American M&M's Part 1

I've decided to split the M&M's post I have into two, one gigantic post would be a bit too long. I'll be kicking off part one with Birthday Cake flavour, Peanut Butter flavour and Keebler and M&M bite size cookies. 

Random fact - did you know Mars have actually trademarked the letter M? I didn't but there's a stern warning of this on the back of the packets! 

Birthday Cake M&Ms 

I was very sceptical about the Birthday Cake flavour M&Ms. How can they make an M&M taste like cake? So naturally they were the variety I tried first. Overall they seemed a bit bigger than any normal M&Ms I've eaten recently and at first they just smelt of chocolate. That's probably because one got a bit busted in transit, so you can see under the shell they aren't anything different to look at. 

These taste strange! Not a bad strange but Mars have come through on the birthday cake. Don't get me wrong there is no way on earth you'd think you were eating an actual birthday cake - the  fact it's an M&M should see to that - but there is something, and I really don't knowk what, that is so reminiscent of birthday cake. Maybe it's the flavours from the frosting on cakes, or the cake itself or I really just don't know but the more I ate the more it tasted like birthday cake. 

There were some that were more chocolatey but the general flavours of the bag were these weird - am I imagining this - birthday cake tastes. They definitely didn't taste like a standard milk chocolate M&M. 

I was all ready to rate these 7/10, however they are extremely sweet and I did notice the sweetness at the start of the bag but it wasn't too big of a deal to begin with. Sometimes I read other bloggers say they've eaten something that is so sweet it makes their throat burn and to tell you the truth I've never had a clue what they were on about. Until this bag! It's only a small bag, not quite 40g but about half way through the sweetness was nearly unbearable! I actually thought to myself "now I know what they mean!" It wasn't enough to stop me polishing the rest of but I'm a total sugar fiend. I wouldn't be able to eat one of the massive bags the Americans sell though! 

In moderation - 7/10. Too many at once 6/10 

Peanut Butter M&Ms 

My usual method of eating anything is least to most favourite so Peanut Butter flavour had to be next. Again they seemed quite large - maybe the M&Ms made in the U.S.A just are bigger? I didn't really notice any peanut related scent from the bag but they didn't smell as chocolatey as the Birthday Cakes either. 

You can see the texture of the peanut butter even in the photo. It's thick and quite gritty but almost melts away to a creamy consistency. Infact it's so thick I bit into one and this happened - 

- my M&M ended up innard-less! It creeped me out - it looks like a dead Pacman! As a self proclaimed peanut butter (note only peanut butter not peanuts in general) hater I wasn't looking forward to the overwhelming flavour that seems to take over everything it comes into contact with. That didn't happen here though, it's strong - there's no mistaking what it is at all - but it really blended well with the chocolatey candy shell. Surprisingly I really enjoyed this flavour, the slight saltiness it had to it made for a very addictive taste and unlike before I was a bit sad when I realised I'd eaten them all! 

I need to rethink my stance on peanut butter after these and the Ben & Jerry's I think! 

Rating 8/10 

Keebler made with M&M's Cookies 

While American run of the mill chocolate (namely Hershey's) leaves a lot to be desired, the same can't be said for their cookies. I'm not talking about what they call a cookie, which seems to be anything to do with a biscuit - see Oreo, but what we Brits call a cookie. Mainly chocolate chip cookies. I've yet to try one I've not enjoyed, be it cheap and cheerful or a bit more luxurious.  These M&M cookies are made with Keebler cookies, a brand I have heard of before and claim to be bite size. 

If you've tried mini Maryland cookies I would say they are bite size, the M&M cookies I had were probably about one and a half times the size of those and there were a decent amount in the 45g pouch. 

They smelt mainly of cookies, you know the smell and even though they had been crushed in transit, were mainly thick and chunky. To be totally truthful it was a little off putting seeing such bright blue pieces in some of the cookies! It's not a colour we use that much over here and it reminded me of the plasters you have to wear in food production and service but my brain works in strange ways like that. 

The cookies were lovely, they mainly held their shape but biting into them they were crunchy and crumbly and tasted sweet and buttery. There were chocolate chips aswell as M&M's which added a sweet chocolate flavour to the tasty biscuit too. You can taste the M&Ms in flavour but the texture is a little lost in an already crunchy biscuit. I think if texture alone is the major factor then these would have worked better in a thinner or softer biscuit but as it was the biscuit was tasty enough that I didn't mind loosing out on the bite of the crisp M&M's. 

Rating 7/10