Kev's Snack Reviews

It's only January but Easter treats are now appearing in shops in abunadance...everything from Hot Cross Buns, Crème Egg Ice Creams and a variety of new Mini eggs. One that I just had to try (a few days after Christmas Day no less!) were these Hershey Cookies & Crème Eggs. They're a new addition to Tesco Express stores for Easter alongside the popular Reese's Crème Eggs , and perhaps one of the best new addition in recent years in my opinion. The white chocolate shell is studded with pieces of bourbon cookie (a bit like Oreo cookie) and the filling is a cream that also contains cookie pieces. It's a bit like that found in Cadbury Egg N Spoons , but creamier and a lot nicer. These are 50p per egg or you can get 3 for £1.20 mix and match with the Reese's eggs. They taste sublime! Now I've always enjoyed Hershey's Cookies & Crème , despite not liking Hershey chocolate in general, but they're taken to the next level in this egg form. The cream...

When these Hershey Kisses Deluxe with Whole Hazelnut Center chocolates appeared in Poundworld stores recently I was very excited...at last, my chance to try a gluten free version of Ferrero Rocher! The chocolates are wrapped in a special-looking gold foil, with 4 Kisses per pack in a plastic holder. Like traditional Hershey Kisses, you're meant to twist open the wrapper with the paper at the top. The Kisses are dome-shaped, and the perfect size for popping in your mouth whole, but for review purposes I felt I had to see it from the side: The chocolate is very sweet, sweeter than most standard UK milk chocolate is in fact, so immediately I wasn't too impressed. This is definitely nowhere near as good as a Ferrero Rocher. The creamy filling, rice crisps and whole hazelnut do add some crunch and make it a bit more interesting, but overall it is a pretty sweet and sickly chocolate that isn't that amazing to be honest. In conclusion, I have to say I'm rat...

Recently, a lot of Tesco and Tesco Express stores have started stocking these Hershey's Cookies 'N Creme Drops, I've never seen them before but I've seen the regular Hershey's Cookies N Cream bar around plenty of times. Sadly I can't eat it as the cookies are made with wheat flour and contain gluten, but bizarrely, the cookies in these Drops are made with corn flour so they're gluten free! I was a bit puzzled by this but very pleased - straight into my basket these went! They're basically Smarties shaped drops of Hershey's white chocolate with pieces of bourbon style cookie added in. It's been a while since I had Hershey's chocolate, but I do remember liking the white more than the milk chocolate variety. This was just as I remembered...sweet, milky, creamy and kind of greasy...not as great as Milkybar or even Cadbury Dream, but it's a good carrier for the crunchy cookie bits. This is the perfect combination of flavours, the...

Whilst in B&M Bargains today I spotted this bar of Hershey's Symphony chocolate. I've never seen or heard of this bar before so thought I'd give it a try out of curiosity. It's described as "Creamy milk chocolate, almonds and toffee chips", which sounded like a simple but tasty proposition. Sadly, the chocolate was far from the deliciousness (yes that is a word!) I was expecting...in fact it was rather sickly, and had that faint taste of "vomit" that many have used to describe Hershey's chocolate as having. It was very weird indeed. Despite the odd flavour, there was something compelling about the chocolate....the thinness of the bar, combined with the crunchy almonds and toffee pieces was strangely moreish. That said, the constant undertone of weird-tasting chocolate ruined it somewhat! Overall, I wouldn't really recommend this bar unless you're really curious or a fan of Hershey's Chocolate. If you've tried it your...

Many thanks to Monster Sweets for sending me these Milk Duds to review recently. I must admit I had never heard of them before but it seems like they're rather popular in the US. They're basically hard chewy caramels coated in chocolate, or rather, a "chocolate coating" made up of vegetable fat and cocoa powder. Like a lot of US confectionery the caramels contain corn syrup and vegetable fat, as opposed to butter and condensed milk like UK caramels. According to Wikipedia Hershey changed the recipe in 2008 to retain the price of Milk Duds due to rising cocoa butter costs. Personally I think they should have just increased the cost, because in this form they taste a bit rubbish! Opening the pack I knew something was wrong because they only had a vague chocolatey smell. There were no strong notes of caramel like you usually get with most hard caramels. Tasting one, I found it to be very chewy and pretty flavourless. It had a very vague hint of caramel but mo...

It's a while since I bought these Reese's White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups Miniatures but at the time they were on offer for £1, yes just £1 at Asda! They're usually £2 or more so I snapped up a few bags while I could! I'm a massive fan of regular Reese's peanut butter cups - they're basically the definitive peanut butter and chocolate combination, nothing else comes close! And as I also love white chocolate I thought that combined with Reese's peanut butter in this miniature format it must surely taste like heaven?! Well, it almost did...these mini peanut butter cups are certainly very moreish and tasty, but a bit overbearingly sickly too. Since they're in mini format it's far too easy to mindlessly munch on them one after the other, and before you know it you're hit with that familiar sugary "throat burning" sensation and feeling like you've overdone it! They're definitely highly moreish and tasty, but ju...

Another snack from the package  Bring Back Banjo Bar  recently sent me...and surprise surprise, it's wafer-based! ;) Whilst not being as awesome as the sorely missed Banjo Wafer Bar, these Reese's Sticks are pretty amazing as far as nuts and wafer goes! Opening the pack revealed two chocolate coated wafers which were light and crunchy and similar in texture to Nestlé Blue Riband. They were much tastier though! There was a layer of delicious Reese's peanut butter creme running through them with a slight salty edge, which tasted every bit as delicious as it sounds! The combination of crunchy wafer, peanut butter and sweet milk chocolate made these a perfect snack, combining all the best elements of a wafer with Reese's peanut butter - what more could you want? Don't get me wrong I love a Kitkat with my coffee but these made for a tasty change! RATING: 8 out of 10. Many thanks to Bring Back Banjo Bar for sending me these - please sign the Bring Back Ba...

The 3Bit Bar was featured in a Choc It Out 10 Foreign Chocolate Bars video so I'm pleased to have finally managed to try one at last! These bars are often available in Polish import stores and are simple biscuit bars with a layer of cream filling coated in milk chocolate. Although I'm not sure why it's called 3 Bit since it comes in 5 bits!: Polish stores are always a treasure trove of cool snacks as they seem to be a lot more adventurous than us Brits, so you'll always find plenty of interesting biscuits and wafer bars there that you never would in any UK supermarket - I'd highly recommend taking a look sometime! There's also a Pina Colada version of this 3Bit bar! The bar was very tasty indeed - it's about half and half biscuit and cream filling, the biscuit being crunchy and almost shortbread like in consistency, whilst the hazelnut cream is milky and sweet. It's a tad artificial in flavour but still very nice. The milk chocolate is stan...

Whew...life has been hectic lately and I've had barely any time for blog reviews! I thought it about time I crack down and do some though since my friend Bring Back Banjo Bar kindly sent me some snacks recently! Here are a few from the haul she sent me... Paynes Poppets Strawberry Milkshake: First up are these strawberry milkshake flavour poppets from Paynes confectionery. I always loved Poppets as a kid, especially the raisin, toffee and orange varieties...so was excited to try these! They were nice enough but extremely sweet and sugary, and without much chocolate flavour. They're ok as a quick snack but there's better strawberry flavoured chocolates out there. 6 out of 10. Reese's Pieces: Next up are Reese's Pieces. I first tried these years ago and remember thinking how rubbish they were, considering they're meant to be like a Reese's version of Smarties or M&M's. They're so bland and pointless and only taste mildly of peanu...

When I saw this new seasonal Hershey bar in a local department store recently I just had to give it a try, despite the fact I'm not really a fan of Hershey's chocolate in general. It's a white chocolate candy bar that also contains mint candy cane "bits", which sounded like a tasty combination! Opening the wrapper revealed a thin white bar split into sections with the Hershey's name printed on. There were speckles of red candy cane visible throughout the chocolate, which I thought looked really pretty against the white background: The "white candy" is basically a concoction of vegetable fat, milk fat and corn starch which tasted quite mild and milky, with a pleasant sweet peppermint flavour. It wasn't quite as good as "real" white chocolate but it was a nice carrier for the candy cane bits. They had a pleasant minty crunch to them, and all the flavours worked together really well to make a creamy, minty bar that was very mor...

Is this a Reeses's Peanut Butter Chocolate Snowman? Why yes, it is indeed! I found this in the Christmas section of Tesco recently for a hefty £5, with my only justification for paying so much being that it's peanut butter and chocolate, and a large amount of it too! The snowman contains a 60% milk chocolate shell with a 40% peanut butter centre, and is manufactured by the Hershey's Company in the USA. Opening the box revealed a foil-wrapped snowman complete with skis encased in what appeared to be a block of ice. Like the Han Solo of Snowmen! Unwrapping the foil revealed quite a hefty slab of chocolate. Unfortunately it didn't look very snowman-like; if the box hadn't stated this was a chocolate snowman I would never have guessed! Cutting off a slice revealed the peanut butter centre. It was quite stodgy and fudge-like, with a very thick chocolate shell. I cut off a piece and tucked in... The chocolate was very sweet and milky, but it was the plen...

When I saw these Jolly Rancher fruit chews reduced to 50p in a local department store I couldn't resist buying a pack. They usually cost a lot more in import stores so this was a real bargain indeed! They were only just past their best before date, but this didn't bother me since sugary sweets usually keep for ages. There were 4 different flavours in the box: Green Apple, Cherry, Watermelon and Blue Raspberry. They contain both natural and artificial flavourings. Here are my thoughts on each flavour - Green Apple : This had a good strong sour apple flavour. It was nice, but a tad artificial. Cherry : This was my favourite flavour, it had a nice sour cherry tang that didn't taste too artificial and was very refreshing. Watermelon : This was my second favourite flavour, it had a nice subtle watermelon taste that wasn't too harsh or artificial, just mild and subtle. Blue Raspberry : This was the worst flavour - it tasted completely artificial and rather unplea...

Hershey's chocolate has a bad reputation here in the UK. Most people find the taste odd , a complaint I hear time and time again. I don't remember it being particularly special the last time I tried it (years ago!) but when I saw this Whole Almonds variety for 40p in a discount store recently, I thought I'd rediscover it and see what all the fuss is about. To my surprise, it didn't taste too bad. There was no weird flavour from the chocolate at all, infact it was pleasantly milky and chocolatey. I liked the thickness of the chocolate pieces, and the almonds added a nice crunchiness. It wasn't particularly special or amazing by any means, but it was a decent chocolate bar for a mainstream brand. Infact it made a nice change to eat chocolate that wasn't quite as milky as Cadbury's chocolate. The bar contains 27% cocoa solids which is actually higher than Cadbury Dairy Milk, which might explain why it tasted a bit richer and less milky in comparison. ...