Kev's Snack Reviews

Salted Caramel is such an obvious flavour it’s a wonder that Twix haven’t done it before now, but what’s more surprising is how wrong they managed to get it!  These bars are available in multipacks from various stores now and recently launched in Tesco. Even though they’re called salted caramel, the salt is actually in the biscuit base, which is a bit odd isn’t it?!  They just taste weird and wrong. There’s crunchy bits of salt in the biscuit but it’s unevenly dispersed so some bits taste salty and other bits taste like normal Twix. Odd! And it doesn’t make for a great snacking experience! Overall, these are a failure in my opinion - after posting about them on Instagram the comments were mixed, some people loved them and some hated them. So maybe they’re the marmite of new snacks! 3/10

Quality Street have recently expanded their range by branching out into Lindor territory...with truffles! But they've given their own unique spin on them and these have crunchy coatings to fit with some of their classic Quality Street Chocolates. There's Orange which is a bit like the Crunchy Orange chocolate, Salted Caramel which is apparently based on the toffees, and Praline which is of course based on the Green Triangle. Sounds a bit gimmicky but they actually do fit with the Quality Street chocolates rather well. Consisting of a smooth, almost gooey truffle centre, coated in chocolate and with various crunchy coatings. The Orange was a favourite - a smooth orange flavour centre with some crunchy orange bits on top. It tastes like the orange chocolate from quality street but the truffle adds an extra dimension to it, replacing boring crunchy inner chocolate with a smooth ganache. I think I liked this better to be honest. The crunchy bits still give you the crun...

As usual, Australia get all the best new snack releases and that’s no exception with these Cadbury Caramilk Twirls, which luckily you can get from Gb Gifts website (code Kevs10 gets 10% off). I’ve tried the regular Aussie Caramilk bar already and enjoyed it but this Twirl takes it to the next level...it’s delicious! It’s folds of swirly caramelised white chocolate, that tastes a bit like Caramac but creamier with a good coating of Cadbury milk chocolate to balance out the sweetness. It’s reminiscent of Cadbury Snowflake, if you remember those. Perhaps even better! A delicious concoction which of course means we won’t be getting it in the U.K, but let’s hope import companies are able to keep a steady stream coming into the country! For now keep your eyes on GB Gifts for incoming stock plus lots more Aussie and European limited editions. 9/10.

For once, it seems that Mars UK are giving British consumers a new M&M's variety we actually want (since they're denying us lovely treats such as White Chocolate M&M's, Peanut Butter Snickers, White Chocolate Galaxy and more - boo!) They've gone and replaced last years Crunchy Caramel M&M's with a Salted Caramel variety, which is very wise and does beg the question: why didn't they do this, like, 5 years ago when the salted caramel trend was at its peak? I guess things move slowly in the confectionery labs! (coming in three years time - Unicorn M&M's!) They've taken the smart step of using a chewy caramel in these, much like the Caramel M&M's available in the US, but with a salty twist. And they're honestly delicious! Better than the US variety, which although were good were not exactly what they'd been hyped up to be. The shells are classic colourful M&M's, with the chocolate being a little richer than ...

I was very happy this week to see a new dairy free ice cream brand launched in Tesco. They were formerly called Coconuts Naturally, and I reviewed their Rum and Raisin ice cream some time ago, but now they're called Coconuts Organic and have two flavours listed in selected Tesco stores - Double Caramel and Chocolate Orange. The tubs are vegan, refined sugar free (they contain coconut sugar instead), nut free and gluten free. They cost £5 a tub which may seem a lot, but trust me these bad boys are worth it! (especially when compared to Halo Top Dairy Free which is the same price). I bought a tub of both the Chocolate Orange and Caramel, and will review the Orange at a later date. This Double Caramel flavour is described as "Organic non-dairy caramel ice cream, made with coconut cream, unrefined coconut sugar and a caranel swirl" and contains 40% coconut cream, coconut sugar, plus a few natural stabilisers like pectin etc. And it tastes delicious! When I got the tub h...

The vegan and dairy free food market has literally exploded this year, on the back of veganuary and ever more people choosing plant based alternatives. Which is a good thing for those who have allergies too - there's so many choices now! In the chiller cabinets they've been a little slower to take off for some reason, but things are definitely improving - there's now Dairy Free Halo Top varieties, and a soon-to-be-launched Coconut Ice Cream brand I must keep hush about for now! Today's review are these sticks I picked up on special offer in a large Waitrose store. I've reviewed various Coconut Collaborative products before and it seems they've dropped that name on these ice creams and opted for "Coco Nutters", which is a fun name I have to say and one I have called my snacks pal Reaching For Refreshment in the past, as she is very much a coco-nutter! Anyway, these sticks are of course vegan, gluten free, dairy free, and also nut free...

Thankyou to Graham’s Family Dairy for sending me some of their new ice creams to review recently. The range is available now from Lidl stores and consists of the ones I’ve previosuly reviewed - Espresso Caramel and White Chocolate & Raspberry , plus this; Salted Caramel! Ahh you can’t beat Salted caramel and ice cream together, am I right?! These ice creams are lower in calories and sugar and higher in protein than most regular varieties and somewhat similar to Halo Top, although I think they’re a lot tastier and richer. They use a mix of sweetener and real sugar, thus reducing the sugar content but not totally removing the flavour. The ice cream has a nice rippled effect that looks lovely on opening the tub... And it tastes lovely too! These ice creams are just so creamy for a lower calorie version; with the sauce being plentiful and tasting authentic too. It’s a great combination and I thoroughly enjoyed this, and didn’t even think about it being lower calorie as it’s s...

A big thanks to GU for today's review as they kindly sent me some vouchers to try some products from their range. One that I went for that I've been curious about for a while were these Chocolate and Salted Caramel and Hazelnut and Chocolate spreads, which were on offer for £2 in Sainsbury's (I believe Asda, Tesco, Morrisons, Waitrose and Ocado stock them too). They are both gluten free and suitable for vegetarians and contain no palm oil. I started with the Salted Caramel and Chocolate variety. They describe the spread as velvety and boy they are not wrong! This stuff is silky AF...moreso than any other chocolate spread I think I've ever tried. They're usually either greasy or too firm, so it's nice to see that's not an issue here. The caramel flavour is spot on, it's not particularly salty but just enough to elevate it from regular caramel, and boy is it delicious. I was eating this stuff from the spoon and it's so easy to get carried away!...

This week, Nestle launched another new product to the confectionery world under the Aero brand. It's something I had always thought they should do - a fancier version of Aero - and comes in a similar style box to Nestle Kitkat Senses. There's three varieties in the range; Milk Chocolate, Mixed and Salted Caramel selections. Nestle kindly sent me all three to review, and I'm supposed to hashtag them with #blissmoment...but do they deliver said moments of bliss? Well, I ate the whole pack in one go so that's probably a good sign! And I'm not alone in that which makes me feel a little less guilty. The pack opens in rather a cool way (you may have seen my mini video on Instagram ) and kind of becomes a cardboard bowl...but in reality, let's be honest you're gonna eat the lot! The chocolates are described as "Velvety whipped bubbles wrapped in delicious milk chocolate" and "smooth milk chocolate filled with a salted caramel aerated whipped ...

As plain as they may be, I do often find myself munching on rice cakes as a quick “healthy” snack when on the go. My favourite ones are Kallo Dark Chocolate Coated Square rice cakes, and I’ve rarely ventured into trying the more fancy flavours now being made such as yogurt, berry etc., but one newbie to the rice cake world that caught my eye recently were these Marks and Spencer Salted Caramel Rice cakes. They’re priced at £1.30 for 6 and described as “whole grain rice cakes with a white chocolate and caramel coating sprinkled with crispy salted caramel flavoured pieces”. With that description I was hoping for something a bit like a Caramac/Blonde chocolate coating, but that’s not exactly what I got. It’s pretty much regular white chocolate with caramel flavouring and colouring added. Not to worry though because these are still very tasty! Most of the flavour comes from the crunchy pieces which are very flavoursome indeed, nicely balanced between caramel toffee like flav...

I was pleasantly surprised by the new Cadbury Darkmilk bar when I reviewed it last year - it's both sweet and creamy whilst retaining the richness of a darker chocolate - so I was very excited to try this Salted Caramel version when it launched recently. It contains crunchy salted caramel pieces with 40% cocoa milk chocolate, and can be found in the likes of WH Smiths currently for around £1 or so. It also contains real sea salt, none of your regular pedestrian salt! I ate it on the go, as I often have to, and it has the same square style block design as the Original version. I much prefer it over the curvy shaped blocks that Cadbury introduced to Dairy Milk bars. Taste wise, the caramel chips are a bit like pieces of Daim, although of course more salty and without the almond bits in. They definitely make for an interesting flavour combined with the Darkmilk chocolate, but in all honesty I don't think the combination quite works somehow. I think it's the saltiness...

It's still #veganuary, so just enough time to do a review of these Vegan Organic Raw Chocolates from The Raw Chocolate Co! They kindly sent me several from their range to try recently, which I was super excited about because I do love their Vanoffee Bar. It's the best "white" vegan chocolate out there, although is more akin to Blonde Chocolate. As well as a new "Salted Vanoffee Hazelnut" and "Silky Coconut" bar, they're also doing Vanoffee Chocolate coated cashew nuts! Their products are available from: https://www.therawchocolatecompany.com/ So if you're dairy free or vegan do check 'em out - they're only a small company and deserve a lot more success in my opinion! The Vanoffee chocolate is described as a "Cocoa confection with Lucuma and Vanilla". It's sort of a cross between Caramac and White Chocolate, but of course vegan. The cashew nuts are thickly coated in it with a dusting of organic cocoa powder...

Veganuary rolls on, and with it the many and varied new Meat, Dairy etc Free product launches. One in particular that had to go straight into my basket when I spotted them in Sainsbury's were these New Nakd Salted Caramel Bars. I do love Nakd, and have done for years now, from their Nibbles Range to the Posh Bits and all the various Limited editions like Carrot Cake , Lemon Drizzle , Blueberry Muffin and so on. It seems tradition for them to bring out a new flavour every year and at last it's the trendy Salted Caramel! They've done this before in the Nibbles range, but never in bar form so I was pretty excited. These cost £1.99 for a 4 pack in Sainsbury's and are gluten, dairy and refined sugar free. There's also a new Walnut and Coffee variety - but more on that later! The ingredients are pretty simple like all Nakd bars: dates, raisins, cashews, peanuts, Cornish sea salt and a hint of natural flavourings. I'm glad to say that these live up to ...