Kev's Snack Reviews

There's an increasing range of dairy free/vegan chocolates in supermarkets these days, and Hotel Chocolat are really championing quality vegan eggs with their range this Easter. Today’s post will focus on vegan eggs available from there as well as a few other companies. Hotel Chocolat 100% Dark Egg: This is one I reviewed last year -  check it out here . It includes 100% cocoa solids dark chocolate, Californian almonds and Turkish raisins in the shell, plus panned 100% dark chocolate Piedemont hazelnuts separately. It's definitely one for the serious dark chocolate lovers! Hotel Chocolat Dark Egg Sandwich: The unique "egg sandwich" treat from Hotel Chocolat, suitable for vegans and dairy free! Hotel Chocolat Dark Big City Bunny: A cute hollow dark chocolate bunny without the dairy. Hotel Chocolat Dark City Bunnies: Plus, mini city bunnies that are perfect for sharing! Hotel Chocolat Dark Kids Easter Egg: One for the kiddies is th...

I haven't explored Costa's 2016 Festive Menu this year so far, but since it's December and officially the festive season, it was the perfect excuse to try the new Toasted Marshmallow Hot Chocolate. Apparently it's replaced Costa's White Hot Chocolate and has upset a lot of people  in the process - the horror of it! It's a traditional Costa hot chocolate blended with toasted marshmallow syrup, topped off with glittery mini marshmallows. According to the barista I asked, it's also gluten free, hurrah! I ordered a medium size which seemed the perfect amount, topped off with cream because I love me some cream on a hot choccy! I started by spooning it off and nibbling the marshmallows, they were chewy and sweet and pretty lovely all round. The edible glitter makes them feel uber special. The hot chocolate tasted lovely; the marshmallow flavour is sweet and very comforting, tasting authentically of marshmallow. This is sweeter than a regular hot ch...

When I heard there was a new Toffee Apple Hot Chocolate at Costa I just had to try it...I'm a big fan of their classic seasonal drinks like the famous Black Forest Hot Chocolate and Hot Spiced Apple Drink , but this sounded like a unique flavour for hot chocolate...I've certainly not seen it before anyway! This came with whipped cream and crunchy toffee pieces on top, although I've heard from others that it sometimes comes with fudge. I imagine both are an equally tasty addition! I started off by eating most of the cream, which was lovely and fresh, and complimented nicely by the crunchy toffee pieces. The actual hot chocolate had a strong, pleasant apple flavour, and the toffee was more of a richer treacle toffee rather than regular toffee. It took some getting used to, but it was different and made for an interesting drink. Overall, I'm not sure this will be replacing Black Forest Hot Chocolate as my favourite seasonal Costa drink, but it's definitely...

Putting chocolate bars into hot chocolate form is standard practice these days...and rarely do they taste like what they're supposed to, so I don't often buy them. However one that did catch my eye was this Bounty Coconut Hot Chocolate with Chocolate Pieces. I wasn't expecting it to taste of an actual Bounty bar of course, but coconut and hot chocolate sounded like a lovely pairing! I found this in Poundland of all places, which is just as well because this stuff usually costs around £1.99 in other shops. You can make the hot chocolate with hot milk or water, milk is of course more indulgent, but I'm not a big milk drinker so I made it with hot water. I used about 5 teaspoons so it was nice and rich. There's milk chocolate button pieces in with the powder, which I don't see the point of since they just melted with the rest of the powder anyway. This is a very nice hot chocolate, it definitely has a slightly tropical coconut flavour which is q...

Whilst in Waitrose recently I noticed GU Hot chocolates were reduced. I've also noticed the same at Tesco, but surprisingly they were cheaper at Waitrose...not often you can say that! I've been curious about this Salted Caramel variety for a while so I took my opportunity. It's described as "Velvety hot chocolarte with a smooth salted caramel twist", and cost £1.30 (usually they're around £1.99). I made it as directed by pouring into a mug and heating in the microwave for 1 minute, stirring, then heating for another minute. Then I topped it up with squirty cream...the full fat way to enjoy hot chocolate! Please do excuse my "tea" cup...I've never drank tea from glass cups and I don't intend on starting! (tea must be drank from china cups only as far as I'm concerned!) The hot chocolate was very nice...rich and silky, with a thick texture. The salted caramel flavour was detectable but it tasted more of salt than caramel. The ov...

Niederegger hot chocolate and cappuccino mixes have been available from TK Maxx stores over the festive period, and luckily there was still a box left when I nipped in there for a spot of post-xmas shopping recently. They were out of the cappuccino version but I found the hot chocolate variety for £2.99 for a box of 10 sachets. Niedereggar is a famous German marzipan producer, which you may or may not have heard of before. They produce lots of different flavours and spinoff marzipan products, and even have their own marzipan cafe and museum! I had never heard of a marzipan flavour hot chocolate before though...this must surely be a first for Niederegger. The sachets were gold in colour and had instructions in German as well as English. I made a cup using hot water which produced a decently frothy drink, which almost looked like it does on the picture on the box! It tasted as you would expect, really - like hot chocolate with a strong marzipan almond flavour. It wasn'...

After hearing about this new addition to Costa's Christmas Menu for 2013 I just had to give it a try. As well as this variety Costa have also brought back their Black Forest Hot Chocolate, plus Honeycomb & Cream Hot Chocolate, Salted Caramel & Cream Latte, as well as a Gingerbread & Cream Latte complete with a mini gingerbread man! They're also doing festive cakes such as Gingerbread Muffins, Black Forest Fancy, Chocolate Orange Fancy, Mince Tarts, and a gluten-free Christmas cake slice. You can check out the full Christmas Menu HERE . As much as I wanted to try the Black Forest Hot Chocolate, I went for the White Hot Chocolate instead as white hot chocolate is such a rarity - not many cafes seem to sell it! Unfortunately I was a bit disappointed as they hadn't put any cherry sauce or edible glitter over the cream as advertised. I would have mentioned it to the staff, but I was cold and the drink looked so nice I didn't want to wait any longer! D...