Banana Flavour Mini Animal Biscuits

Today's review is a bit of a strange one, I bought this box of Shires Bakery Banana Flavour Mini Animal Biscuits months ago on a whim, once I'd had a proper look they were shoved in a cupboard and put off until I truly had nothing else sweet to eat. 

It's a big old box packed out with small biscuits, they're bigger than Cadbury Mini Animals but smaller than say nice biscuits or custard creams. 

Ive got an elephant and a rhino, your guess is as good as mine for the rest. I wasn't about to go digging around for different ones and I got a couple of different animals in my first handful. I still don't know what some are supposed to be but at least they look as confusing in real life as they do on the packaging! 

There was a faint whiff of banana when I opened the plastic bag inside the box, but nothing too strong. 

First impressions were weird full stop. I thought the biscuit would be sweet but in reality they're dry with a weird crunch. These aren't a biscuit to eat one at a time (unless you're a baby or small child..) as they're so small so I ended up eating 2 or 3 each time and the first few had the strangest banana flavour ever. 

Initially it's a plain biscuit, not like a digestive - these are basically just tiny Rich Teas both in texture  and taste. I've since compared ingredients and they are virtually the same; both using wheat flour, Rich Teas have vegetable oil and Barley Malt extract, whereas these don't and these also have wholemeal oat flour and powdered whey. Rich Teas are a little sweeter and these slightly drier but they are very similar. Each plain biscuit had a banana aftertaste though that reminded me exactly of the Mr Kipling Banana Milkshake cakes! I liked those little milkshake slices but while it worked in a cake it wasn't quite right in a Rich Tea biscuit. 

I'm such a mindless eater and I ended up eating these like crisps. Big mistake. I did find the more I ate, the less I noticed the banana flavour and they eventually just ended up tasting like I'd eaten three packets of Rich Teas. 

 I had a mouth drier than Ghandi's flip flop, Rich Teas are a dunking biscuit but these are much too small for that. 

I got these in either B and M or Home Bargains, I can't remember and so they were cheap enough for me not to care and cheaper than McVities Rich Teas. If you only want a couple, don't mind a strange banana flavour or have a teething toddler go ahead and try them. They certainly won't be replacing any of the biscuits in my tin but I do like a Rich Tea every now and then so I quite enjoyed them. Once that banana flavour had gone away! 

6/10 

Fruit Heroes - Banana Fruit Bar

As I previously mentioned, it's January so everywhere you turn adverts and promotions are screaming at us that we should add be on a diet and detoxing. As a result, lots of little products like this are on special offer, the Fruit Heroes Fruit Bars range are all half price in Tesco at the moment - 99p. 

I'm pretty sure they're intended for kids lunch boxes, they only weigh 20 grams but one small bar still counts as one of your 5 a day. 

I've also spoke before about how my favourite healthier snacks are Nakd and I was totally brand loyal until I tried the Tesco versions, they were just as nice and cheaper and the Fruit Heroes bars are cheaper still and have roughly the same kind of ingredients so I thought I'd give them a shot. 

The box was a bit deceptive. It's the same size as a multipack of 4 Nakd bars but I should have realised they'd be noticeably smaller with five in this box. I'd expected them to be similar to the Tesco bars - shorter than the Nakd but quite thick. I couldn't have been further from the truth, they are much longer and maybe a quarter as thick, even the biro I included for scale was fatter than these bars! 

I'm not going to lie, I used my eyes before my nose and I wanted to throw it straight in the bin. It looks exactly like the chews I give my dog!! I actually even picked it up intending to throw it away but my nose remembered to work and I got a sniff of extremely strong banana. 

Now I'm a bit of a banana fiend and once I'd caught scent of that, there's no way it was going in the bin. So I (really) shut my eyes and took a bite. 

The texture is slightly off compared to Nakd and Tesco. It's a lot stickier and softer than both and I didn't get much satisfaction from the actual chewing part. 

The flavour is amazing though. It tastes like (and even more so as I couldn't see what I was eating) mushed up banana. The soft consistency adds to this and it's probably the most natural tasting banana flavoured product I've had. 

Nakd have the reputation of being one of the 'cleanest', healthiest snacks around with a small ingredient list but the Fruit Heroes have even less; 79% dates, 18% banana, 2% sunflower oil, water and natural banana flavour. 

Delicious, a better banana flavour than both Nakd and Tesco but just let down slightly by the lack of a good chew! 

8/10

Good 4 U - Super Bites Banana & Cocoa

I was so pleased when I found the Tesco Fruity Bars, their version of the Nakd style bars. I was even happier when I found these Good 4 U super bites - "naturally nutritious & delicious superfood truffles" - little balls extremely similar to the Nakd Nibbles. 

 The company are called Good 4 U, and the name is pretty apt. This small 40g bag is 1 of your 5 a day, rich in fibre and calcium, low in saturated fat, has no added sugar, is a source of magnesium (23% of your RDA to be exact, which contributes to a reduction in tiredness and fatigue) and is 100% vegan and gluten free. Phew!

We found two flavours; Coconut and Banana & Cocoa. I chose the latter, obviously and Mr.1T went for coconut. 

These type of snacks never look very nice do they?

They're bigger than the Nakd Nibbles and there was a decent amount in the smallish bag. The smell was pretty even, some smelling strongly of banana and some with a cocoa scent. 

Taking a bite the texture was similar to Nakd but I'd definitely be able to tell the difference, the Good 4 U are softer and chewier without any of the grittier pieces found in the Nakd. 

The nutritional aspects, and the size were pleasing but they were let down slightly by the flavour. They were quite plain generally with a sort of earthy flavour. The ingredients are 40% dates, milled sunflower seeds, raisins, reduced fat cocoa powder, dietary fibre, chia seeds, red algae seaweed, freeze dried banana, brown rice flour and natural flavouring. So you can imagine - the ingredients are all brown and it just tastes.. brown?

It is reminiscent of the base flavour of Nakd bars, probably due to the dates, but the Good 4 U are missing the fruity, bright, vibrant flavours that round it all off in Nakd. 

I could taste the banana and the cocoa. The cocoa is very mild, its not pretending to be chocolate - its proper cocoa, and it is tasty but not very strong at all. The banana is better,  its an authentic tasting banana but isn't very prominent at all and had a strange slightly bitter or almost gone off after-taste.

So it probably doesn't make much sense at all that I'm going to say these aren't actually that bad!  With the Nakd bags, I like to sit and pick at them but I couldn't enjoy these eaten that way. Shoved in like the greedy pig I really am, the flavours do end up a little more pronounced and the soft, squidgy texture is enjoyable. Honestly though, I wouldn't buy these for the flavour but the nutritional aspects do make it appealing - it's an easy way to get a vitamin and mineral hit. Mr.1T thoroughly enjoyed the coconut balls though and for someone who avoids health food as a rule and someone I've never noticed have a general like for coconut, that's pretty impressive! 

6/10

For a slightly different experience, take a look at Amys blog, Seeks New Treats! 

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 

Walker's Nonsuch Toffee

I was browsing through the chocolate and sweets on Amazon when I stumbled upon a selection pack of Walkers Nonsuch Toffee. I had two reasons for buying them:

1. I wanted that banana toffee and couldn't see it sold on its own 
2. I needed an excuse to use the tiny toffee hammer I got in another packet of Walker's toffee! 
   

 As I'd not tried a few of the varieties in the pack I thought I'd review them all.
I think my postman hates me, or at least he hated this parcel as half of my toffee had taken quite a beating! 

Yummy Banana Toffee 

The one I'd been after! Walker's obviously think highly of their banana toffee to name it Yummy Banana, I had high expectations. It certainly smelt a lot like banana and it was strong enough that I couldn't really smell any sweet toffee scent through it. Texturally it was just how I like my toffee - super chewy,sticky jaw ache toffee. The positives stop there sadly. The flavour was just like cheap, artificial nasty banana sweets. It just wasn't very nice at all, a shame really as I do like Walker's toffee and with a decent banana flavour this could have been amazing. 

6/10 

Nutty Brazil Toffee 

This was another I was really looking forward to - mainly for the texture than the flavour. Thanks to the postman it was completely flat but no matter as I got carried away with my hammer anyway and so it ended up in hundreds of pieces. 

It smelt like normal Walker's toffee and had the usual lovely creamy toffee flavour. Thanks to my hammering some pieces didn't have any Brazil nuts but the parts that had had the nuts in them previously still retained some of the nutty flavour. Again it was very sticky and chewy but the large crunchy nuts provided a brilliant contrast. 

Very nice.

8/10 

Tasty Treacle Toffee

Next in line was Tasty Treacle, made with 13% Black Treacle rather than a golden I wasn't sure what to expect. Unlike the Brazil Nut where the toffee was the main scent all I could smell unwrapping this little slab was treacle. Obviously I had to use my tiny hammer again and as Walker's put it "whacked, unwrapped and enjoyed". I need to find the perfect balance in my whacking skills though as this one ended up in only a few large pieces! 

It tasted much as it smelt, very much treacle! It was dark tasting, not quite bitter but not really sweet and almost a burnt like flavour. It was a little strange against the extreme creaminess of the toffee in the smallest pieces but they blended well together for the majority of the slab. 

To begin with I wasn't keen but it really grew on me, it has a lovely deep flavour mixed with the beautiful creamy toffee base that Walkers do really well. A less sweet twist on an already good product! 

7/10 

Lovely Liquorice Toffee

This was another I was very much looking forward to trying. How can liquorice and toffee go together? I tried so hard with my whacking but I'm just crap apparently.

Anyway it seemed even stickier than the toffees before and this was the only one inside a plastic case in the wrapper, I don't know why but maybe it's because of the extreme stickiness. My first few bites had a predominantly black liquorice, aniseed flavour. Although it was all I could taste it wasn't an overwhelming, too strong liquorice. Strangely it tasted quite creamy too, I couldn't taste the toffee at first but the underlying creaminess smoothed out the harsh liquorice taste. 

Moving onto the other blocks, the flavours were a bit incosistent. Some mouthfuls only tasted of toffe, some actually tasted like the treacle toffee I tried before (unsurprisingly as for some reason this is made from 5% black treacle, 0.7% liquorice extract and oil of aniseed) and others were just the creamier liquorice. Every block, no matter the main flavour had a liquorice aftertaste though. 

I liked this toffee it was very tasty especially in the largest chunks where there was a more consistent blend of the ingredients, but I'd stay away if you don't like black liquorice - there's no avoiding it here. 

7/10 

Dreamy Creamy Toffee 

Last but not least was Dreamy Creamy Toffee. The toffee had a slightly milkier scent to it than all the slabs before - probably because sweetened condensed whole milk is used rather than cream - I suppose Dreamy Milky Toffee doesn't have the same ring to it! 

Despite smelling milky and no cream just milk being used it did actually have a creamy flavour. Coming after all the crazy toffees, it seemed a little plain - I should have eaten this one first. Still it was very tasty; sweet, creamy, very chewy and a good all rounder. 

8/10 

Forest Feast Belgian Dark Chocolate Banana

I found myself in Holland & Barrett this week. I was on a hunt for chocolate nuts and raisins, they have a brilliant selection (I got some Carob coated raisins too, hopefully they'll be nice!) but I couldn't leave without a bag of two of my favourite things combined - dark chocolate and banana. 

The chocolate is Belgian and contains a minimum of 56% cocoa and these chocolate bananas are free from artificial additives so you don't have to feel guilty at all eating these - they're good for you ;-)

I assumed they would be chocolate covered banana chips, not that it says chips anywhere on the bag, so they didn't look at all how I expected... 

I'm not even going to type what they looked like as people might be eating while reading this and I wouldn't want to put you off..

Anyway you shouldn't judge a book by its cover and all that jazz, they smelt amazing with a very strong banana scent. That was surprising in itself as as you can see, there's a hard quite thick cocoa/chocolate coating which would normally drown out any banana but I could barely smell the chocolate. 

Put bluntly, these are the ugliest things I've ever eaten but probably the best chocolate covered fruit I've ever eaten too. They have a weird texture - not quite crunchy, not quite chewy but it was very pleasant, the texture took a backseat to the taste though. 

The fact each nugget (ha) is actually a long chunk of banana rather than a chip means the banana flavour is actually the stronger and it's beautifully sweet and natural tasting. The chocolate is very rich, it doesn't taste too dark or have an extremely strong flavour but is dark enough to balance out the sweetness from the banana. While the banana is the dominant flavour the chocolate really developed the more I ate and after finishing it was the chocolate I could still taste in my mouth for a while! 

These Belgian Chocolate Bananas were absoloutly delicious, sweet and rich with a real banana flavour and a decent chocolate covering. I couldn't ask for more! 

8/10 

Mr Kipling milkshake cakes

I'm not a great lover of cake I have to be honest, we always have cakes in the house for my fiancée but they're usually from the bakery with lots of fresh cream - not for me. I noticed these new flavoured and smaller sized packs of milkshake cakes from Mr Kipling and if there's one thing I do like its a milkshake. 

All three have vanilla flavoured filling (14%) between the flavour of milkshake sponge topped with the chosen flavoured fondant icing (24%)

I decided to try the chocolate first, although I don't even want to think about how much chocolate I eat normally I can't remember a time where I've ever picked it as a milkshake flavour. Still it's a chocolate cake so should be easy enough. 

I don't really have much to say about the chocolate and vanilla milkshake cake. Some positives were the cake was soft, moist and pretty tasty. The negatives were where was the chocolate? This is the only one of the three to have two different flavour sponges - vanilla and chocolate and from the packets the only one not to have a flavoured fondant, just a decorated one. That came across in flavour, I could taste the vanilla filling but really the sugary fondant drowned out any chocolate I might have tasted in the cake. I tried this one first, and my other half last and he agreed it didn't really taste like a milkshake so I didn't just have a dodgy one either. 

Rating 6/10 

I went for banana milkshake for the next one I tried, he'd already had one and despite hating banana was raving about it so no pressure after chocolate! As soon as I opened the little individually wrapped square the smell of banana struck me. It was very strong especially compared to the chocolate. This has a banana flavoured sponge and fondant and mixed with the vanilla Mr Kipling has got the taste of banana milkshake bang on. There's nothing more to say really, I had no faults with this little cake, it's a delicious treat and I'll be fighting with the so called banana hater over the last one! 

Rating 9/10  

Last but not least I tried strawberry milkshake, my first choice when it comes to actual  milkshakes - the cake and fondant are strawberry flavoured like with the banana. As with the previous two the cakes are nice and moist, despite having been in my cupboard for a couple of weeks and nearing the end of their shelf life, with a thick firm fondant. The scent was again very strong when I opened it up but interestingly my immediate thoughts with this was that it smelt like strawberry milkshake - the banana smelt of a slightly artificial banana but this didn't smell like a punnet of strawberries or even strawberry sweets - more like a thick creamy milkshake from Wimpy (my guilty pleasure! You can keep the Bender in a Bun though, thanks). The flavour was again spot on - I'm not sure which was stronger, probably the strawberry but together. With the vanilla they combined to make a perfect milkshake taste in cake form. If I wasn't so impressed by the banana milkshake this would be a 9 too. 

Rating 8/10 

Cadbury special edition Mini Rolls

Cadbury release different editions of the Mini Rolls all the time, normally seasonal variations and they've recently introduced three new flavours - cola, banana and orange. I'm not a fan of chocolate and orange so I left that one (not that cola sounded any better!)

I won't bother writing about the actual Mini Rolls as they've been about forever and I think most people will have tried one. 

I thought the cola edition was going to be disgusting, I wouldn't have bought it myself but my partner fancied trying them. 

I could only smell chocolate when I opened the mini roll and even cutting into it there was no 'cola' scent. The filling is slightly pink and as normal there's quite a bit of it throughout. I find these so weird, the packet says they're really bubbly and I don't know if they meant that literally or it's just a tag line (the banana is best of the bunch apparently) but I didn't notice any bubbles. 

I wasn't sure how cola flavour would translate into a cream filling but it does and it's actually not too bad! It tastes like cola bottles and while it's not too strong and maybe more of an aftertaste it's definitely there. 

I'm so undecided on these, my brain says I shouldn't like them but I kind of did.. 

The banana I expected to love as I do with everything else banana flavoured. I've put two pictures up as no matter what I did, natural light/flash/no flash/away from the window, the filling looks neon yellow! It was nothing like this in reality and much more cream coloured with a hint of yellow. 

I could smell the banana as soon as I opened the little individual packet and it smelt good, sadly the flavour didn't match up - it was not nice at all. 

I don't normally mind strong artificial banana but there's something about this here that I just didn't enjoy. I still can't put my finger exactly on what I didn't like, but it didn't work for me.

That said while it was disgusting at the time, I've sat here fancying another one!! I don't even like them so who knows what they've put in there.....

Rating: No rating they've confused me!!!! 

Alpen light Banoffee bar

I normally stay away from cereal bars, especially the light ones, as I don't find them to be a very filling breakfast - but I saw these, saw the new label, saw the banoffee and had to buy them. 

As is standard its a mixed cereal bar and this one comes with toffee, sweetened banana and a plain chocolate drizzle. 

I'm not sure how obvious it is the photos above, but it's pictured on an ordinary side plate. In the wrapper it touches the sort of border but once I'd taken it out it wasn't anywhere near so be warned its a little bar it only weighs 19g! 

The bar is very sticky, I'm not too clued up on these so I'm not sure if that's usual or the toffee but it managed to stay quite moist and chewy even though most cereal is quite dry. 

The smell of banana is very powerful and it's the overwhelming taste I found thoughout. The toffee (which on reading the back are 7%, banana chips are only 6%) does come through in flavour but I didn't notice any the texture of any actual toffee pieces while I was eating it - it all felt the same. As for the chocolate it might aswell have not been there! I can't say whether it's nice or not as all I could taste was banana and toffee. 

This isn't bad, I liked the taste but then I am a banana fiend. I definitly wouldn't be buying these and eating them for breakfast though, in no way are they substantial enough for that. I had it with my sandwiches for lunch instead of a chocolate bar and time will tell if it leaves me feeling a bit fuller! 

Rating 6/10 

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 

Cadbury Mighty Perky Nana

After a pretty full week of blogging two weeks ago I've been slacking but in my defence I've been planning a quite last minute secret wedding, eeeek it feels weird putting that in writing! 

Anyhow I had an Ocado delivery on Saturday and forgot I'd put some new goodies in there including new Dark Rolos but more on them tomorrow.

I'm trying to find things to write as this will be a very short blog post otherwise, this is a New Zealand Cadbury bar - MIGHTY Perky Nana. 

It's not a new bar but I was flicking through the world foods noticed banana and chocolate and couldn't resist. It's a banana flavoured chew bar apparently, weighing 45g and feels fairly heavy and chunky.

I could smell banana when I opened it, although my bar had split in half but it was quite an artificial banana smell. 

It tastes as plastic as it looks!! There are no good words to describe this bar except maybe chewy, if that can be seen as a postive. This was like chewing foam that just wouldn't go away. I could smell banana but I would call the flavour foam if you can imagine that and it was really difficult to swallow. If this was a limited edition or a special run New Zealand could be forgiven but this is a run of the mill bar!! Probably the worst 'chocolate bar'/chew/sweet/thing I've had in ages. Gross.

Rating 2/10 

The chocolate gives it a bonus two points. 

Ben & Jerry's Satisfy My Bowl

I was so excited to try this pint!! Every now and then Ben & Jerry's bring out a limited edition pint and this is to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Bob Marley's Legend album and is in partnership with the 1Love Foundation, every pint help funds a youth empowerment programme in Jamaica - surely that cancels out the guilt of eating a whole pint in one sitting?

I decided a while back to try every flavour of Ben & Jerrys, I only have the two new christmas flavours, Peanut Butter Me Up and a couple of scoop shop flavours to try but sadly I discovered my love for Ben & Jerrys a little late and managed to miss all their previous banana flavours.Happily for me this is banana ice cream with caramel and cookie swirls and chocolatey peace signs.

Once I opened the pint up I could immediately smell the banana , so far so good! I think it's quite easy to ruin banana flavoured ice cream but as usual this is a delicious base ice cream, I'm ridiculously impatient with ice cream so normally have to deal with the first layer being slightly more frozen but this was really creamy from the get go, if I were a normal person I would have been able to scoop this from the tub straight away.

It's not as chunk filled as other pints but there are a decent amount of chocolate peace signs dotted about, they're a good tasting chocolate which if you've had Ben & Jerrys before you'll know from Phish food etc and they go really well with the banana ice cream.

 The caramel swirl was noticeable from the first scoop and again goes so well with the banana and chocolate, its only a subtle caramel flavour but you can really taste it when you get some mixed in. I didn't seem to have that much cookie swirl in my pint, but to be honest I didn't really miss it. Cookie and cookie dough are flavours Ben & Jerry excel at, the flavouring of this swirl is just as good as any other they've had but where I really noticed the cookie swirl was in the texture. Every now and then I got a gristley (I know that's not even a word but it is the only word my brain can put to it!) cookie flavoured bite, like a miniature version of a really tiny piece of cookie dough.

I really really enjoyed this bar, I'm gutted it's a limited edition and I'll have to stock up before it goes off to the flavour graveyard!

Rating 9/10

Nakd Banana Crunch

I love nakd bars, they seem a lot more filling to me than other bars of the same size and weight (obviously not some of the mega protein bars!) and they actually have flavour rather than tasting of cardboard.

The banana bread bar is normally my bar of choice and I've had my eyes peeled for these new crunch versions and I finally picked them up at Tesco. One stand out feature of these bars are they are gluten free, vegan and have no added sugar or syrups.

These are 43% dates, 18% soya crunchies, 15% cashews, 15% raisins, suprisingly only 6% banana considering the rich banana smell you get immediately, 2% apple juice concentrate and a hunt if natural colouring. It's always nice to have a small ingredient list like that!

The nakd bars never look the most appetising of foods, but you can really see these bars are filled to the brim with fruit pieces, you aren't getting any filler with these it's just the good stuff! 

I think I've found a new favourite in this bar (although we'll see once I've tried the strawberry crunch version), it still has the lovely flavour of the banana bread bar but the 'crunchies' give it something else I didn't even realise it was missing. Unless I'm missing something these are a really delicious, actually healthy snack/breakfast/whatever bar and will definitely be replaced once this box is gone.

Rating 8/10