Kev's Snack Reviews

Today's review is rather festive since we are fast entering the Christmas holiday period, it's for a brand I've always loved but don't buy unless it's a special occasion due to the price. Teapigs! Teapigs are well known for their "biodegradable tea temples" and have won Great Taste awards for their range - this particular flavour has won a 2016 Great Taste award. Costing £4.15 for 15 tea temples these contain a mixture of red rooibos tea, natural flavourings, orange peel, ginkgo leaves, orange blossom, cinnamon, ginseng, cloves and safflower petals. They're made in a factory that handles nuts. The instructions advise brewing for 3-5 minutes with water at 100c. But as usual I didn't really pay attention to this and left the bag in my cup for a much stronger drink! The tea is very nice and warming, and not too strongly spicy but gentle and subtle. Almost too subtle for my liking actually. Most of the spicy flavours are in the aftertaste which...

A big thankyou to Booths for sending me one of their Christmas Hampers to review recently. Booths are a company based in Preston specializing in luxury gifts and have quite an impressive range indeed, with everything from wines, coffees, chocolate hampers, alcohol baubles and more. To see the whole range do check out their website:  https://gifts.booths.co.uk/ The hamper they sent me was the Luxury Christmas version, containing a varied selection of everything you could need for Christmas; from Christmas Cake Slices, Scottish Shortbread, Truffles, Coffee, Tea, Mulled Wine and more! The hamper is all packed in a lovely wicker hamper, perfect to re-use for picnics. It's generously filled to protect the contents, with a festive message and a Booths themed bag on top. A nice touch! The hamper is filled with an All Butter Scottish Shortbread assortment, as well as Iced Christmas Cake Slices. Both great quality products, with the shortbread being handma...

So as well as the Brussels Sprouts crisps I reviewed the other day, there were two other flavours in the "Christmas Dinner for Sprout Lovers" multipack from Walkers: Pigs in Blankets and Turkey & Stuffing. Both tasty, festive and pretty normal considering! The multipacks are £1 in Sainsbury's, and there's also another Christmas Dinner edition for " Sprout Haters " - with Glazed Ham, Cheese and Cranberry and also Turkey and Stuffing, available from Ocado. The cheese and cranberry ones sound like something I'd try! Back to today's flavours then; the Pigs in Blankets is pretty much smoky bacon, but perhaps with a stronger bacon flavour than the regular variety. It was hard to tell, but they're certainly very tasty and a welcome change after the vegetable-centric (that gets it's green from chlorphyl) Sprout Crisps! As someone mentioned in the comments of the last review, though...the bacon flavour does tend to repeat on you afterwards....

It's that time of year again...September, the classic month to get in the festive mood prematurely! Yep, lots of Christmas themed snacks and gifts are now appearing in shops (plus a few Halloween things), and amongst all the niknaks this year is a new Matchmakers flavour! Initially I thought this might be replacing the Salted Caramel Matchmakers from last year, but it appears not because that's also available alongside this in Tesco Express, currently for a mere 75p. At that price I couldn't say no to a pack! Described as "Gingerbread flavour chocolates with skimmed milk chocolate, dark chocolate and boiled sugar pieces" these weigh 120g. Opening the box I was immediately hit with a sugary, slightly artificial but definitely gingery aroma. It was very strong indeed...I wasn't sure if I liked it to be honest! I did what had to be done: dug out my fancy festive star-shaped snacks dish and arranged the Matchmakers on it. It's surprisingly perfect fo...

I reviewed Asda's Free From Mince Pies last year, but this year they have only gone and bloomin' improved them (again), so here I am reviewing the new and improved versions. The things I do for food research haha! It's always nice to have more gluten free varieties, and thankfully all the supermarkets are expanding their options all the time - with even Aldi currently doing Gluten Free Mince Pies and Christmas Puddings. It's a step in the right direction for us gluten free folk for sure. I do enjoy Asda's offering, in fact I'd say they're the best budget gluten free mince pies around. Free from Dairy and Gluten, but sadly not egg these aren't suitable for vegans. And despite the lack of butter, the pastry on these still tastes lovely and buttery, melt in the mouth and has just the right thickness. The filling is moist and gooey, with the right balance of fruits and spice, never tasting too syrupy or sugary. In fact it's rather authent...

Taking a break from the indulgent foods this festive season, today we have a healthier product, Twinings Cranberry & Blood Orange Herbal tea. This is the perfect drink for the festive season, and a nice way to warm up without loads of calories. I found these teabags in Poundland but most supermarkets stock them I believe. They taste as you would exspect, warming tart cranberry with the sweeter, punchy blood orange, making for a great combination. I added some stevia to mine as I always do with hot drinks, for a hint of sweetness without the calories. I'm constantly sipping on this stuff in these Winter months, it's such a treat in the mornings especially! Also good when trying to watch your caffeine intake before bedtime. Overall, I would highly recommend this Twinings tea, they do a great range in general but this one is particularly suited to the Winter months! 8 out of 10.

Taking a break from the constant deluge of sugary treats this festive season, I've decided to review something a little more normal but still fitting for Christmas and the snowy weather - snowdrop carrots! No, these are not parsnips despite looking like them, they are actually carrots and taste like carrots. So what's the difference between these white versus orange carrots? And are they just parsnip-carrot wannabes? I bought these from Waitrose, reduced to 85p from £1.50. I peeled, boiled and chopped them as you would regular carrots. Taking a bite of a slice before cooking, I was subconsciously expecting the taste of a parsnip...but they tasted just like a carrot, albeit slightly sweeter and lighter. They didn't seem as "heavy" tasting as regular carrots is the best way I can describe them! Cooked and mashed, they were also a little sweeter and lighter tasting than regular carrots, but not much different. It was nice to have something creamy looking an...

The big day isn't far away and the festive treats are flowing...well, they are if you review snacks anyway! Marks & Spencer have been leading the pack this year in terms of interesting Christmas foods, from the likes of Milk Chocolate Cinnamon Tortillas , Prosecco Caramels and even a  Christmas Pudding Smoothie . For more do check out my Instagram page (there's updates daily!). One thing I decided to try recently were these Chocolate Marbled Mallows, purely because they were reduced to £3, come in a fancy box and contain no suspect ingredients (for someone avoiding gluten, anyway!) They're described as "vanilla mallow with marbled dark chocolate" and come in a fancy wooden tube style box, which you peel open to reveal a bag of mallow chunks. They certainly looked super squishy and bouncy, with a nice chocolatey swirled effect going on. Plus there was the obligatory dusting of icing sugar. They tasted pretty good, sweet and chewy and as you w...

Tesco have quite a track record for unusual crisp flavours at Christmas. Last year they did the tasty Cocoa & Spiced Rum Crisps , this year the weird Candy Cane Crisps , and amongst the seasonal range I spotted this relatively more-normal-but-still-novel flavour, Creamy Brie and Cranberry. I wasn't sure about berries mixed with cheese as a crisp flavour so I went with my curiosity... For £1 a bag these are described simply as "Brie and cranberry flavour crinkle cut potato crisps". Opening the bag they certainly had a super strong cheesy aroma. They tasted super cheesy indeed, as you would expect from brie flavoured crisps! It was quite overpowering - these definitely aren't for the faint of heart and are clearly only for those who truly love their cheese. The cranberry flavor adds a slight sour tartness, it's subtle but you can (just) taste it amongst all the cheese. Overall, these are some cheesy crisps indeed, and I imagine you'll either love...

I do often bemoan the quality of Cadbury's chocolate, and with good reason - the taste and texture has gone way downhill in recent years. However I am still human and love most things sweet so when offered to try the Cadbury Christmas range I didn't say no. Their 2017 products include a few newbies in their stocking fillers, including Cadbury Dairy Milk Freddo Faces. I was sent those along with Cadbury Dairy Milk Buttons so thought I'd do a head to head comparison of the two! Starting with the Freddo Faces these aren't all in one tube but rather in little packets inside the tubes, which is disappointing. It doesn't feel special but rather that they've just stuffed some regular products into a tube and given it a festive label. Still it makes them handy to give out as snacks and keeps them fresher. Well, in theory it does if you don't intend on eating them all at once! They tasted nice, sweet and sugary, pretty much what you'd expect from Cadbury F...

The supermarkets have really upped their game in recent years for own-brand festive products, with some impressive and weird new treats out for the Christmas Season. Below are some I've seen whilst out and about...although there's lots more! For updates of the most recent do check out my Instagram Page.  Tesco Chocolate Truffle Carrots:  These don't actually contain carrot, do not fear! Instead they are coloured white chocolates with praline fillings. Tesco White Chocolate Polar Bear: Another white chocolate treat from Tesco are these cute chocolate polar bears. Tesco Black Forest Dome Gateau: Making a return for the festive season are these yummy Black Forest Dome Gateaus. Tesco Christmas Tree Ice Creams: Also making a return are these Christmas Tree shaped ice creams. Tesco Chocolate Orange Muffins: Chocolate and orange is always a welcome festive flavour and now you can get them in muffin form thanks to Tesco! Tesco Finest Gingerbread Nuts...