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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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 ...

If you’re dairy free or vegan it sure is difficult to find a decent version of milk chocolate, but thankfully many brands have been busy creating some tasty options. One of them is Moo Free who make a variety of vegan products including Easter Eggs, Bunnies and these new Choccy Chums bars. They’re available from Asda for just over 50p in the Free From section and come with a surprise design on...you’ll get either Lilly Lu Lemur or Mikey Bunny. I got Mikey Bunny, which is of course very fitting for the Easter season! It’s a nice design which will surely appeal to kids. The chocolate is really tasty, sweet and smooth and I like the thin design of it with the chunkier central bunny bit. I often buy two of these bars when going to Asda as one is just never enough. Overall, these are some pretty tasty dairy free chocolates that I’d recommend if you’re vegan or dairy free. 8 out of 10.

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 a...

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...