Kev's Snack Reviews

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...

Tesco are currently busy launching a raft of new ice cream products into their stores, and there's many gems among them - see this Instagram post of mine for a few as well as my Skittles Ice Creams review. There's also a new Haagen Dazs Brownie Macchiato , Ben and Jerry's Coconutterly Caramel Vegan Ice Cream, Low Fat Ben & Jerry's Moophoria tubs as well as new Halo Top lollies (which everyone is going crazy for)! I thought I'd try something a bit simpler to review, possibly healthier and also...vegan! Yes, the Solero brand has done something quite revolutionary and removed the dairy ice cream centre of a Solero, and replaced it with a soft juicy filling for these Peach Lollies. The ingredients are a simple mix of sugar, water, peach juice, peach, peach puree, lemon juice, pectin and other natural flavourings, as well as apple juice. Very fruity! The ingredients are also made by organic agriculture, which is always nice to know. Each stick has 60 calori...

Gin flavouring is most certainly on trend at the moment, and like unicorns and salted caramel is infiltering all manner of snack products. I was pleasantly surprised to see a bar of Morrisons Lemon & Juniper Gin Chocolate last year, and now Divine have brought out a similar variety, which is Limited Edition, Organic, Vegan, Fairtrade and available from the likes of Oxfam stores and online. I really do love the Divine brand as they are yet another company at the forefront of ethically produced chocolate, and this is something we need more of! The cocoa beans used in this bar are sourced from family farmers in Ghana, and the bar contains zero palm oil or soya and is certified by the Vegan Society. The ingredients contain lemon oil and juniper berry oil to give it the "gin" like flavour without actual alcohol.  Like most 70% Dark Chocolate it has a rich fruity aroma so you know it's good quality right away (cheaper brands tend to just smell bitter). Taking a bite,...

Today's review is rather special, it's for a new range of Organic "Rich Dark" high cocoa bars from Divine, makers of Fairtrade ethically-sourced chocolate. The bars are certified Vegan, Soil Association Organic and verified by the Non GMO Project. Some pretty high credentials right there! I was offered the range to review by Divine recently and of course, couldn't say no since I'm such a convert to darker chocolates. What intrigued me by this range was the inclusion of various flavours like Ginger, Lemon, Turmeric etc...all very healthy and super food-ish, and interesting pairings for dark chocolate! The fairtrade cocoa is sourced from Sao Tome, a forest-covered volcanic island off the west coast of Africa. It was the first African country to grow cocoa and in 1913 was the biggest producer in the world, earning it the title of "Chocolate Island". Mmmm, who wouldn't want to live on a Chocolate Island? Starting with the Refreshing Lemon var...

Last week I reviewed the Orange and Mint bars from Pana Cacao, but wait...there's more! A big thankyou to the UK importers for sending me samples of the range recently - there's flavours such as Cherry, Strawberry & Pistachio as well as today's review: Fig & Wild Orange and Raw Cacao. Pana Cacao is an Australian company producing raw, organic and handmade chocolates using minimal ingredients and sustainable materials. They're suitable for vegans, dairy free, soy free and use coconut nectar and agarve syrup instead of white sugar. You can find them in the UK in various health food stores, as well as Pana's UK webstore: https://panachocolate.com/uk/shop/ The bars each comes in boxes containing 45g in paper wrappers. Each has an individual design, which I think is a nice touch and makes it feel more special (see above). Starting with the Fig & Wild Orange variety, this contains 14% figs as well as wild orange essential oil, plus spices like car...

Another Plamil review today and this time it's for their So Free Organic Dark Chocolate sweetened with Coconut Blossom Sugar. This bar is dairy free, vegan and contains 67% cocoa solids and replaces white sugar with coconut sugar. So how does this affect the taste? Opening the wrapper it smellt very rich with a distinctive almost treacle-like aroma, which is presumably the coconut sugar. I do find coconut sugar generally has that kind of taste, which is very different from white sugar but nice in its own way - it lends an almost caramel flavour to chocolate. The taste is interesting...the coconut sugar is very prominent, and like I said it does have that treacle-like flavour which is quite strong. To be honest I'm not sure it worked with the dark chocolate, I think the cocoa clashes too much with it. A milkier chocolate might have been better (the Waitrose 1 Indian Ocean Bar is a good example of coconut sugar that tastes great in chocolate). Overall, not a bad bar at ...

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/ ...

A mahoosive thankyou to Plamil Foods , who recently sent me a box of their Dairy Free, Organic, Gluten Free and Vegan-friendly chocolate range to review recently! It was like a gift from the Gods considering I had been avoiding the dairy-filled chocolates recently. It's tricky finding decent dairy free alternatives in shops; there's the trusty dark chocolates from Lindt and G&B of course but sometimes you want something a bit more mellow. Thankfully Plamil have catered for all with their range - from White Chocolate to Milk Chocolate alternatives, to the more darker end of the cocoa spectrum. I thought I'd start with the White Chocolate Alternative first, since it's one of the most difficult products to find a Dairy Free version of. Billed as Organic and containing 48% cocoa this sounded rather special indeed - it consists of a blend of cocoa butter, sugar and rice in place of milk. Do forgive the broken appearance of the bar, I think in my excitement I may...

A big thankyou to Tiana Fairtrade Organics for today's post, who kindly offered me some of their new CocoTop "Organic Coconut Snacks" to review, an offer I couldn't refuse! There's two varieties in the range, which is available from Amazon in 50g pots. You can buy both varities together  or the Savoury and Sweet versions by themselves. Both contain only natural ingredients, are suitable for vegans, organic and gluten-free. They're lightly toasted to reduce fat content. Tiana CocoTop Savoury: I tried the Savoury variety first, which are coconut chips "lightly salted with unrefined sea salt". I do like the little tubs these come in, they're super handy, and unlike other coconut chips on the market you can re-seal them and save some for later. No messy bits falling out into your bag! The coconut chips are nicely toasted and taste very fresh and good quality. They would certainly make for a nice salty cinema snack in place of popcorn,...

I always love a new chocolate bar variety, so when I spotted this mini bar of Doisy and Dam Dark Chocolate in a local Sainsbury's Express recently, straight into my basket it went. Costing £1 for 25g it certainly ain't cheap, but that's because it contains organic cocoa and has won a Great Taste Award. I had high expectations, especially since I've reviewed Doisy & Dam before - do check out my Doisy & Dam Maple, Toasted Rice & Pink Salt Review. This bar contains coconut flakes and vanilla as well as lucuma, which is a type of fruit with caramel undertones. There's 4 segments per mini bar. Considering the price I was expecting something special from this, and luckily it didn't disappoint. The coconut chips add some nice toasty crunchiness, whilst the lucuma and vanilla both give it a smooth, sweet caramel-like flavour. This is balanced by the rich dark chocolate, which is good quality and has a finer taste than the likes of other dark ch...

Today's review is for Seed and Bean, a brand I have featured on occasion before - I particularly loved their White Chocolate, Lemon & Poppyseed Bar . This time I've been trying out some of their dark chocolate varieties. Their dark chocolates are suitable for vegans, fairtrade, dairy free and gluten free, as well as organic. This one contains 58% Cocoa and is flavoured with lemon and cardamom, a bit of a unique pairing for chocolate! It tastes nice, with rich, good quality dark chocolate that has a slightly acidic edge. The cardamom certainly makes for an interesting flavour profile combined with the lemon. I enjoyed this bar, it's not something you'd want to eat on the regular, but for "something a bit different" at Christmas it would make a nice variation. I would recommend this to vegans or anyone dairy free looking for something a bit different. I also like that it's organic since Green & Blacks seem to be downplaying their organ...

Today's review is for Plenish, a new Dairy Free Nut Milk brand stocked in the likes of Sainsbury's and Waitrose, whose milks are made with clean ingredients and zero fillers. Which is impressive since almost every brand has some kind of stabiliser added! I picked their Organic Coconut M*lk to try when I saw it on offer in Sainsbury's, since I'm avoiding nuts at the moment. I don't know why the word "milk" has an asterisk in place of the "i"...it makes me think it's a swear word or something! This variety is unsweetened and made from a mixture of filtered water, organic coconut milk, rice and sea salt. Pretty simple ingredients right? Apparently this is the only coconut milk on the market made without additives. I shook the bottle well as advised on the carton, and poured some into a glass. The milk looked very creamy, but there were some worrying lumps floating about in it, seemingly from the coconut. This didn't bother me to...

I've been exploring the dairy free side of life a bit lately, and trying to find some good ice cream alternatives has proved to be a bit of a challenge. Most are based on soya milk or pea protein, which don't sit too well with my tummy, but I had heard good things about Booja Booja's range so thought I'd give them a whirl. They were recently on offer at Waitrose so it seemed like the perfect excuse! Booja Booja ice cream is nut based and made with cashew nuts and coconut syrup, so not suitable for those with nut allergies but it's gluten free and suitable for vegans. I went for the Caramel Pecan Praline variety as it sounded a bit more lively than the Hunky Punky Chocolate tub. And boy I'm glad I did! This is described as "Caramel vanilla dairy free ice cream shmoozled with salted caramel pecan praline sauce (18%) made with cashew nuts" and contains 7 organic ingredients: Water, cashew nuts, coconut syrup, agave syrup, pecan nuts, sea sa...

Chocolate and Love are a new Fairtrade organic brand that have recently been rolled out in Sainsbury's stores. Currently, they're on offer for £2 a bar, so I thought I'd see what they're all about. Being a lover of all things coffee I naturally went for the Coffee 55% cocoa dark chocolate, although their other varieties are very enticing too (they do Mint, Orange, Creamy Dark, Caramel Sea Salt). This bar is not only fairtrade and organic, but dairy free and Vegan society approved. There's 4% organic coffee incorporated into the chocolate, which is a pretty decent amount compared to some coffee flavoured chocolates on the market. The chocolate certainly smelled very rich and coffee-like, especially for a 55% cocoa bar. And it tasted just as rich as its aroma; there were some complex cocoa bean flavours, backed up with the the stronger coffee flavour. It was very tasty indeed! More of an espresso than a latte in coffee terms - this is definitely one for c...

The day of luuurve is upon us tomorrow, and for a change I'm shunning the more conventional sugar and truffle filled chocolates in favour of this; an organic, raw, dairy free and vegan white chocolate. I found this bar, or rather "heart" in a local health food store for £1.75. It's made with virgin cacao butter, coconut nectar, raw cashew nuts, coconut and pink lake salt. I do love the heart shape of it, it felt uber special when I unwrapped it and was rather unexpected. The colour reminded me somewhat of Caramac, and it had a strong cacao butter caramel aroma. The first thing I noticed after biting into it was the texture; it's almost fudge-like, very melt-in-the-mouth and sort of greasy. It felt a bit unusual to eat something so soft! The taste is lovely; it has a strong natural salted caramel flavour, with the cacao butter coming through very prominently. Being honest though I can't say I loved this chocolate, the main thing that lets it do...