Kev's Snack Reviews

Following my review of the Grown Up Fruit & Nut in milk chocolate , today's review is for their Nuts! Oh, Hazelnuts! A bar containing, you guessed it...nuts! This is essentially their version of a Cadbury's Wholenut, but one just for grown ups of course! Opening the foil wrapper, the chocolate smelled very inviting, with the whole hazelnuts clearly visible embedded in the bar. They looked very plentiful indeed! And what a delight they were! They tasted super fresh and go perfectly with the creamy, good quality milk chocolate which is a whopping 38% cocoa solids. It's creamy whilst being rich and satisfying, with the nuts being the icing on the cake quite literally. Overall, this is another fantastic bar from The Grown Up Chocolate Company, although I have to say I did prefer the Fruit and Nut Bar just because of the variety of tastes and textures on offer there, but this is definitely one for the hazelnut lovers. For more info and to buy check out The Grown U...

If you've never heard of the Grown Up Chocolate Company before allow me to introduce you. They produce a range of "grown up" chocolates that are aimed more at adults than children and have a variety of bars based on classics, but with an indulgent twist. For example they have their own versions of Bounty, Snickers and even Twix! They've recently branched out into solid slabs with a variety of fillings, such as Dark Chocolate with Salted Caramel , Milk Chocolate with Hazelnuts and today's review which is Fruit and Nut in Milk Chocolate. How does this differ from regular fruit and nut chocolate bars? Well instead of just raisins and almonds it contains apricots and cranberries as well as almonds and hazelnuts, which is pretty unique for a fruit and nut bar! Opening the foil wrapper the fruit and nuts were clearly visible on the underside of the bar and looked very plentiful. This bar was certainly jam-packed with fruit and nuts, as you can see above the cr...

Today's review is for Plamil, who sent me some dairy free chocolates a while ago, but they're back today to get the review treatment with their So Free Milk Chocolate Alternative bar - a dairy free, vegan organic bar made with 45% cocoa and lower in sugar than the average milk chocolate bar. This is a bar perfect for those on a dairy free or vegan diet, and is great for use in baking or just eating! I chose the latter of course. I like that this bar has a higher cocoa content than some dairy free chocolates, it tastes like you're actually eating chocolate rather than just sugar! The rice powder used to replace the milk works well to give it a creamy, soothing edge that makes a fine dairy substitute. It's not exactly the same of course, but that's to be expected. I imagine this would be great used in brownies or cookies - and luckily Plamil make some dairy free baking chips just for that purpose. For more info see their website:  https://www.plamilfoods.co.uk/ ...

Today it's my third and final review from the new Festival 2018 Range from Montezuma's, which have been created to celebrate their 18th birthday. Check out my reviews of their Milk Chocolate and Chai Latte plus the Dark Chocolate with Rose & Vanilla bars. I've saved the best (in my opinion) for last with today's review...who doesn't love a good old coffee and chocolate combo? Well, granted not everyone but it certainly rates highly in my books. Today's bar consists of 35% milk chocolate with 3% coffee and 2% cocoa nibs added. Maybe not enough caffeine to give you the shakes, but still enough to make a delicious bar. I'll not bore you with my thoughts on the block design or the packaging today (I love both, FYI) and get right onto the taste. Of all the various coffee flavoured chocolates I've tried over the years, from milk, to white to dark chocolate, this is perhaps the best I've tasted! It hits the right balance of creamy, flavoursome...

Montezumas, makers of the famous Absolute Black chocolate bar are turning 18 this year, and to celebrate their coming of age they've launched a "Festival" range...because they're going to their first festival now they're 18. Get it? These colourfully packaged bars are specially designed to help them party and were inspired by Holi , the Hindu festival which signifies the arrival of spring and has become known as the happiest festival on earth. I really do like the packaging designs, they're the sort of thing I would definitely pick up in a shop to buy! There's three varieties in the range; today's review which is Milk Chocolate with Chai Latte, as well as Milk Chocolate with Coffee & Cocoa Nibs and Dark Chocolate with Rose & Vanilla (reviews to follow shortly). Containing 35% Cocoa Milk Chocolate with the addition of mixed spice, this 100g bar is suitable for vegetarians and gluten free. The spice aroma is very evident on opening the w...

As well as the Nestle L'Atelier Salted Caramel bar I reviewed the other day, I also picked up this 100g bar of Milk Chocolate with Cranberries, Almonds & Hazelnuts in Sainsbury's Express recently. It was on offer for £1.50 - usually it's £2. It comes foil wrapped which I love, since most chocolates are plastic wrapped nowadays and I'm sure it makes a difference in the taste. It's described as "Smooth milk chocolate with dried sweteened cranberries and whole hazelnuts and almonds", and the chocolate contains 30% minimum cocoa solids and 18% milk solids. Like the other bars in the range, the cranberries and nuts are clearly visible in each block which is nice as it means you know exactly what you're getting. Breaking a piece off, it had a nice chunky feel and reminded me a little of the Nestle Double Cream bars from many many years ago. Anyone remember them? The chocolate tastes pretty creamy and melts in the mouth nicely, but definitely...

Recently there's been a glut of reduced price Ritter Sport bars in my local shops and market stalls, I'm not sure why but it's certainly nice to be able to buy cheap and great quality chocolate! One product I've been eager to try for a while and finally got the chance to was this Macadamia bar, part of the "Nut Perfection" range from Ritter, with the "queen of nuts" in apline milk chocolate. I'm a bit funny with macadamia nuts, they have been known to make The Hand swell in the past, so needless to say I was a bit wary of trying this bar! Like all Ritter Sport bars it comes in a perfectly shaped square block with the logo imprinted on each piece. The macadamia nuts are abundant throughout; there's fairly large chunks of them amongst the blocks.  And they really dominated the bar! This is a good thing because you have the buttery flavour of the macadamias complimented by the creamy milk chocolate, rather than the other way ...

Today's review is not just for any milk chocolate..but M&S's milk chocolate that is "made in Norfolk" to an exclusive M&S recipe. I couldn't resist buying this when I saw it as the British Flag wrapper is so eye catching. It costs £2 for 200g which is a pretty decent price for milk chocolate, when you consider the likes of Cadbury are reducing their bar sizes (but not the prices!) so much recently. I was trying to figure out what actually makes this so special and exclusive...is Norfolk milk better than elsewhere? Is it because it's grass-fed? Or is it the exclusive M&S recipe? I honestly had no idea what to expect and so I assumed it would taste like any other M&S milk chocolate. Turns out it is actually rather different to your average milk chocolate; it's a lot creamier and smoother in taste, although I didn't notice this when I first tried it. It took dunking it into a cup of tea to make it melt-in-the-mouth before I ...

I've always liked Green & Blacks chocolate but found the price off-putting, so when I saw their bars reduced recently in Sainsbury's I thought I should take the opportunity to try a few I've never had before. One was this Milk Chocolate and Almond bar, which contains 37% cocoa solids organic milk chocolate with chopped roasted almonds. After trying other nutty bars recently like the Dairy Milk Chopped Nut and Ritter Sport Hazelnuts I was curious how this would compare...I know hazelnuts and chocolate work beautifully together but it's a while since I've had some with almonds in. Unwrapping the bar revealed a nice slab with very small blocks, which smelled lovely and rich with a savoury nutty edge. The almonds are very plentiful in the bar indeed, there were a lot more than I was expecting.  The chocolate tasted delicious...rich yet creamy, with a good cocoa flavour, and the almonds bringing a moreish savoury nuttiness to the bar. They w...

M&S are continuing to reduce many items in their chocolate range, the latest one being this Discover Cacaosuyo 50% cacao milk chocolate bar. They're usually over £4 a bar, but recently they were down to £2.49 which isn't bad so I thought I'd give it a try. This is extra fine milk chocolate that has won some Internstional chocolate awards, so someone clearly thinks it's special stuff. This is made in Peru from Piura White Cacao and high quality milk, with vanilla grown in the Peruvian jungle. The cocoa solids are listed as 54% minimum and milk solids as 24% minimum. Opening the cardboard sleeve revealed a plastic wrapped bar, with a lovely looking gold decorated design.  The actual bar is rather simple but effective; 8 chunky squares that can be further split into two...not that anyone is going to do that!  The chocolate had a lovely rich aroma, this is definitely high quality milk chocolate. It tasted equal parts rich and creamy, the cocoa h...

Recently Marks and Spencer have reduced the price of a lot of bars in their chocolate range, a mysterious move for them since they usually charge over the odds for most of their products. I've heard rumors it may be due to the loss of their regular supplier Thorntons, now that they've been bought out by Ferrero. Whatever the reason, it's meant that I've had the chance to try more of their bars than I usually would recently, and the latest I've sampled was this Bubbly Milk Chocolate bar, described simply as a "milk chocolate bar filled with bubbly aerated milk chocolate". It cost just £1 which is around the same price as a large milk chocolate Aero, quite the bargain for M&S! The bar has an interesting curvy block design, with bubble shapes dotted throughout. Splitting it apart revealed quite a chunky bar, with a thinner layer of bubbly chocolate in the middle. Biting into it, the chocolate quality was excellent; creamy and smooth with...

Since a new Tesco Express opened near me recently I've been trying out a lot of their "staple" products. I was in need of a chocolate fix one night, and decided to give their regular milk chocolate a try since it was the cheapest there for only 79p. I was a little hesitant though, since the Peanut Butter variety was so disappointing. It's actually not too bad. It's very sweet, but has a certain comforting milkiness and a flavour that reminds me of a (very) watered-down Cadbury Dairy Milk. It makes me wonder if perhaps Cadbury produce Tesco's own-brand chocolate...there's a certain distinctive flavour I can't put my finger on that tastes very "Cadbury". Overall, this Milk Chocolate isn't the best around, but if there's nothing else available and you need to save the pennies it does the job. RATING: 7 out of 10. Suitable for vegetarians.