Kev's Snack Reviews

Whilst browsing the latest deals in Morrisons recently I spotted this new festive edition of Soreen, and being a big fan of the chewy, squidgy stuff I just had to give it a try. It's described as "Bursting with winter spices, raisins, currants, cherries, a hint of citrus and lots of festive joy!" and cost £1 on a promotional deal. Basically, it tastes somewhat like a hybrid of christmas pudding and malt loaf...and tastes great! Like regular Soreen it has a delicious squidgy texture and is amazing spread thickly with butter. I tried it toasted which made it even more amazing...perfect with a cup of hot chocolate! The added spices, cherries and citrus really brought a Christmassy feel to it, and dare I say - it tasted better than the original. Overall, this is a fantastic edition of Soreen and if you're a fan of malt loaf I would highly recommend seeking it out and stocking up before Christmas! I'll certainly be buying a few as gifts for the Soreen-lovers in ...

A big thankyou to " Honest Foods " for sending me one of their snacking boxes to review recently! Honest are a quirky company specialiazing in "the best of British", and according to the message on the box they do not want to say "bonjour", "aloha" or "guten tag" to us...oh no, they want to say a very British "Hello!" In keeping with this theme, their boxes only contain products made in Britain. This is a fantastic idea and one I very much applaud, since it's getting harder to find great quality products made in this country nowadays. Local is often best! This box, or "Snakorium" as Honest calls it, included a lot of delicious items such as sweet chilli peanuts, lemon and ginger oat biscuits, a banoffee pie chocolate bar, Teapigs oolong tea, chilli billtong, and popping candy hot chocolate! It's a varied and interesting selection of stuff for sure. Of course, being the chocoholic I am I went str...

Many thanks to Artisan Du Chocolat for sending me some of their "magic wands" chocolates to review recently. I was absolutely amazed by the gorgeous box they came in; it looks spectacular, one of the nicest boxes of chocolates I've ever seen in fact! I wasn't sure what the "wands" were all about at first, I thought it was just another name for chocolate sticks like Matchmakers , but it turns out these are a lot more sophisticated than that! They contain different flavoured ganaches encased in high quality chocolate, and can be combined to create entirely new flavours...as if by magic! The individual flavours are banana, pineapple, vanilla, strawberry, pear, raspberry, cinnamon and lemon. They can be combined to create these new flavours: vanilla & cinnamon = cola, raspberry & pear = apple, strawberry & vanilla = marshmallow, and raspberry & banana = bubble gum. At first I thought this might be a bit of a gimmick, but combinin...

When offered a box of this "Sleekster Classic Christmas Selection" from Hotel Chocolat to review recently, I naturally jumped at the chance. Hotel Chocolat's stuff is always impeccable quality, but I have limited experience with their mixed boxes so wasn't quite sure what to expect.  I needn't have worried, because as always Hotel Chocolat have come up with a fantastically presented box of chocolates. It's a selection that should cater to everyone's tastes, although if you don't like alcoholic chocolates I'm afraid this isn't for you - I would recommend going for the Winter Desserts Sleekster instead. (I must admit I'm not a great fan of alcoholic chocolates myself, but I wasn't about to let that stop me from trying these!) The selection comprises of fruity chocolates, nuts, alcohol and spices in milk, dark and white chocolate. Below are my thoughts on each flavour: Chambard Royale: "A real Champagne truff...

I was delighted when Rococo Chocolates sent me some of their mini "Bee bars" to review recently. I'd heard good things about the company online for ages but never got to try any of their stuff so was very excited...even more so because of the varieties they sent! :- Raspberry Fizz: a white chocolate bar containing dried rasberry pieces and popping candy, Basil & Persian Lime: basil and lime flavoured dark chocolate, Moroccan Mint: mint-flavoured organic dark chocolate, Honeycomb Crunch: milk chocolate containing crunchy honeycomb pieces. The first two flavours in particular had me very intrigued! A bit of background : Rococo are a small British chocolatier based in London, who grow their own cocoa in Grenada in partnership with The Grenada Chocolate Company. They were founded in 1983 by a young woman called Chantal Coady who became bored with the stuffy, commercial norms of chocolate retailing and decided to follow her passion and set up her own compan...

This white chocolate version of Terry's Chocolate Orange isn't new as far as I'm aware...it's been around intermittently since the early 2000's with names such as "Snowball", but nevertheless it's again being billed as "new" on most confectionery news websites. It's made by Kraft, who now have larger distribution power to sell their goods in the UK thanks to buying out Cadbury - so expect to see a lot more Chocolate Oranges in the future! Although this isn't really "new", it's technicaly new this year since for the last few Christmases Terry's did the White Chocolate Orange Smasher instead, which contained tutti frutti sugar pieces. Personally I thought that was a lot more fun than this plain white chocolate version...the fruity pieces looked really cool and were a nice change! Still, I can't complain too much because this White Chocolate Orange tastes great. It's a lot milkier and of course sweeter th...

Amongst the goodies The Canada Shop recently sent me was this "Big Turk" bar, a turkish delight bar made by the Canadian arm of Nestlé. Being a fan of turkish delight chocolates ever since I was a kid I was very excited to try it, more so because it looked like a pretty substantial bar in comparison to the small bars of Fry's Turkish Delight we get here in the UK. The bar has a rather interesting curved shape, and is perfectly portioned to bite off into small chunks: The wrapper advertises the fact that this bar contains 60% less fat than an average chocolate bar, although I'm not sure what they're comparing it to, and besides... "less fat" doesn't mean anything if it doesn't taste any good! Taste-wise the milk chocolate coating is standard Nestlé milk chocolate - slightly milky but nothing amazing. The turkish delight filling, which as you can hopefully see from my pics has a bright pink colour, is very thick and chewy, with a ...