate (which isn't really dark chocolate - it's far too creamy!). If you're vegan or dairy free I would recommend seeking that one out for sure. Back to today's bar, the chocolate is actually split into two plastic foil wrapped bars within the main box, each containing 40g. They have a patterned design and interesting shaped blocks. The pack description reads "An alternative to milk chocolate made with coconut milk and coconut blossom sugar. The caca...

A big thankyou to Tiana Fairtrade Organics for today's post, who kindly offered me some of their new CocoTop "Organic Coconut Snacks" to review, an offer I couldn't refuse! There's two varieties in the range, which is available from Amazon in 50g pots. You can buy both varities together  or the Savoury and Sweet versions by themselves. Both contain only natural ingredients, are suitable for vegans, organic and gluten-free. They're lightly toasted to reduce fat content. Tiana CocoTop Savoury: I tried the Savoury variety first, which are coconut chips "lightly salted with unrefined sea salt". I do like the little tubs these come in, they're super handy, and unlike other coconut chips on the market you can re-seal them and save some for later. No messy bits falling out into your bag! The coconut chips are nicely toasted and taste very fresh and good quality. They would certainly make for a nice salty cinema snack in place of popcorn,...

The primal pantry have unleashed another Paleo and Vegan approved bar on the snacking market...this time with the addition of some plant protein in the mix. I spotted this bar looking for a "healthy" snack in Tesco Express and found it in the Free From section. It cost just over £2 which ain't cheap for a small bar...so is it worth it? Thankfully it is. If you like Nakd bars or other similar healthier snacks bars you'll probably love this. It contains hemp protein, as well as coconut nectar as the sweetener (probably why these cost so much), goji berries, almonds, pumpkin seeds, raspberry, dates and apricots. There's 12g protein per 55g bar. So how does it taste? Well it's actually quite yummy for a healthy snack bar! Usually my complaint with bars like his is that they're too sticky and based on dried fruit, but this has the right balance of seeds and nuts to sweeteness...the hemp protein gives it a slightly more substantial texture and is a...

It's #veganuary, and although I'm not vegan myself I do like to minimize the dairy, and have friends who do too, so I thought I'd mark the occasion with one of the nicest vegan chocolates I have ever tried, made by none other than Waitrose! This bar is part of the Waitrose 1 Single Origin range, made with fairtrade cocoa beans and consists of 54% cocoa dark chocolate, coconut milk, coconut sugar, and to top it all off ground coconut flakes. This bar is unusual because not many companies make dairy free chocolate with coconut milk. The bar had a strong rich coconut aroma when I removed it from the cardboard sleeve; each square is imprinted with a cocoa pod. It's a lovely touch and makes it feel like a very special bar indeed. It costs just over £2 in Waitrose, and annoyingly they always sell out fast whenever there's new stock - must be popular! The chocolate is quite simply, luscious. The coconut flavour is sort of caramelly, almost like burnt caramel...

It's been a while since I reviewed The Primal Pantry range , but they're back again with some new "Paleo Protein Bars" that are not only Paleo Diet friendly, but vegan, vegetarian, gluten free and #fitfam & #macro friendly too! Yes, Primal Pantry are now doing bars made from plant-based hemp protein. I was excited when I saw these because I'm always looking for healthy snack bars with added protein; I'm not a fan of whey protein bars, but I've experimented with hemp and pea protein. These don't contain pea protein though, which is good as it also makes them suitable for the legume allergic amongst us. I found this Cocoa Orange Bar for over £2 - yes you read that right - over £2 for a 55g bar (!) in my local Tesco Express. There's also a Mixed Berries variety which I'll be reviewing later. Opening the wrapper, it looked similar to the regular Primal Pantry bars although with a stodgier, firmer texture. Taking a bite, it...

Just a quick return of Spotted In Shops today for some new grocery items appearing in stores over the changing season... Magnum Cookie Crumble : all I can say is Oh My God!!! Magnum Mini Cookie Crumble White: Haagen Dazs Honey Walnut and Cream: Carte D'or Gelateria Apple Tarte: Carte D'or Treats Ice Cream Pralines: Ben & Jerry's One Sweet World: Ben and Jerry's One Love Special Edition: Tesco Mini Doubles Ice Creams: raspberry and salted caramel flavours Twix Cheesecake and Mars Dessert Bar : now in Tesco! Fox's Toffee Popcorn Crunch Creams: Asda Salted Caramel Chocolate Spread: Asda Dark Chocolate & Mint Spread: Tesco Finest Limited Edition Black Forest Cake: Tesco Limited Edition Sticky Toffee Apple Cake: Thorntons Triple Layer Toffee Cake Bites ...also available in Chocolate: Galaxy Ultimate White Hot Chocolate : now in Tesco! Tesco Bunny Bites : these look so cute! Bu...