Kit Kat presents.. Stirred - Vanilla

Its typical, whenever I go out looking for new snacks I can never find any. Come 4am on a Monday morning when I'm waiting to pay for the diesel in an overpriced petrol station in central London and its everywhere! Then I have to find somewhere to hide it from greedy Mr.1T until we get home and I can put it in my stash and it has to be somewhere that it won't get smashed to smithereens. Suffice to say, many of the goodies I find in my overpriced treasure trove don't make it home to be reviewed. 

I'm learning though, and I made sure to buy two of these Kit Kats! They are Kit Kat presents Stirred! - Vanilla flavour and I don't really know where they're from! The trademark is registered in S.A, which I'm assuming is South Africa, but the contact details are for right here in the U.K. So we've either got a bonus World Food review or I've managed to bag an early U.K release. I'm not complaining regardless! 

The chocolate looks no different to your bog-standard, everyday four finger Kit Kat and it had that distinctive Kit Kat smell; the usual Nestle chocolate but somehow you can almost smell the wafers too.

Inside was more of the same, no difference to be found and I hoped it wasn't a sign of things to come. At first, this was the case. Same sweet, instantly recognisable chocolate flavour with the crisp bite of the wafers. This soon gave way to a lovely vanilla after-taste. Be warned, it is rather sweet but it still manages to have a kind of creamy vanilla flavour.

 I really enjoyed it, the way I review is I'll take a piece (in this case a finger), eat it slowly and in small bites, decide what I want to write about it and then get stuck in to the rest. I had my notes all written up and put away and I ate the other three fingers like a normal person. I had to go back though as this really improves the more you eat - the vanilla flavour becomes more pronounced and the normal chocolate is less noticeable. There's nothing wrong with normal Kit Kat chocolate - OK it's not great but its Kit Kat, that vanilla is lovely though.

I'm guessing the Stirred line is a range designed to be stirred into milk or a hot drink. Unfortunately I didn't get to try this as I only had a Cherry Pepsi Max on me at the time and I don't think that would have worked too well... Still I imagine this would have been delicious with a cup of strong black coffee - my fave - or any other warm drink. 

An improvement on the original and while I'd like to rate it an 8, I noticed I've been rather stingy on the ratings lately and I can't put it higher than some of the better quality chocolates I've tried. So for that reason only it's a

7/10 

Cadbury Fruit & Nut

Today's review is another Fruit & Nut head to head. Both Cadbury Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut, but one from Mondelēz Ireland, Dublin and one from Mondelēz UK, Birmingham. 

I, like most people who have tried Irish Cadbury, swear it's superior to the UK version. I had a chance to fairly compare the two when the lovely Lucy, @R4Rreviews sent me a bar of the Irish.

The best way to see if there is truely a difference between the two, is to look at the ingredients and nutritional info. As always, the order of the ingredients goes from most to least. 

Irish: Milk chocolate with raisins (14%) and almonds (7%): Milk, sugar, raisins, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, almonds, vegetable fats (Palm, Shea) emulsifiers, flavourings. 

UK: Milk chocolate with dried grapes (13%) and almonds (7%): Milk, sugar, cocoa butter, dried grapes, almonds, cocoa mass, vegetable fats (Palm, Shea) emulsifiers, cocoa, flavourings.

So there is a difference in the recipe - there's more sugar and raisins for instance in the Irish and the U.K. version uses more cocoa butter than dried grapes (ay!? Cadbury have you made that sneaky change yet or are you being pedantic) more almonds than cocoa mass and has straight up cocoa which isn't in the Irish. 

 U.K. Top, Irish Bottom 

The Irish weighs in 6g heavier than ours and is still in the square block format. Both smelt strongly of milk chocolate but the Irish had more of a familiar nostalgic Dairy Milk scent whereas the UK smelt like the smaller cheap Cadbury Easter eggs if I'm honest. 

The Irish Fruit & Nut was a thick feeling, milky chocolate which left a chocolatey coating inside my mouth - like when I was a kid (ahem, obviously not still now..) and ate far too much Dairy Milk in one go and it's all I could taste for ages afterwards, leaving you wanting more. It had an almost gritty feel to it, which wasn't unpleasant - I'm not a fan of too fatty, greasy, silky smooth chocolate. The nuts were good, quite large and crunchy and the raisins were just as fine - nice and juicy and chewy. 

It was still quite sugary sweet though which wasn't unexpected as raisins are on the sweeter side anyway. Sweeter than I might prefer in my chocolate but nothing too much. 

In the version from the UK the biggest difference comes from the shape. Cadbury have sworn since they made the change from square blocks to rounded, it improves the taste and gives it a better melt. There is no such improvement in the Fruit & Nut. For some reason the nuts are twice the size of the ones in the Irish bar, and because of this, whenever I tried to snap a square off from the block I ended up with one squoval (my beauty therapy teacher insisted this was a real word- a combination of square and oval, the perfect nail shape apparently!) with all the almonds and one with none as Cadbury have so helpfully put the nuts along the indentations! I wanted a Fruit and Nut bar not Fruit or Nut. 

Anyway this bar seemed sweeter, it shouldn't because it actually has less sugar per 100g (54g) than the Irish (55g). I think the Irish has more due to the larger amount of raisins but it was the actual chocolate that tasted sugary - maybe because of the recipe? 

The size of the nuts and dried grapes affected the flavour too, they were larger and the nuts seemed crunchier and the 'dried grapes' chewier and sweeter - like an exaggerated version of the previous bar.

The chocolate felt thinner in the mouth, there was no addictive and thick long lasting aftertaste and it really did start tasting throat burning sugary sweet. I have no explanation for this - I ate them one square at a time Irish then UK, Irish then UK and so on, but it was only on our version my throat was itching! 

The combination of gigantic nuts and thinner, fatty chocolate (and it really does have more fat, including saturated fat, than the Irish) meant this was more like almonds, or raisins - not together the stupid shape saw to that - coated in a generic cheap chocolate. Whereas the Irish, while still not great quality, seemed more like Dairy Milk with nuts and raisins added. If that makes sense! 

The Irish is more like my nostalgic, happy memories of Dairy Milk but it does still seem sweeter than I remember. I'd still happily eat it though! 

7/10 

The UK is a sickly sweet rip off of what used to be, where the point of the bar seems to be "how many ingredients can we cram together and cover in substandard chocolate". Poor show Cadbury/Mondelēz UK! 

5/10 

Waitrose All Butter Mince Pies

I'm afraid this is going to be a pretty short review, I'm going purely by memory here - these didn't last long enough for me to remember I'd planned on reviewing them! 

I'd read a guide online to the best mass made mince pies and while the Waitrose version didn't win (I think Harrods actually managed it this year) they came either 2nd or 3rd and were the highest ranked that I'd be able to buy. 

I'm lucky I managed to take photos before I dug in, they smelt so good! Sweet, fruity mincemeat with the unmistakable festive spices. 

The insides are packed full of the good stuff but to get to it, I had to first get through the thick pastry. I need to buy sheets of this pastry ready made. It's delicious, sweet and so buttery it reminded me of all butter shortbread. It's thick enough that it held firm and I didn't lose any mincemeat when I took a bite but crumbly enough that it seemed to melt away in my mouth. 

The mincemeat is wonderfully thick too, it's just sweet enough with big juicy raisins but the traditional Christmas spices hold their own too. 

Really, really tasty. I just wish they were a bit cheaper, I've got to buy more and I really shouldn't be spending this sort of money on mince pies! 

8/10

Bassetts Santa Babies Berry Mix

I don't think today's review, Bassetts Santa Babies Berry Mix, are new but they're new to me and it's nearly Christmas - I've got to blog about Santa Babies! 

Obviously they're a seasonal product, a Christmas version of the Jelly Babies Berry Mix and I like that they've changed the name to Santa Babies, even though it means I've got the song stuck on a loop in my head now! 

I'll keep the review short and sweet just like yours truly ;-) There's no difference in the flavours, they're your standard blackcurrant, raspberry and strawberry. I've just found out they aren't necessarily called flavours - each has a name but I'm not going to write them all out because it weirded me out eating things with actual names, I'm no vegetarian but I don't want to know if my steak was from Colin the Cow either thank you very much! 

That wasn't the only thing that gave me the heeby-jeebys. Look at them, forget Santa Baby they're creepy stalker Santas!! I didn't mind biting their heads off so much after I'd had a look at them...

I love Jelly Babies anyway but creepiness aside, I especially liked these as there were no green or yellow - they're alright but strawberry is the king of Jelly Babies and blackcurrant his queen. So for that these get a decent 

8/10  

Ritter Sport Goldschatz

This weeks Wednesday world food review is once again Ritter. Ritter Sport Goldschatz to be exact. The name might not scream eat me but that shiny gold wrapper caught my eye, I must have been a Magpie in a previous life. 

I was sold on the wrapper alone, so didn't have a good look at the actual contents until I got home. I was confused, is it a dark chocolate? Is it a milk? Milk chocolate doesn't tend to state the cocoa percentage on the front of the bar but 40% is on the low side for a dark. Turns out it is a milk chocolate with 40% cocoa solids and only 18% milk solids. 

Once again it was a hefty bar (and extremely reasonably priced as a special buy in Lidl) at 250g, British manufacturers could learn something from our European cousins - these are proper sized chocolate bars. I struggled to photo the wrapper because not only is it in a shiny gold foil but it was wet? I hold my hands up and admit I refrigerated the chocolate, I live with people constantly moaning it's cold but this house is a sauna - I can put up with the heat but I refuse to give in to melted chocolate! I assumed something inside my fridge had leaked but weirdly the actual chocolate was wet too! If anyone has any ideas on what that's about please let me know! 

Off the bat this smelt like dark chocolate, not a dark dark chocolate but not quite sweet milky chocolate either. As always it's in the standard Ritter Sport format, thick chunky fat squares. Just how I like a chocolate bar, thick enough for a good bite but perfectly sized to pop a square on your tongue and let melt. 

 

So it smelt like dark chocolate but looked like milk chocolate. It handled more like dark chocolate, melting a lot quicker than a normal milk and after only breaking one or two squares off, my hands were covered in chocolate. 

Once again Ritter have created an extremely tasty bar of chocolate. I'd long given up trying to decide what type this was (I know it's milk officially!) the flavour was bang in the middle of the two. It takes the best parts of both and combines them beautifully; an almost dark, deeper, rich cocoa flavour but still with a creamy taste and feel. In fact Mr.1T dark chocolate hater even really enjoyed this, saying that even though it had a bit of a dark taste it was still really creamy. Something we finally agree on! 

I'm gutted that I only bought one, I can't say I've noticed this sold anywhere else and knowing Lidl it's long gone now! It's not often, in fact it's never happened, that we find a chocolate bar milky, creamy and sweet enough for Mr.1T with enough cocoa flavour to satisfy my dark chocolate cravings. 

Lovely.

8/10 

Cadbury Dairy Milk Winter Edition

This isn't a new bar of chocolate from Cadbury, it's been about for a few years now but it's a seasonal Christmas bar and it's so close to Christmas - my blog isn't anywhere near festive or chocolatey enough lately so why not! 

 The Winter Edition Dairy Milk is Dairy Milk chocolate shaped into Christmas trees with half of the little trees layered with white chocolate.

I have yet another bone to pick with Cadbury, and I bring it up in near enough every post I've written about them. It used to be when you opened a bar of Dairy Milk or a chocolate using Dairy Milk rather than their generic milk, you'd be hit with that wonderful milky instantly recognisable scent. So why now instead of that delicious smell, do I open any Dairy Milk product and my mind jumps to Cadbury Easter Eggs. Specifically the Buttons Easter eggs before the Mondelēz takeover. I was a Buttons Easter egg addict and so I'm confident I could pick it out of a line up and I'm sure this is the same stuff. I like gorging myself once a year on sickly sweet cheap crappy chocolate because I know that's what it is, it's never pretended to be Dairy Milk, so I really don't know why this should smell like it! 

Anyhow, the first few bites tasted like the old school Easter eggs too, although that might have been the power of persuasion convincing me otherwise. After a while I wasn't too dissapointed with the chocolate, it wasn't as bad as I anticipated but it still fell short of my Dairy Milk memories - not milky enough and a little too sweet. The white chocolate layers don't help on the sweetness, to be honest they don't bring much to the table in the way of flavour. They just have a sweeter more sugary taste which doesn't pop out too much against the already sweet milk, I think to really notice the difference the entire square would have to be a white chocolate rather than just a cap. Cadbury would probably cite production costs as the reason it's not, but if Marks & Spencer can do it on a mass scale with 3 different chocolates, I'm sure your empire can manage 2 Cadbury! 

I'll stick with the Marks & Sparks version, I think! 

6/10

Tesco Pork, Turkey & Stuffing Christmas Trees

Mr.1T is cursing my rediscovered loved of stuffing, he used to be able to have his fill but we'll happily fight over the last bits now (and what we call little storm cloud roast potatoes - crispy and almost burnt on the outside but beautifully fluffy on the inside). We found these pork, turkey and stuffing Christmas trees while we were trying to choose a savoury snack that we wouldn't have to cook. 

I thought the fact there were only 7 was going to be a bit of a rip off, but they're big old boys - they come in the same packaging as the mini sausage rolls but they're about three times the size. 

I had to eat my words about them being a rip off at this point - they're nice and deep too. When we saw there were 7 I begrudgingly agreed I'd have 3 and Mr.1T could have 4 but as this was only a snack I began to think 3 might have been too much! The trees can be eaten hot or cold and I decided I'd try one hot, one cold and whichever was nicest is how I'd have the third - for the sake of reviewing, of course! To warm them up, you pop them in the microwave and for an 800w (which mine is), zap them for 1 minute 40 seconds. 

While I was waiting for the first, I decided to snap a quick cross section photo. 

What. The. Hell. I knew it was too good to be true! And I knew I was right - it's all a big deception/smoke and mirrors/a big fat Christmas tree shaped lie - total rip off. 

On to the tasting, my microwave only lets me set the time in intervals of 10 seconds or 30 seconds, no combination of the two and the 10 seconds only go up to 90, so I'd set it for a minute and a half - 10 seconds less than recommended - figuring I could pop it back in if need be. 

I needn't have worried about being 'undercooked', it was about 30 seconds over being just right! The bottom of the pastry casing was rock hard and had an almost burnt flavour, which can't be right - microwaves just suck the moisture out rather than burn burn it. The pastry tasted so bad I couldn't taste anything else and not wanting to ruin anymore, left that one as my one warm Christmas tree. 

0/10 

They smell delicious cold, like a mix between sausage rolls and stuffing and that was what I hoped it would taste like too. They didn't. First off, all I could notice was that whereas in the warm tree the pastry is rock hard, when cold it's almost soggy. Mary Berry would not be happy, soggy bottoms all round! Still I like crispy stuffing and I like soft stuffing so I persevered. To compliment the soggy bottoms, the fillings are nice and wet too.. Seriously it was one extreme to another - burnt and hard to a moist mess. Whatever, it's all about the flavour anyway. 

That too was a disappointment. The vast majority tasted just like the filling of a sausage roll - pork with a bit of who knows what mixed in. Apparently there's as much turkey as there is pork (8%) but neither me or Mr.1T tasted turkey at all. I did get a stuffing flavour every now and then, a bit of sage and onion thrown in the mix, but it was very slight and not very often. 

5/10 

The pork, turkey & stuffing Christmas trees are no more than glorified sausage rolls sadly - they could have been so good! 

Tesco Fruity Bars

I love Nakd. The normal bars, the crunch bars, the nibbles, the fruit & nut bits and the flavour infused raisins. I've even converted Mr.1T, who turns his nose up at anything remotely good for him, into a Nakd Bakewell Tart addict - he tried one at the start of last week and he's gone through 3 multipacks already! Let's be honest though, they're expensive. I will pay more for them as they're superior to other 'cereal' bars - a lot more filling, most are one of your 5 a day and they contain only natural ingredients. It was about time a supermarket made a rip off version though! 

Banana Bliss 

My old faithful Nakd Banana Bread, is thankfully one of the two flavours Tesco have so kindly imitated. I have high standards though so this had a lot to live up to. 

Going into it, from a health food point of view, it's a mixed bag. Ok if you're on a diet they have less calories, but they are smaller, however they have somehow managed to squeeze 4g more protein into 4g less product - so they should be roughly as filling. 

Although they are only 4g lighter they seem a lot smaller. Otherwise they look pretty much the same, with the exception of white specks dotted about in the Tesco bar. 

For a product that didn't have much of a banana smell it sure did taste like banana! The strength of the banana flavour was completely unexpected as it really didn't smell that way, it's not an artificial unpleasant banana and I really enjoyed it. One thing the Tesco Banana Bliss bars have that the Nakd Banana bread doesn't, is the addition of Soy Protein Crispies. They aren't the same as the crunchy bits used in the Nakd Crunch bars and (please forgive me Nakd!) I think I prefer them. 

It's a tad sweeter tasting than the Nakd bars but actually has 5g less sugar, work that one out! 

I'm very impressed and I'll definitely be buying these again. 

8/10 

Berry Blast 

Nakd's berry flavoured bars are strawberry as is the norm, most berry cereal bars are strawberry or cherry but Tesco have switched things up and gone for cranberries. 

Nutritionally they've not got much going for them; they are higher in calories - if you're watching your waistline, have 18.2g of carbs of which 10.5g are sugar - not too great for a low carb/low sugar diet, only have 1.4g of fibre and 1.8g of protein so they're not going to be too filling either. They are low in salt though suprisingly, less than 0.01g per bar which is far from the norm in snacks, trust me we've been on a low salt and sodium hunt! 

Anyway, enough of the boring stuff. 

The only difference visually, was the lack of small white crunchies. I think that explains where the large amount of protein comes from in the banana bar and why there's nowhere near as much here.

Although the little bars have nearly four times more Dates, the raisins were all I could smell. I didn't notice any berry scent beforehand but I could taste the cranberry, it's a nice summery flavour which is quite light and almost refreshing tasting. Although there is actually more sugar in the berry bars, they don't taste as sweet as the banana, not that that's a bad thing, they just had more of a 'healthy, wholesome' taste. 

I like the previous soy pieces but I didn't miss the crunch here. The lack of them meant it had a thicker, chewier feel which wasn't better or worse, just different. 

Another lovely flavour, well done Tesco! These will be another regular buy. 

8/10 

Aldi Specially Selected 4 Christmas Puddings

Christmas Puddings are another traditional dessert I never give a second glance to. We never really did dessert on Christmas Day growing up, with the exception of my sister (who always gets about 30 boxes of Jaffa Cakes for Christmas!) we prefer the savoury and even she can't help going back for more of my dads famous mashed potatoes. By the time our standard Boxing Day buffet is rolled out, give me any of the chocolate options over the quite ugly looking Christmas puddings any day! 

I'm being brave this year though remember, and bought 4 individual servings from Aldi; 2 Whisky and 2 Brandy infused. 

Plump vine fruits, crunchy almonds and cherries are blended with candied citrus peel and mixed spice and steeped in either whisky or brandy to make classic, festive Christmas puddings. 

Whisky Infused 

When it comes to booze, if it's pink or fizzy I'll drink it. I'm quite partial to a vodka too but I've never enjoyed Whisky so the fact this pudding stank of it was concerning to me. The puddings were easy enough to prepare: pierce holes in the film lid and microwave for 40 seconds. Removing them from the plastic packaging was impossible. First of all the little tab on the film ripped off so I ended up just cutting it with a knife around the inside of the rim and then I couldn't remove them from the pot for love nor money. 

It's very thick and sticky and immediately I could taste the whisky I could smell. Whisky isn't the only alcohol in here, it actually contains a fair bit more cider, an equal amount of sherry and just a little less brandy and rum. I didn't know this at the time I ate it and I could only taste the whisky, I'd be interested to see if the others would be noticable once I knew. The  vine fruits used are raisins and sultanas, they are the most abundant ingredient and that was clear in the taste. Juicy and sweet, very pleasant and a nice contrast to the stronger alcohol taste. It didn't have enough of the mixed spices for me, I could taste them but my preference is for strong, clear spices. I'm sure it's enough for some but just lacked a little for me. 

I was looking forward to the glacé cherries (5%) and almonds (2.5%) but what I got was glacé cherries (0%) and almonds (0.1%). The glacé cherry God must hate me, after all in my Christmas fudge I had one and I had none at all in my Christmas pudding! As for almonds I had one teeny, tiny nut at the very bottom and while it was lovely and crunchy against the thick pudding, I could really have done with a few more. 

The pudding wasn't dry at all, infact it was extremely sticky and moist but it needed something 'wet' to go with it - cream, custard, ice cream, brandy butter. Anything. It was just too kind of claggy alone. And I would have poured something on top had it not been for the stupid plastic packaging, instead I was left with a sticky mouth and the lingering aftertaste of whisky. Boo you Aldi, it could have been good! 

6/10 

Brandy Infused 

Well if the Whisky flavoured was virtually impossible to remove, this was literally. I didn't pull the tab off this time but that's only because there wasn't one! So back out came the sharp knife and that again is the reason you're looking at a pointless photo of some dark goo in a plastic pot. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. To heat the puddings you have to pierce the film, I did so and felt as if I'd cracked open an actual bottle of brandy! Jesus, this has a strong alcohol smell, if I'd sniffed much harder, I'm sure I'd have been over the limit. 

I took a mouthful and decided I preferred this one immediately. Almonds - nice, crunchy quite large ones straight from the start. Then I got to the actual pudding. It tasted as strong as it smelt, I know Christmas puddings traditionally contain some sort of alcohol but if I wanted to get drunk I'd have (happily) cracked on with the wine. It wasn't as fruity or sweet as the Whisky - well, it might have been but me and Mr.1T just couldn't get past the Brandy flavour. 

Speaking of which, I knew before trying this one that it contained the same mix of different alcohols yet somehow it still only tasted of Brandy, and quite a harsh one at that. 

It was just as thick feeling but it was moister than the Whisky and not as claggy feeling but it still needed something with it - not a Brandy Sauce though, I'd more than filled my Brandy quota with the pudding alone - but again thanks to the poor packaging I sadly ate my Christmas pudding dry.

And guess what I found at the bottom? One glacé cherry. 

6/10 

Fox's Fingers

Fox's have released fingers! It's either a very stupid or very brave move taking on Cadbury Fingers who literally have no competition. I actually just googled chocolate fingers and gave up before I found another brand selling this style (Kit Kat style wafers and mainly biscuit stick style Mikado and Pocky don't count) of chocolate biscuit fingers. 

Round 1 goes to Cadbury, with the exception of the Salted Caramel and Salted Peanut Crunch flavours, every box of Fingers weighs over 100g. Those two weigh 93g so still less than a 'sharing' bag of chocolates but Fox's are especially stingy at 80g! That's the same as 2 small bags of Giant Buttons or 2 Crunchies and only a third bigger than a Double Decker, so don't let the tray fool you! Although that does make it perfectly acceptable to eat the lot in one go! 

There would be no mistaking the Cadbury and Fox's Fingers, in fact it'd be easier to confuse the Fox's with a squashed Twix. They're a lot thinner and flatter than I'm used to with my chocolate fingers, but they are easily twice as wide. I wasn't suprised to find the tray wasn't full - it's to protect the product apparently - but there was less free space than in the Cadbury Fingers packets. 

Cadbury are a chocolate company, Fox's make 'Biscwits' so it makes sense that the emphasis is on the biscuit here. And a very tasty biscuit it is. Fox's have used an extremely buttery shortcake, with Cadbury Fingers the dominant taste is the milk chocolate but it's just a pleasant accompaniment here. The shortcake has a lovely crunchy texture and a delicious sweet buttery flavour, I'd happily eat these sans chocolate - I can't say I've ever thought the same about Cadbury. 

Although the chocolate isn't that thick and assuming you eat them the right way up, the flat bottom takes up much more space on your tounge giving the impression there's a lot more than there is. It's quite a generic milk chocolate, nothing special, nothing nasty but it is a lot sweeter than the Cadbury chocolate. Whether the chocolate actually is or whether it's a combination of that and the sweet biscuit, I'm unsure but it was teetering on too sweet at times.

These aren't necessarily nicer, they're different. Cadburys themselves aren't great but they are unique and somehow they still are. If I want a chocolate with a bit of biscuit I'll go for Cadbury and if I'm feeling biscuits with a bit of chocolate, it'll be Fox's. 

It makes sense in my head! 

7/10 

Ritter Sport Alpine Milk Chocolate

When I'm reviewing foreign brands, I like to find what would be considered the British version too. If Milka can be called the Europe wide Cadbury, then Ritter Sport would be the German equivalent. That's being generous to Cadbury - Ritter Sport are sold absoloutly everywhere in Germany in lots of different flavours just like Cadbury are here but the quality of the chocolates are worlds apart. It'd be like comparing Spam to steak! 

I've tried a large number of Ritter Sport bars (still nowhere near all of the flavours) but never a plain milk chocolate. This isn't just a milk chocolate though, this is Alpine Milk Chocolate - made with 100% milk from The Alps. 

Of all the brands I've tried Ritter Sport probably have my favourite mould - thick, chunky little squares that are very satisfying to take a big bite out of.

I could smell the chocolate immediately and it smelt absolutely amazing. I'm sure it's not confirmation bias as I asked Mr.1T to give it a sniff too but it smelt so milky, the strength was like when you open a chocolate scented body butter and far stronger than any other chocolate I've eaten recently. 

It was just as impressive in flavour, incredibly milky tasting and wonderfully smooth. I'm not normally keen on smooth chocolate but I loved the thick, velvety feel here. It still had a lovely chocolate flavour as well as the milkiness due to 30% cocoa solids. It's like Ritter have taken all the desirable factors of other popular bars - the milkiness of (original) Dairy Milk and the smoothness of Galaxy and added it to the delicious, proper chocolate flavour found in most Ritter Sport bars. 

The amount of Cocoa Solids meant that this is a rich chocolate that a couple of squares would be enough, but the sweet milky taste means that it's perfectly easy to eat the whole bar too. 

This was bloody lovely! My local One Stop are selling them for £1 at the moment and so I'll be stocking up - I think I've found my new go-to milk chocolate bar. 

9/10 

Elizabeth Shaw Christmas Creations

When you think of Christmas chocolates it's normally Roses, Heroes, Celebrations and Quality Street that come to mind. It's just me and Mr.1T at home, we bought a massive tub of Quality Street last Christmas and I swear to God there are still some left. So this year we decided we'd go for quality over quantity (but we're still poor mind you) and got this small box of Elizabeth Shaw Christmas Creations. 

Inside are 32 chocolates but annoyingly the two square chocolates, there are nine of each. I hate it when companies do this - make them an even number please! The box was reasonably Christmassy and I'm quite surprised they got away with that shade of purple, I'm sure Cadbury trademarked it! 

First up I tried Milk Amaretto Neapolitan - Smooth and silky Amaretto flavour milk chocolate squares. I started with what I assumed would be the plainest and most boring, I was wrong. Silky and smooth just as they said with a slight nutty almond flavour and deliciously creamy. 

Next was Smooth Orange Crème - Rich dark chocolate with a fragrant orange infused fondant centre. I'm never keen on fruit flavoured chocolate so didn't expect much from this one. What Elizabeth Shaw claim is fragrant, I say is ridiculously overpowering. I can't tell you how the chocolate was as all I could taste was the incredibly strong artificial orange fondant. 

Dark caramel Neapoliton - Deliciously creamy caramel flavour dark chocolate squares were next. Too often milk chocolate is used with caramel, of course using a dark could end up too rich but done properly has the potential to be amazing. This fell into the latter. It's not a particularly dark chocolate but the richness of the caramel made it taste it. I didn't get any real creaminess from the squares but I don't think that matters too much with a dark. A very enjoyable contrast between sweet caramel tones and deeper dark chocolate. 

Finally the one I was looking most forward to and the reason I chose this box, Dark Gingerbread Crisp - Delicious gingerbread flavour dark chocolate with crisp honeycomb pieces. The chocolate itself is amazing, it has a lovely authentic, strong gingerbread flavour. The small crunchy honeycomb pieces just improve on an already very tasty square, adding not only texture but a sweetness to the rich, spiced chocolate. My overall favourite. 

What I really liked about this box, was that which combination of the chocolates I ate affected the flavours. For instance the Amaretto Neapoliton tasted creamy and indulgent alone but when I ate one after an Orange Créme, it tasted light and refreshing. 3/4 ain't bad and at half price in Tesco I'm pleased! 

7/10 

Frill - The Frozen Smoothie Intense Chocolate

I spoke a little about the importance of dietary fibre when I reviewed the Fibre One Chocolate Fudge Brownies. When it comes down to it, I'm more than happy to fulfill my fibre needs with an ice cream - well, frozen smoothie. 

Frill can't really be compared to any other frozen dessert. They are frozen smoothies - completely dairy free so suitable for vegans and unusually have no added sugar. The tub has a few facts printed on it, and the nutritional information is quite impressive. A typical ice cream contains just 0.5% fibre, Frill Intense Chocolate has 9.6%. Ice cream typically contains about 21% sugar and Frill has just 9.4% and they are naturally occurring sugars from whole fruits. These are per 100ml and are the same in weight, so the entire 475ml tub will give an average adult woman a whopping 251.75% of the recommended amount of daily fibre! Ok you're getting 47.5% of your RDA for sugar too but they are natural sugars and I'm pretty sure most ice creams contain that in one 100ml serving! 

Enough of the preaching and on to the review! 

It's all well and good being on the healthier side but if it tastes like crap it's pointless. 

Even me, the least patient person in the world when it comes to ice cream, had to wait a bit to dig into this. It does state to allow product to soften before serving and I had no choice, it's super thick and solid and unless I wanted to channel my inner Uri Gellar, I had to wait. While I was waiting I became a bit concerned that I couldn't smell any 'intense chocolate' but I pushed those concerns aside, I've learnt now that sometimes that means nothing. 

I admit, I did force one spoonful out while it was still like concrete and it was weird, very slow to melt and it had an extremely thick feel but was lacking a creaminess. 

So I waited a bit more and thankfully the longer I waited, the better it became. Despite how it looked, and that was strange in itself - every time I took a chunk out the layer underneath got that icy look to it most ice creams have when you first open them on the top - it had held up well, no freezer burn or icy feel at all. Allowing it to melt gave it much more of a creamy texture, make no mistakes it doesn't have a creamy taste but a much more pleasant texture. The softer it got, the more chocolatey it tasted too, it really reminded me of a frozen version of either Cadbury Chocolate Mousse (the kind you find in the kids section in the yoghurt aisle) or a frozen chocolate Angel Delight - the real stuff not the ice cream mix! At times it tasted just like Angel Delight but overall it tasted more like a less sweet version of the Cadbury. I could taste the 'smoothie' part of this to be honest, I couldn't taste the individual ingredients - mainly Dates - but it did have a healthy 'green' side to it amongst the chocolate. 

I thought I'd finished up my review there and I'd rated it as 6/10 for pure enjoyment and 7/10 for a chocolatey treat as part of a healthier product. I was only halfway through though and waste not, want not, I opened it again ten minutes later. Those extra ten minutes at room temperature had done a lot for the flavour and texture, the chocolate (which comes from cocoa powder) seemed stronger and there was a much more rich and creamy feel - in other words, it seemed a lot more like normal ice cream now. 

I'm quite impressed, don't expect a sugary sweet Ben & Jerry's like product but if you go into it and take it for what it is, it's good stuff and perfectly acceptable. I wouldn't say no to it again anyway! 

7/10 

Asda Extra Special Mini Chocolate Panetonne

Panettone is a traditional Italian all butter cake and I'm ashamed to say I've never tried one before! In all honesty this is the first year I've tried lots of Christmas treats, I was so fussy I normally stuck to chocolate, Danish cookies and shortbread. Last year was the year of the stollen but I thought I'd be brave and try some new things this year. 

I should probably preface this review with another admission. I'm not that keen on cake either with the exception of muffins, plain fairy cakes and stollen. This wasn't looking good! 

I chose the Asda Extra Special Mini Chocolate Panettone for one reason and one reason only. I wanted a small, one portion (in case I didn't like it) chocolate chip Panetonne and Sainsbury's had sold out. I hadn't read any of the guides on Panettone so I had no clue whether this was one of the better supermarket ones or not.

The box was beautiful, it felt a real shame to tear it open and the contents looked lovely too although the paper wrapping around the bottom half of the cake did mean I lost a good chunk when I removed it - still silver linings, that must mean the bottom is nice and moist, surely. 

It smelt buttery with a slight hint of chocolate and strangely raisins, there aren't any raisins in here at all so I wonder if my brain has just associated the sweet Christmas fruit cake smell with the buttery sweet scent of the Panettone. 

It was a strange one, the outside of the cake had like a thin, papery feeling layer which was dry and tasteless but the actual inside was much better. It was a lot moister than it looked but still was quite dense and doughy feeling. Somehow despite this doughy type texture it was surprisingly lighter and less stodgy than it should have been - a complete contradiction I know! 

I wasn't keen on the chocolate chips, they were OK - it doesn't say whether they're dark or milk chocolate but they seemed a little too strong and rich for milk. They worked against the airy, sweet, buttery cake but I wouldn't eat them alone. 

Mr.1T raved about this but Stollen still holds my heart! 

6/10