Kev's Snack Reviews

I've tried the regular version of Jim Jams No Added Sugar spread before and really enjoyed it, so was excited to try these new vegan varieties they launched recently to see how they compared. They come in both Hazelnut and Orange dark chocolate flavour, with no added sugar. Instead they contain maltitol which is a sweetener many may be aware of.  Whilst I have always been wary of maltitol due to its "unintended effects" I realise like anything it's a case of moderation. So I tried not to go overboard eating this! The Dark chocolate orange variety is pretty good with a nice chocolate orange flavour. A bit like the dark version of Terrys Chocolate Orange in spread form, perhaps! Although it was nice it didn't wow me enough with the flavour to purchase again. It needs a bit more zing for my liking. The Hazelnut one is an absolute winner though, it's every bit as rich as Nutella and perhaps even more nutty, it lacks the same level of intense sw...

It's a pretty confusing time in the world right now, and as much as I'm worried like the rest of you I'm trying to stay sane through the power of snacks! Check out my Instagram for my most recent reviews - but here's one for a bar I picked up a month or so ago from Waitrose. I do enjoy Moo Free Chocolates and I've heard that in the midst of this pandemic they're struggling due to less demand from supermarkets, so be sure to order from them online if you're a fan. Here's their website: https://www.moofreechocolates.com/ This Lime and Sea Salt rice milk bar is a richer version of their chocolate, with more cocoa in and is very flavoursome as a result. Usually rice milk chocolates can be a bit tasteless even if they're creamy, but here the chocolate is nicely rich, balanced with a tang from the lime with the sea salt rounding off the flavour nicely. It's creamy enough to not be bitter and is more like a high-cocoa milk chocolate, like Cadbur...

The ever-growing list of Vegan and Dairy Free chocolate options continues to expand, with Galaxy now making their own bars and a Plant Based Cadbury Dairy Milk being planned...and luckily there's also some new white chocolate vegan options popping up too. I've only tried a few varieties so far, there's not many but the supermarket versions I've had were pretty bad. So when I discovered this new Moo Free White Chocolate Easter figure I was cautious...would it be as bad as some of the others? These are available in quite a few supermarkets now with prices ranging from £3-£4, and consists of a strawberry flavoured vegan white chocolate hollow hamster, that is made with recycled packaging and is soya free. It's made with rice milk and starch rather than the maltodextrin found in supermarket versions - which is good news for those who are gluten free since maltodextrin can sometimes cause problems. I was so surprised by how nice this was! The white chocolate is s...

Following on from my review of the new Doisy and Dam D&D's and Ballers chocolates, I thought I'd review their new take on Mini Eggs - a vegan friendly, lower sugar dark chocolate version! You can find these in Holland and Barrett stores for £1.79 or so for 80g. They're clearly positioning themselves as a vegan alternative to Cadbury Mini Eggs, and contain 70% cocoa dark chocolate which has 30% less sugar than the leading market product (Cadbury's). It all sounds good, and thankfully even though I was very disappointed in their D&D's and Ballers range, these surprised me! They have classic Mini Egg style crunchy pastel shells, and the dark chocolate within is quite rich in taste. They're much better than the D&D's which I was surprised by, perhaps the higher ratio of chocolate to shell works in their favour. These are highly nommable, easy to eat one after the other but they do leave you feeling satisfied faster than something more sugary. ...

I was quite intrigued when Doisy and Dam announced some new snack products for Veganuary recently, the dairy free, gluten free vegan Ballers, D&D’s and Buttons range that you can now find in Holland and Barrett stores (99p per 30g bag, £1.99 per 75g bag). There’s also some Dark Chocolate Vegan Mini Eggs joining the trio in time for Easter. Unfortunate names aside (Ballers? They must have seen the jokes coming with that one - I’m sure it’s not unintentional!), these are a great idea in theory as they’re meant to be like Free From versions of Maltesers and Smarties for vegans. But there’s a catch...they’re made with dark chocolate rather than a vegan “milk” alternative so are inherently a more marmite product to start with - not everyone is a fan of dark chocolate, and I imagine that doesn’t suddenly change if you’re vegan. And that’s why these products fail. Now personally I enjoy dark chocolate, especially the more flavoursome varieties, so I assumed I would like these. But ...

If you're into dairy free or vegan ice cream, good news, there's a new plant based alternative on the block: Coconuts Organic! Formerly called Coconuts Naturally they have rebranded and are now available in selected Tesco stores - do check out their website to see if they're available near you. You can find them in the Free From frozen food section for £5 a tub. This Choc Orange Swirl variety is described as "Organic, non-dairy chocolate orange ice cream, made with coconut cream, unrefined coconut sugar and laced with an indulgent chocolate sauce swirl". It contains no dairy, nuts or gluten and is free from major allergens. It's soil association certified organic and also approved by the vegan society. I couldn't wait to get this home to eat so cheekily ate some whilst in a Costa store right after buying it. There's a lovely orangey chocolate aroma on removing the lid. And the consistency is creamy, not too solid and was just beginning to get me...

I was very happy this week to see a new dairy free ice cream brand launched in Tesco. They were formerly called Coconuts Naturally, and I reviewed their Rum and Raisin ice cream some time ago, but now they're called Coconuts Organic and have two flavours listed in selected Tesco stores - Double Caramel and Chocolate Orange. The tubs are vegan, refined sugar free (they contain coconut sugar instead), nut free and gluten free. They cost £5 a tub which may seem a lot, but trust me these bad boys are worth it! (especially when compared to Halo Top Dairy Free which is the same price). I bought a tub of both the Chocolate Orange and Caramel, and will review the Orange at a later date. This Double Caramel flavour is described as "Organic non-dairy caramel ice cream, made with coconut cream, unrefined coconut sugar and a caranel swirl" and contains 40% coconut cream, coconut sugar, plus a few natural stabilisers like pectin etc. And it tastes delicious! When I got the tub h...

Following on from my review of the Coco Nutters Salted Caramel Sticks , I thought I'd do another Dairy Free Vegan ice cream product I picked up in Waitrose. Yorica ice creams seem to only be available in large Waitrose stores as well as Ocado.com (thus far) so I had to take the opportunity to try one. They cost £4.99 a tub which is equivalent to the similar Halo Top Non Dairy ice cream tubs. Described as "Rice drink and coconut based frozen vanilla dessert" this comes in a 340g tub and is also available in a Chocolate and Salted Caramel flavour. Yorica ice creams are free from 14 major allergens including nuts, eggs, gluten, dairy and soy and of course are suitable for vegans. I picked up this vanilla variety rather than the chocolate as it didn't have as many binders in the ingredients. It contains fructose rather than white sugar, if that sort of thing matters to you. There's also real Madagascan "spent vanilla seeds" in the ingredients - which I...

The vegan and dairy free food market has literally exploded this year, on the back of veganuary and ever more people choosing plant based alternatives. Which is a good thing for those who have allergies too - there's so many choices now! In the chiller cabinets they've been a little slower to take off for some reason, but things are definitely improving - there's now Dairy Free Halo Top varieties, and a soon-to-be-launched Coconut Ice Cream brand I must keep hush about for now! Today's review are these sticks I picked up on special offer in a large Waitrose store. I've reviewed various Coconut Collaborative products before and it seems they've dropped that name on these ice creams and opted for "Coco Nutters", which is a fun name I have to say and one I have called my snacks pal Reaching For Refreshment in the past, as she is very much a coco-nutter! Anyway, these sticks are of course vegan, gluten free, dairy free, and also nut free...

Many thanks to Nomo “No Missing Out” Chocolates for gifting me samples of their new vegan free from chocolate range, which has recently been launched into Holland and Barrett and Tesco stores. I was very intrigued by these as they sounded a little different from standard dairy free products, and come in a few interesting flavours too. They are Dairy Free, Egg Free, Gluten Free, Nut Free and most of the bars are also Soya Free (with the exception being the dark chocolate bar). I was most interested in the Caramel and Sea Salt and Fruit & Crunch bars, and they actually turned out to be my favourites too. Starting with the Fruit and Crunch bar, I really loved this one! Think a vegan version of a Raisin and Biscuit Yorkie - if you've ever had Raisin and Biscuit Yorkie you'll know just how nice the combination of raisins and biscuit is! Now of course there's no biscuit here, just crunchy crisped rice, and plenty of it too. There's a good amount of raisins ...

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 ...

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...

One product a lot of people have been highly anticipating since their announcement this year has been these new Bournville Giant Buttons from Cadbury. Why you ask? Simply because they’re suitable for vegans and dairy free and the first widely available chocolate buttons of this type. Disclaimer: although dairy free they’re made in an environment with dairy so may not be suitable if you have a dairy allergy. There’s no warning about containing nuts so they appear to be safe for those with Nut allergies. These cost £1.50 a bag, currently only available in Sainsbury’s but I’m sure more stores will sell them soon (I’ll keep you updated). I think they’re a bit overpriced for 110g of chocolate but I guess people will pay it since they’re dairy free. Described as “smooth dark chocolate Giant Buttons with a distinctively chocolatey Bournville taste”, they have a somewhat dusty and scuffed appearance as chocolate buttons tend to. I tried making little stacks of them (channeling Eat Exp...

Many thanks to Karma Bites for sending me some of their “popped lotus seeds” snacks to review recently. I’ve tried some of their range before but this time they sent the Coconut, Vanilla & Cinnamon, Wasabi and Peri Peri varieties. I was very excited! The packaging has had a refresh and looks very nice indeed, and the health credentials are highlighted on the front- these snacks are high protein, low fat, gluten free, and vegan. They’re also nut free, so they’re covering all main allergy bases, hurrah! I’ve said it before but lotus seeds have a unique taste that you’ll either like or you won’t. It’s hard to describe exactly. They remind me of a healthier version of popcorn in texture. The coconut flavour were my favourites, they have a nice creamy taste thanks to the coconut milk powder used on them, and are pleasingly sweet. I didn’t notice the cinnamon but the vanilla flavour blended well with the creamy coconut.They’re highly moreish too and I ended up munching ...