Kev's Snack Reviews

Amongst the other new flavours in the Cadbury Dairy Milk flavour vote (Choca-Latte and Raspberry Shortcake) the last one is this: Simply The Zest. I was very excited to try this as there's no orange flavour Cadbury bar currently on the market and also because Cadbury used to do a delicious orange flavour Dairy Milk many years ago: This Simply The Zest bar was described as orange flavoured in the press releases so I thought it might be similar to the Dairy Milk Orange, but alas it wasn't. Instead it contains orange pieces and shortcake pieces plus crunchy almond caramel.  It's pretty tasty, of course! The orange pieces are like chewy candied orange, similar to what you get in the Cadbury Bournville Orange , and the caramel pieces are a bit like Daim. To be honest they get a bit lost with the other flavours and textures, the shortcake biscuits are nice and crunchy, and overall it's a mishmash of fruit and biscuit flavours. Like I said, pretty tasty, but ultimately it...

Recently Cadbury UK launched three new Dairy Milk bars, and you can vote for which one gets to stay on shelves. Neat idea right? Amongst the flavours are Simply The Zest, Raspberry Shortcake and today's review: Choca Latte. This is a coffee themed bar, with a coffee flavour cream filling and filled with biscuit pieces. I was very excited to try this one as I do love me some coffee chocolates and miss the coffee cream chocolate from Quality Street selections (it used to be in there many years ago). Opening the wrapper of this bar I was very excited indeed as it had a nice creamy coffee cream like aroma. It tastes pretty good, the cream isn't very strongly coffee flavoured but it has a nice sweet creaminess and is definitely worthy of the name latte. It reminds me a bit of the Coffee Escape chocolate from Cadbury Roses. The biscuit pieces blend nicely with it and make for a good crunchy and creamy combo. It's not the most groundbreaking flavour, probably not the one I w...

Following my last Spotted In Shops post I've been itching to try this Cadbury Bournville Orange bar. It's described as New/Old because it was last available in 2009, nearly ten years ago! I vaguely remember it along with the Old Jamaica version, and am glad it's been brought back - you can't beat the combination of orange and dark chocolate when it's done right. These are available for £1 from various stores, including Iceland Foods (where I found it) and Poundland. The bars contain 100g and are described simply as "Chocolate with orange flavoured pieces". I was pleased to see a return of more traditional-looking chunks in this bar; yes they're smaller than they used to be, but at least they're not curved like they tried to make Dairy Milk. The orange pieces can be found nestled within the chunks and there seemed to be quite a decent amount of them (they make up 12% of the bar). Firstly, the chocolate itself tastes as you'd expect; se...

Just a quick spot of Snacks News today - Cadbury UK are going to launch a new Chocolate bar in September called Darkmilk! Already available in Australia in several flavours, this is a richer take on Dairy Milk with 40% cocoa and 14% milk, compared to Dairy Milk which is 23% cocoa and 20% milk. It will cost £1.49 for an 85g bar, with smaller bars launching later. There's an Original variety plus Roasted Almond: Are you excited to try this richer version of Dairy Milk? Are you willing to pay more for a higher cocoa percentage? Let me know in the comments!

It was only a year ago now that I reviewed the Limited Edition Orange Daim Minis , and those were only in Poundstretcher for a limited time. Now Daim Orange is available again as a limited edition in regular sized bars in three packs, from Poundland. Hurrah! I don't know if these are an official UK launch or imports, but they do list the UK Cadbury website on the pack so I'm guessing they must be official. Described as "Orange flavoured milk chocolate with a crunchy almond caramel centre", there's 3 x 28g bars per pack. They had the same chocolate orange aroma as the Daim Minis did, and I couldn't wait to get stuck in! They tasted glorious! Lovely creamy orangey milk chocolate, with the crunchy almond caramel centre making them super duper moreish. As much as I enjoyed the Daim Minis last year, I think this bar form is much better - it's more satisfying and feels like just the right amount in one go. Not that it didn't stop me from reaching...

Merry Easter everyone! Yes, true to style my first review of the year is in stark contrast to all the festive goodies of the last few weeks, and is Easter-themed. Seems like the chocolate companies see our holidays as a never-ending sugar conveyor belt...but hey ho, who am I to rain on their parade?! If anyone remembers it, Creme Egg Twisted was actually a bar version of Cadbury Creme Egg that was brought out a few years go, and previous to that is was Dairy Milk with Creme Egg . Basically it's a chocolate shell with a thick layer of Creme Egg goo within it...and likely to give you diabetes! They mysteriously disappeared, to reappear as a mini version in Cadbury Heroes, and have now been given their very own sharing bag. Like regular Creme Eggs, these aren't made with Dairy Milk chocolate but are vegetarian friendly, described as "Milk chocolates with a soft fondant centre (40%)". They're in Asda at the moment for £1 but no doubt other shops will be stocking...

I'm not one to buy Chocolate Orange these days since it tastes so waxy, but one variation I've always enjoyed are Segsations, since they contain some of the most interesting Chocolate Orange flavours (well apart from the sorely missed White Chocolate Orange - boo!) Amongst them are Milk Chocolate, Milk & Dark Chocolate, Toffee Crunch, Milk Crunch and Exploding Candy. All are suitable for vegetarians. There's various messages printed on the segments, like "Yummy", "Taste me" etc. Quite frankly I'm disappointed they didn't have hashtags in front of them. The milk chocolate segment tasted like the typical chocolate orange we all know and love, no surprises there. The Exploding Candy had a subtle crackling sensation but nothing too noticeable, this is definitely one that won't upset granny this Christmas! The Toffee Crunch tastes the same as the Minis Toffee Crunch, very sweet but with some crunchy moreish toffee ...

No Christmas snacking selection would be complete without a Terry's Chocolate Orange, but what about their ice creams? Should we be indulging in those over the festive season too? Let's find out! These are out for a limited period for the Winter. Tesco and Morrisons sell them, but I'm not sure about other supermarkets. I got these from Morrisons on special offer: £1.50 for 3 ice creams, working out at 50p each. Not too bad! They're gluten free and suitable for vegetarians, and described as "vanilla flavour ice cream with chocolate orange sauce covered in milk chocolate with orange oil". I like that they've shaped them after the traditional Chocolate Orange segments, it's a bit different from your regular Magnum-shaped ice cream sticks. I wasn't expecting a lot from them, but they're actually very tasty! There's small ripples of sauce running through, which bring some sweet chocolate orange flavours to the party, combining well wit...

These "limited edition" Freddo Faces desserts have been out for quite some time now, so I'm not sure what makes them so limited, but nevertheless I thought I'd give one a try whilst in my local Tesco express recently. It's basically like a muller corner, but with chocolate dessert on one side and some Cadbury Freddo faces on the other. Mixing them in, they looked like frogs that had got stuck in mud! I think pigs would have been a more appropriate shape...maybe Cadbury should create a new product called Piggies? Or Buttys? Just a thought! The dessert was pretty decent; creamy and chocolatey, whilst the Freddos were quite chunky and didn't really mix well with it to be honest. This is a nice idea on paper but it doesn't quite work so well in practice. I think caramel Freddos would be a better option, although I guess Cadbury don't make caramel Freddo Faces. Overall, this is a bit of an uninspired dessert and Cadbury's make others...

Following on from my review of Dairy Milk Snow Balls I thought I'd try Dairy Milk Snow Bites next. The interesting thing about these is that they used to be simply called Cadbury Snow Bites, but Mondelez have now branded them as Dairy Milk. I don't know if they've always used Dairy Milk in the recipe, but I guess it doesn't change much since Dairy Milk doesn't taste great these days (we all know you've messed with the recipe, Cadbury!) They're suitable for vegetarians (but not children under the age of 4) and are described as "Solid milk chocolate balls in crisp sugar shells dusted with icing sugar". Mmmmm, more sugar! One day I'm going to be sending my diabetes bill directly to you, Mondelez... Initially I thought they would be the same thing as Cadbury Mini Eggs (and Mondelez actually want them to have the same effect on people as Mini Eggs, according to a press release), however they're quite different - the dusting of icin...

Halloween is in a few weeks, so in an attempt to get in the "spirit" I've been trying out some of the Halloween treats now gracing supermarket shelves. One I've never tried before for some odd reason is Cadbury Crunchy Spiders, despite the fact they've been around for a few years. These are spider-shaped spheres of Cadbury milk chocolate, containing pieces of green crisped rice balls, and are suitable for vegetarians. You can find them alongside Cadbury Ghooost Eggs in most shops on a two for £1 offer right now. I wasn't expecting a lot  from these since Cadbury chocolate isn't upto much these days, but actually, they surprised me in being rather tasty. I put this down to the inclusion of crispy rice balls rather than the chocolate though. Taking a bite, it was nice to see that the rice balls were indeed green, so at least Cadbury haven't taken the fun out of these like they have with Ghooost Eggs. This was a pleasant eat indeed; sweet ...

Cadbury Egg N' Spoons are back...this time disguised as "New" Cadbury Dairy Milk Snow Balls. Yes, these are part of the Mondelez strategy of recycling their products endlessly...so far over the last year we've seen Mini Eggs on shelves twice (as "Wini Eggs"), Cadbury Dairy Milk Mousse Snowman resurrected as the Cadbury Mousse Bunny, and Creme Eggs as Ghooost Eggs . Don't get me wrong it's nice to have these products on shelves regularly, but I'd much prefer something truly new and different. But, I still had to try these. I must admit I rather do enjoy Cadbury Egg N' Spoons, so these excited me more than they should. The idea is the same as Dairy Milk Egg N' Spoon ; you peel the wrapper, bite the top off the "snowball" then remove the creamy filling using the spoons provided. I do like the snowflake shaped design of the box, it's very festive. Much nicer than the Egg N Spoon egg boxes, but not quite as eco...