Kev's Snack Reviews

It's been a while now since I first reviewed Real Handful snacks , and since then they have rebranded a little bit. They now produce "unruly" flavours, and are sick of snacks that are "good" or "bad", so instead their snacks are "better". This might sound confusing but I get what they're aiming for - the healthy snacks market can tend to be a bit black and white, but in reality people have so many differing dietary needs it's never that clear cut. They recently offered me some snacks from their new range to review and of course I couldn't say no to that! As well as bagged fruit and nut mixes they've diversified into snack bars, with flavours like Choc Orange and Sea Salt Caramello which I'm reviewing today. The bars are made with a mix of nuts, coconut sugar, rice syrup, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin seed protein and more. They're a little similar to Nine Bars and are gluten free and vegan, although produced in a factory t...

I was quite excited when this Snickers Ice Cream tub popped up in Asda recently, along with Mars and Twix Ice Cream tubs. I can't eat the latter two as both contain gluten, but this one is gluten free - huzzah! I am sure they used to make these many moons ago, back in the 90's. I distinctly remember eating the Mars variety as a child. So they are perhaps a recycled idea rather than something completely new. Regardless, it's always good to have more peanutty products on UK shelves! This cost £3 in Asda and is described as "Peanut dairy ice cream with milk chocolate coated peanuts, caramel and milk chocolate flavour sauce". When I opened the tub a lot of the ice cream had melted, which meant only one thing: eat as much as possible to stop it spilling out of the tub! ( Any excuse). The ice cream is lovely, you can definitely taste the peanut flavour as it has that salty savoury taste going on. The caramel is a nice addition and provides some sweet goo...

A new Dairy Milk variety is out, and true to formula Cadbury's have rebranded one of their existing European Milka bars as Dairy Milk. This one is based on Milka Peanut Caramel, and contains "Dairy Milk chocolate filled with peanuts, caramel and a peanut filling, with chopped peanuts and rice crisps". It's currently available from Sainsbury's for £3 per 278g slab, although should be in other supermarkets soon. I was extremely excited to find this; I'm a big fan of all things peanut and peanut butter so I was expecting a peanut overload with all the peanutty ingredients crammed in. And for once, it was every bit as tasty as I'd hoped! The bar is just as sweet and sickly as Big Taste Toffee Whole Nut , but a lot more moreish thanks to the savoury flavour of the peanuts. I couldn't stop scoffing it! The peanut filling, crunchy rice pieces, caramel and peanuts all combine together to create something very indulgent...crunchy, creamy, crispy, sw...

Today's post is all thanks to my wonderful blogger pal and part time snacks-dealer Reaching For Refreshment . She kindly sent me some of the new Limited Edition White Chocolate Snickers bars recently, which only seem to be available in a handful of Premier stores in the UK. There was no English writing on the wrapper; just Polish and Romanian, so presumably they're imported from one of those two countries. I have no idea if they're suitable for vegetarians or what ingredients they have - safe to say they contain nuts and milk, though! Removing the wrapper, I was surprised how dinky the Snickers looked. I don't often eat Snickers bars so I keep forgetting that like most other chocolate bars these days, the size has shrunk somewhat. This one weighs in at 49 grams. I didn't waste any time and split the bar in half. Plenty of golden caramel oozed out... There were plenty of peanuts visible within the caramel and the nougat too. I prepared myself for what was b...

It seems that everyone and their grandmother is releasing bite size mini versions of popular snacks right now...not only have Cadbury's launched their new " Dinky Deckers ", bitesize versions of the classic Double Decker, Mars have also entered the ring with Mars Bites , Twix Bites and Snickers Bites. I can't try the other two since they contain gluten, but luckily Snickers doesn't, huzzah! These are currently £1 a bag at Asda, or slightly more pricey at Sainsbury's. They're pretty much what you'd expect from bite size Snickers...cube-shaped chocolate pieces with nougat, caramel and peanuts. Perfectly sized for eating one after the other... They tasted a bit more chocolatey than a Snickers bar but this wasn't a bad thing as there's still the caramel, nougat and peanuts making themselves known. They were highly addictive, in fact I preferred them over a regular Snickers. It certainly didn't take me long to scoff most of th...

Many thanks to Tropical Sun for sending me a selection of their coconut products to review recently! As readers of this blog will know I'm a big fan of coconut...I looove coconut butter and regularly use it to make desserts - anything coconut-based and I'm there! What intrigued me most about these snacks was the combination of coconut and peanuts - it's certainly not a flavour you'll see amongst your average pub peanuts! Premium Creamed Coconut: Boasting no artificial colours or preservatives, this is pure coconut cream formed into a block and great for cooking. I don't have any pics of my culinary creations sadly (they tend to get very messy!) but I can report that it made a lovely rich curry! Just melt the block with hot water, add spices, veg etc and it will make a very creamy sauce - much nicer and healthier than vegetable oils often used in curries. Coconut milk is also a source of MCT's (medium chain fats), that get used up by the body much fa...

As many of you may have noticed I've been a bit quiet since Christmas...what can I say, life has been hectic recently! I did manage to find time to snap a few pics of some new products to hit the shelves for 2015 though, and here they are!... Milkybar Milk & Cookies Sharing Block: Nestlé have already done a Milk & Cookies Milkybar, way back in 2004, but it didn't last for long. Let's hope this large Sharing Block variety sticks around! Spotted in Asda. For a review of the US version see Grocery Gems post from 2012 here . Cadbury Fingers Salted Peanut Crunch: Apparently Cadbury are planning to launch a variety of new flavours for the Fingers range this year, and first up is Salted Peanut Crunch - an unusual flavour for us Brits, but I have it on good authority they taste pretty good! Spotted at Tesco. Cadbury Fingers Salted Caramel Crunch: The other new variety is Salted Caramel Crunch, which is a bit late to the "salted caramel" party (th...

Nestlé UK recently announced the launch  of a new limited edition Peanut Yorkie, which is exciting news since we don't often get many peanut chocolate bars here (although Peanut Lion Bars recently made a return - hurrah!). Of course many of my readers will know that peanut Yorkie isn't "new" as such, it's been around before...there's even a Facebook Page to bring it back (although isn't there a Facebook page to bring everything back these days?!) Considering all this I think we're lucky Nestlé chose to resurrect it...it's not too often that old much loved products get a chance to shine again (case in point: Banjo Wafer Bars !) The bar is described as "Chunky milk chocolate with peanuts (25%)" and contains 25% cocoa solids. Opening the wrapper, the first thing I noticed was the intense smell of roasted peanut. It reminded me of the mighty Snickers bar, but with an even more intense peanut aroma. It's split into 5 chunky blo...

Mars UK recently announced the launch of some "new" Snickers Limited Editions, although they're not really that new -  Snickers More Caramel and Snickers More Nuts were first brought out in January 2013 - and were so popular with the British public that Mars have chosen to bring them back. This time they're joined by a newbie...Snickers More Choc. This Snickers contains chocolate flavoured caramel as well as chocolate flavoured nougat, hence the name. When I opened the wrapper I have to say I was shocked by how small the bar was...this is not a real Snickers, it's more like a Milky Way! I'm not sure how Mars can justify reducing the size so much. Overlooking that, I cut into the bar which revealed the chocolatey caramel and nougat centre. Taking a bite, I have to say it did have a more intense chocolatey flavour than a regular Snickers. It was very sweet and rich, but I'm not sure I preferred it over regular Snickers as the extra chocola...

Whilst in an import candy store recently I noticed they were selling Australian sweets, which excited me greatly! There were lots of interesting things on sale but this Whittaker's Peanut Slab (which is actually from New Zealand) caught my eye, since I remember reading about Whittaker's chocolates on Jim's Chocoate Mission years ago. They're a company I've always had on my list of chocolates to try.  The bar was a small 50g block with the Whittaker logo imprinted on it. Simple and no fuss...I like it! It reminded me of a bar of gold boullion thanks to the gold wrapper. Splitting the block in half (which was rather difficult - it's so chunky!) revealed plenty of whole roasted peanuts embedded in the chocolate. I couldn't wait to take a bite! The chocolate tasted rich and milky, with a good smooth melt. It tasted slightly different to what I'm used to from UK milk chocolate, presumably because it's imported or because the choc...