Müller Light Dessert Inspired Apple Pie

I finally got around to trying the Apple Pie variety of the Dessert Inspired range from Müller light today, I reviewed Banoffee Pie here but I've been putting off trying this one. I'm not a fan of apple pie to be honest, I love apples, not so much pie but you can't buy these separately at the moment. 

This time round the yogurt had developed that horrible watery layer, nothing a good stir didn't fix. It does look similar to the Banoffee Pie albeit slightly less yellow but it's not apple green thank God! 

Again the cake pieces are plentiful, they aren't as big as they were before but it doesn't really make any difference. 

This yogurt really confused me. I had a mouthful and couldn't really taste apple, then I got the aftertaste which was pure apple. It kind of carried on this way again throughout the tub, some mouthfuls being a lot stronger than others but the overall flavour - when I took proper spoonfuls and wasn't rooting around for cake - is quite an artificial apple. It's weird but it's an addictive artificial taste, it wouldn't stand up against the real deal but I liked it here! 

Towards the end I started finding pieces with a different texture to the cake and noticed that this was where the flavour was more concentrated. On the ingredients list there are two separate apples, one being a vague "Apple (3.5% )" and so I'm going to guess that there are little pieces of this in here. You can't tell to look though, as they're roughly the same size and shape as the cake and once it's all covered in the yogurt the same colour too. 

I didn't really like the idea of an apple pie yogurt, but it wasn't actually bad. I wouldn't buy it as a stand alone, but as I won't give these away the next time I want to buy the multipack with the banoffee. 

Hopefully now I don't have to continuously keep writing apple it will start to sound like a real word again! 

Rating 6/10 

Ben & Jerrys Blueberry Cheesecake frozen yogurt

I've fallen back to my fail safe ice cream frozen yogurt brand for my fix this week. Ben & Jerry's new cookie core range has been pretty hyped up but this new Blueberry Cheesecake Greek style frozen yogurt has seemed to slip under the radar. 

It's actually an ice cream with Greek style yogurt, which I'd never noticed on the previous versions and explains why it seems so much creamier than other frozen yogurt brands. This tub is cheesecake flavoured with cookie and blueberry swirls. 

The base ice cream/frozen yogurt started off quite subtle, it's not bland at all but its not a strong flavour as is the case in the chocolate versions for instance. If you're planning on scooping into bowls or like me, eating straight from the tub, this softens quicker than ice cream - almost straight away it was scoopable. While it does soften up it doesn't melt though, it still had ice cream consistency even at the very bottom of my pint instead of ice cream soup. 

The cheesecake became more apparent the further into the tub I got, probably as the additions evened out more, and it's good. Still quite subtle but tasty nonetheless on its own, with a slight tang from the yogurt. I'd actually like to see this  used more I bet there's lots of other versions it would go well in. 

The brown/orange blob to the right of the picture is the cookie swirl. As usual the flavour is spot on, there's no mistake mistaking it and it's Ben & Jerry's usual sweet cookie. It's a bit different though, in that it's not like the cookie core - it was a lot more solid than that, but not quite as solid as the cookie dough pieces in the original versions. A cookie swirl does sum it up perfectly and it does keep the gritty texture which I loved in the cookie core ice creams though. At the top of the pint I had some very large swirls, which sort of drowned out the cheesecake and blueberry, but this evened out around the center and it was more enjoyable with even amounts of all 3. 

I really didn't expect my favourite part of this tub to be the blueberry, it's not a fruit I'd choose but I don't mind it. The taste here is extremely intense, I was expecting the normal fruit swirl here, sort of like the syrup or sauce you can buy in supermarkets but according to the ingredients it's actually 10% blueberry and 4% of that is blueberry purée. I suppose the fact it's a purée is what gives it the very vibrant blueberry taste, but I think that's what gives it it's texture too. 

 It tastes and feels luxurious, and the juicy soft fruit, thick creamy slightly tangy ice cream and gritty cookies compliment each other well. From start to finish all 3 components stayed as they should, no frozen solid lumps or soggy pools. Cadbury take note ;-)

 This is one I'll most  definitely be buying again. 

Rating 8/10 

Relentless Mango Ultra

I have far too much caffeine, be it from coffee, chocolate (who knew!?), regular fizzy drinks or energy drinks. I do drink coffee black though and I only drink sugar free - I know about the controversy with Aspartame but I cannot handle the feeling of furry teeth I get with regular sugary drinks. A bit silly really considering how many other sweet things I eat. I normally stick to Monster but I'll have a Red Bull or sugar free KX at a push but this was on special offer in my local Tesco so I went for a change. 

When I opened the can there was a definite pop and its described as a sparkling drink but it doesn't seem too carbonated to me. It tastes more like a slightly fizzy fruit juice, I like this though as it seems more refreshing. While I don't think it would replace my normal energy drink - the Monster seems to have a pretty unique flavour - I can see myself buying this when it finally decides to warm up. It seems a summery drink, to enjoy as a normal drink rather than a caffiene source. I bet it would go down well mixed with a vodka too! 

Rating 8/10 

Müller light Dessert Inspired Banoffee Pie

Müller have release a new line of multipack light yogurts called Dessert Inspired, today I picked up Banoffee Pie and Apple Pie. 

They're yogurts with added crushed cake pieces and first up I tried Banoffee Pie. 

The yogurt suprised me actually, while light yogurts can be quite watery this one was slightly creamier and it didn't need a good stir to get rid of the layer you sometimes find on the top of these types. 

The flavour itself is nice, it's a bit of a mixed bag with some mouthfuls predominantly banana and others more toffee. Looking at the ingredients there are flavourings used aswell as 1.5% actual banana purée which probably explains why every now and then like eating a liquidised banana! 

It's driving me mad but the taste really reminds me of something banana/Banoffee flavoured I've eaten quite recently but I can't remember for the life of me what it was. If anyone try's this and knows what it tastes just like please let me know! 

Although according to the ingredients, cake pieces only make up 2%, I seemed to have a lot in mine. The pieces were larger than I expected aswell and I did enjoy them, they make a nice change from fruit, cereal and chocolate. 

The crushed cake didn't have a noticable taste to itself, but I think that's a good thing, the yogurt gives the flavour and the cake adds a nice, spongey texture. 

I preferred this Müller to the one I tried last week. If you like banana or Banoffee Pie it's worth trying. 

Rating 7/10 

Hula Hoops Puft Cheese

Another crisp I've tried recently is the new Hula Hoops Puft cheese flavour. They're marketed as a healthier crisp as you can see from the little yellow box in the corner of the packet and a lower calorie crisp although that could be because the bag only weighs 15g - so a standard 30g bag would be 142 calories, the same as a standard bag of crisps roughly...

Anyway the cheese is overwhelming when you open the bag, so much so even when I opened the multipack I had to check none of the packets had split - they hadn't! My first thought on trying one, and my opinion still on these now is that these are disguised quavers, in both taste and texture. And that's how I'll sum these up I think. Hula hooped shaped quavers. 

The thing that impressed me though, was the number of crisps in the bag. Despite only weighing 15g you're not short changed in terms of volume - I had about 50 in my bag, they didn't stop coming!

Another decent low calorie snack if that's what you're after. 

Rating 7/10 

Galaxy salted caramel

Forget higher quality chocolate exists for a moment, in this country in terms of standard everyday chocolate, most people either are either Team Cadbury Dairy Milk or Team Galaxy. In this house I'm a Cadbury girl and my fiancée is camp Galaxy, I watched him demolish the big sharing sized bar of this last week and it looked good but I waited till I found it in a smaller size to try it myself as Galaxy is a bit too smooth for me normally. 

The smaller bars come in two long tubes each split into 3 squares, the squares seem thicker and squarer than in the larger. Each square is stuffed with the caramel but still has a decent amount of chocolate to give a satisfying crunch when you bite into it. 

The salted caramel is absolutely delicious, it's thick and gooey and literally oozes out of each block as you can see in the photo. Caramel is definitely the dominant flavour, the salt mainly appears towards the end of each mouthful and adds a nice twist to the already lovely tastes. The further I got into this the more noticable the salt became but caramel is still number one here. 

While normally I'm not a great lover of the smoothness in Galaxy, here it's a perfect accompaniment for the richness of the caramel and it all ends up a creamy, smooth, gooey, perfect mess. 

By far the best Galaxy bar I've ever tried. 

Rating 8/10 

Muller Light Goodies smooth toffee flavour

I'm terrible, if I see a new label I have to buy it even if I don't particularly want or need it. 

I don't mind muller yogurts really, though I haven't bought any for a while now and it's good to have things in the house that aren't chocolate or ice cream. Well that's what I tell myself to justify buying all this stuff! 

I've not seen a corner style muller light before, considering I remember eating the strawberry muller lights for as long as I can remember it's about time but I may have just missed them before. 

The yogurt had a watery layer at the start but nothing a stir didn't fix. It's a diet yogurt so it's never going to compare to thick, creamy full fat yogurt but the consistency isn't bad. The toffee flavour was very strong initially but I found the taste comes and goes. That's probably more as a result of the diet aspect again rather than bad flavours, the deeper I got into this and the further away from the watery top layer the stronger the toffee taste became. 

The little chocolate coated balls are good, toffee and chocolate is always a good combination and the addition of crunchy pieces to smooth yogurt livens up what could have been a pretty ordinary flavour. 

I don't normally buy yogurt - especially low fat ones but this was very moreish and I'm trying to talk myself out of getting another one out of the fridge right now. 

Rating 7/10 

Cadbury Dairy Milk presents Marvellous Ice Creams Fairground Candy Crunch

Apologies in advance for the picture heavy post! 

Cadbury have released 4 new ice creams as part of the Marvellous range and I thought I'd start with the one least like any ice cream I've had before, Fairground candy crunch - candy floss and chocolate flavour ice cream, swirled with Cadbury Dairy Milk, pink sugar crunch, sugar coated jelly pieces and mini marshmallows. 

I'll start with the ice cream as it seems to be the minority ingredient in this pint. It's OK, the pint has a RRP of £4 and if this was just the ice cream it would be an awful rip off - think maybe supermarket own brand quality but as the emphasis seems to be on what's added, I think it's probably better this isn't a luxury, heavy ice cream it would be wasted. The flavours are pretty good but they take second stage here. 

Firstly I found the sugar crunch and jelly pieces. The crunchy bits are small but good and I really liked the jelly pieces, they're the small sugar jellies from Dolly Mixture and they're the best one in my opinion anyway. Soon the marshmallows started appearing, while they had no real flavour to themselves they add a nice new element to the tub so far with crunchy, jelly gooey and soft all accounted for with the the smooth ice cream. 

I was really enjoying it but at this point I was 1/4 of the way into the 500ml and there was no Dairy Milk to be found yet! By the time it turned up I was nearly half way through and that was just a small piece to be truthful, not like in other ice creams. I was wondering if I'd got a dodgy batch as the name is Dairy Milk and it's the first thing listed in the description but then this happened... 

I'm not sure if you can see but to the left of the picture there is a hard piece of chocolate poking through, I couldn't scoop it or really dig around it, so I started chipping at it... 

       And carried on chipping at it.... 

Completely massacred the tub in the process

And found the bottom 1/4 of the tub was the Dairy Milk swirl/chunks all frozen into one solid lump which was completely unbreakable and ended up being smashed with my spoon. 

I've seen on other blogs which have reviewed other versions of the Marvellous Ice creams that sadly I didn't get a dud pint and this has happened in literally all of them. 

It seems Cadbury have tried to maybe do a Ben & Jerry's and do a sort of chocolate core, but they've got the ingredients a bit off I think and so instead of a lovely gooey chocolate centre, there's just what looks and tastes exactly like a frozen Dairy Milk bar chucked in the bottom. 

It's such a shame because the chocolate was lovely and the rest of the ice cream is very enjoyable. There's no other ice creams out like this really with sweets added in rather than chocolate, caramel or biscuits and the Dairy Milk would only have improved on this. 

It's a good job I'm greedy because I can't work out how you'd share this out fairly or eat it over several sittings without completely missing one of the major parts of the tub. 

Rating 7/10 

It would have rated higher if the chocolate was evenly spaced. 

Walkers Chicken and chorizo crisps

Finally I have something savoury to review - I'm starting to get a bit tired of writing about chocolate and ice cream, eating it is another story! 

I picked these chicken and chorizo Walkers crisps up last week in Sainsburys as they were on a Red Nose Day stand, I can't see anything on the packaging about Comic relief so I'm guessing they were there accidentally.

I'm not going lie when I opened the packet all I could smell was chicken, I gave it the benefit of the doubt though as the smell of chicken crisps can be quite powerful. The chorizo wasn't just absent in the smell though I couldn't taste it at all either. My first few mouthfuls were only chicken flavoured, I could taste something else a couple of bites in but I couldn't distinguish chorizo - it was a meaty taste but I wouldn't call it chorizo blindfolded. 

That said, as you can see in the photos my crisps were very unevenly seasoned. A few of the smaller ones were orange and tasted more 'meaty' but the larger only chicken. Once I've had another packet maybe I'll revisit my review. As it stands though, while these are nice crisps, I'll stick to just chicken in the future. 

Rating 5/10 

Green & Black's THIN Bars

 

Today's reviews are two of the three new available Green& Black's THIN bars, dark chocolate and salted caramel milk chocolate. A milk chocolate version is available aswell but that didn't really appeal to me as much as these two. 

Both bars come in a card packet that opens like an envelope and sealed in gold foil inside which, although Green & Black's isn't at the higher end of the price scale certainly gives it a luxurious feel.

I'll start in the order I ate them in, and so that means the dark bar is up first. 

The flash is on in the photo above but it isn't as dark of a bar as some 70% chocolate, and they got the name right it's a lot thinner than a standard Green & Black's. Looking online at the ingredients list it doesn't seem to be a recipe change from the ordinary 70% so taste wise it's the same. I wasn't too excited about the change in thickness as I've said time and time again I like a crunch. This is still there though and it has a decent bite to it but the biggest change I noticed is that the new thinness of the bar means it melts on the tounge much easier even after a stay in the fridge. 

Rating 8/10 

After reading this Review on Kevs Snack Reviews I was in two minds about which to try first, and I can honestly say I made the wrong choice, if I'd eaten the salted caramel first I doubt the dark would have got a look in though so maybe it's not such a bad thing. 

This is a milk chocolate with caramel pieces with flakes of Anglesey sea salt, the blog I've linked to goes over the basics pretty well so I'll just give my opinion now. 

I would actually go as far as saying this is probably the nicest bar of chocolate I've had in a while. The caramel I expected to be flavouring or a filling but it's actual solid, crunchy pieces that were visible when I broke it in half. It's a lovely rich caramel taste that paired with the salt reminded me why this has become the 'it' flavour. 

This bar just got better the more I ate and I was genuinely sad when I looked down and realised I'd polished the lot off! 

Rating 9/10 

Dairy Milk Oat Crunch

Moving away from ice cream, today I've tried the new Dairy Milk Oat Crunch.

Im not sure if this is being marketed as a healthier cereal type bar with the addition of the oats, but it's a 30g Dairy Milk chocolate bar with 2 fairy large biscuits sandwiching it that are sprinkled with oat flakes. 

It's very similar in form to the Dairy Milk with Ritz and Lu bars in both shape, size and the fact the chocolate isn't surrounding the biscuits but they are just kind of stuck on the top and bottom. It does have less calories though only coming in at 150 if you're after that sort of thing. 

Ignore the flash in the picture above, I only took it to show this is quite a substantial bar. The biscuits are thick and chunky and it feels more filling than the other two similar bars. Dairy milk aside this isn't as sweet as the Lu, or salty like the Ritz but the creamy chocolate compensates for that and the oaty flavours complete the trio nicely. 

A nice new bar from Cadbury though I can't decide if they're being slightly unimaginative or it's nice to be back to the non crazy additions. 

Rating 7/10

Ben & Jerry's Utter Peanut Butter Clutter cookie core

Last but by no means least in the new cookie core range from Ben & Jerry's is Utter Peanut Butter Clutter, a peanut butter ice cream with peanut butter cookies & a crumbled peanut butter cookie core. I reviewed the previous two, speculoos and chocolate version last week. 

Being completely honest this ice cream looked boring compared to any other Ben & Jerry's when I took the lid off. Sure there are some nice peanut butter specks in there but it looked a bit plain. 

Digging in, I found this wasn't true at all. The peanut butter core stands out but I think it's a case of the cookie pieces and the ice cream being near identical in colour but they're there alright! 

I didn't find the ice cream very strong at first, but it soon kicked in and as with the other Ben and Jerry's peanut butter flavours, it's rich, creamy and although I hate peanut butter normally very enjoyable. The core and cookies are very peanut buttery and while I found the cookies have the type of flavour I don't like - the only way I can describe it is roof of the mouth smacking - the texture went well with the crunchy core. The core itself is also strong but the texture completely changes it from me and takes the part away I hate and just leaves the flavour. 

As with the previous two the texture of the cookie core range are what are make these tubs. I certainly didn't expect to prefer the Peanut flavour to the chocolate but there's a first for everything and this is a very nice tub in my opinion. 

Rating 7/10 

White Lion

Bit of a random one today, I found this white Lion bar in Home Bargains, grabbed one for my fiancée and thought I'd get myself one while I was at it. 

It weighs in a bit smaller than a standard Lion bar at 42g and my wrapper is polish. Strangely some version of caramel (?) - karmelemis (PL), karamele (LT), Ar karameli (LV) etc is listed at 34.5% while the English is just white chocolate 41.9%. Weird! 

Anyway despite being smaller this is still a sturdy bar of chocolate. It looks quite impressive taking it out, big crispy pieces sticking out all over the place and a white finish that doesn't look like chocolate it's so thick! 

It's a creamy chocolate but let's be honest, it's white so it's very sweet! I do like Lion bars as they remind me of my pick and mix favourite Chocolate Fudge Crunch just on a much bigger scale, that chewy crispy gooeyness and that's still here in abundance. So much so it actually gave me a jaw ache! 

This made a nice change from milk chocolate and while it's not something I would crave and eat regularly I did enjoy it. I liked having something a bit different from the new trends like salted caramel and super dark organic bars. 

Rating 7/10 

Ben & Jerry's What-a-lotta Chocolate Cookie Core

Wow that name is a mouthful! The second of the 3 new Ben & Jerry's Cookie Core is this - What-a-lotta Chocolate, the general gist is the same as the previous pint reviewed here, so I won't go into detail about the general ice cream. Base ice cream, cookie pieces, cookie core - you know the score! 

To start with, the base ice cream tastes exactly the same as the chocolate used in Chocolate Fudge Brownie so no complaints here and nothing new to point out, why fix what's not broken?

This ice cream probably couldn't get more chocolatey if they tried! The cookie pieces are chocolate cookies and while they do taste more chocolatey than the pieces in Cookie Dough or Half Baked they don't pop out flavour wise against the ice cream. They're certainly not hidden though, they take up 7% (according to the tub) of the pint, but it felt like a lot more in mine and are nice and chewy against the thick creamy ice cream. These pieces actually seemed chewier than the pieces in the Speculoo version which made for a brilliant contrast with the core. 

The core is again the same as in the previous version but chocolate flavoured instead and again the gritty, actual ground cookie texture is by far the best part. The contrast between smooth ice cream, chewy cookie pieces and crunchy core when you get all three on one spoonful is amazing and reminds me why I pay the prices I do for Ben & Jerry's! 

However, while there's no doubt this is a lovely ice cream (and would probably be more of a favourite if I'd tried it first) I can't help but compare it to Half Baked/Cookie Dough/Choc Fudge Brownie. It is quite similar and tame even compared to the usual. The core does redeem it and it is a delicious ice cream, but I can't rate it higher than I did for the Speculoos. I'll buy it again though. 

Rating 7/10 

Blue Riband Coffee Cream

There are tonnes of 100 calories or less biscuit bars on the market at the moment, and to be honest I avoid buying them as im trying to put weight on at the moment, not lose it but these caught me eye - not only because of the shiny new label but coffee! 

For the sake of the review, I'll quickly go over the biscuit itself though most people will have tried the original variety. It's mainly wafer with quite a thin layer of basic nestle chocolate. Its not bad chocolate but its not really a chocolate you'd eat in a bar by itself, still for the purpose of coating the wafers its fine. Even though it only contains 99 calories it tastes more substantial and filling than other bars like this that I've tried such as the Aero biscuit bar.

The coffee smell was certainly noticable when I opened the wrapper and thankfully the taste was just as clear. This definitly has more of a coffee flavour and isn't overwhelmed by the chocolate or biscuit at all. A good buy and one I'll make again for sure. I'd really enjoy this as a proper chocolate bar, maybe Nestle could put the flavours into a Kit Kat Chunky! That would be amazing. 

Rating 7/10