Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie 'Wich

I bet you thought that was it for new ice cream from Ben & Jerry's? I know I did, but stuffed behind the Magnums in Tesco I found a whole shelf full of individual Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream sandwiches! I did notice a chocolate 'Wich on the press release Ben & Jerry's sent out but I hadn't seen or heard anything other than that darker looking 'Wich in the background of a photo. It makes sense though, in the UK especially, I know if you asked most of my friends and family to name 2 Ben & Jerry's flavours, they'd say Cookie Dough and Chocolate Fudge Brownie - they're the classics. 

The wrapper is a bit busted, the Chocolate Fudge Brownie 'Wich is sold individually rather than in the boxes of 3 or 8 like the Cookie Dough, this is probably so it's put in the smaller ice cream cases but my local Tesco saw fit to dump as many as they could in the big freezers, hence why it isn't as pretty looking as its Cookie Dough bro. 

Chocolate Ice Cream with Brownies Sandwiched Between Chewy Double Chocolate Chip Cookies 

Its the same size as the larger Cookie Dough 'Wich and just as sturdy, if a little melted with a chocolate brownie scent rather than outright chocolate. 

I stored it in the same freezer at home as the Cookie Dough 'Wich but the Chocolate Fudge Brownie was a lot softer to begin with and had a much faster melt, this could be due to the ice cream itself but it's much more likely my Tesco were up to their old tricks of leaving the frozen products sitting in the aisles for a few hours before actually shelving them. 

Taking a bite the consistency was again the first thing I noticed, due to the fact it had already half melted it was a lot softer to eat - the Cookie Dough was soft too but still had a firmness to it whereas this felt a lot more like melted ice cream. Still I think I'm blaming Tesco for that. 

Despite my first mouthful including the cookie and the ice cream the first thing I both felt and tasted were the large brownie chunks inside the ice cream. Full of flavour with a soft, chewy texture just like in the tubs and despite Tesco's best efforts no freezer burn whatsoever. But we all know Ben & Jerry's have good quality control! 

The ice cream is very much the same story, typical Ben & Jerry's chocolate ice cream. Thick and creamy with a lovely chocolate taste although it isn't quite as strong as in the pints. Interestingly according to Ben & Jerry's website it does have a different recipe to the tubs but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it is it's chocolate on chocolate on chocolate so an ice cream with the same strength of flavour as the tubs might well end up overdoing it. 

The cookies were very different, for starters as you can see they're chocolate based. Initially I was a little disappointed (I never thought I'd say that in a B&J review!) as based on the colour I expected a strong cocoa flavour like a bourbon biscuit (or an Oreo if you must). Once I thought about it though, they aren't biscuits like a Bourbon or Oreo - they're a double chocolate chip cookie - the flavour was fine. Hopefully you understand what I mean when I say they're chocolate flavoured not cocoa, as strange as that sounds. It's a very nice chocolate flavour with chocolate chips scattered about, not too many but enough to provide smaller and stronger bursts of chocolate flavour - as if you didn't already have enough! 

As I mentioned previously in this review and in the Cookie Dough, despite efforts otherwise, they had no sogginess or freezer burn but they are completely different in texture, softer than in the Cookie Dough 'Wich and most shop bought Cookies. If this was because of the way Tesco had stored them, then I can't thank Tesco enough and recommend you leave yours out for a while before freezing - they ended up with a consistency a lot more like a brownie than a cookie and as it fits in with the theme of the 'Wich, it was much more appropriate than a harder cookie. 

Rating:

Another very tasty 'Wich from Ben & Jerrys, of the two I think the Cookie Dough has the edge just slightly as there is a greater contrast between ice cream, cookie dough chunks and actual cookies where in the Chocolate Fudge Brownie it's a little more blurred. That's by no means a criticism on the Chocolate Fudge - a big chocolatey, chewy gooey mess but that's just how I like it! 

8/10    

Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough 'Wich

Halle-freaking-lujah! After a loooong search I finally found the Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough 'Wich. I mentioned a while ago that the my blog evolved from an idea to try every single flavour and product from Ben & Jerry's. I first saw a Ben & Jerry's ice cream sandwich about 4 years ago in a shop on one of my jobs, I don't have the type of job where I can stop for an ice cream so I decided to go back on the way home from work. It was gone. And I've never seen it again until now! 

I wrote in my Ambrosia Frozen Custard review "more fool you if you pay full price for Ben & Jerry's".. Well I'm a mug because I paid a (disgusting) £4 for THREE small-ish ice cream sandwiches. Ouch, I kind of hoped they would be awful so I wouldn't be tempted to buy any more! 

Vanilla Ice Cream with Cookie Dough sandwiched between two Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies 

I say small-ish but that's greed, they're fairly sized, maybe not £4 fairly sized but pretty filling and big enough for a cookie and ice cream hit. 

I was fairly surprised at the amount of ice cream as it's a decent blob sitting in between the cookies. My cookies weren't swirled as is on the front of the box but half and half and pleasingly the two were on opposite sides so I got an even mouthful of each. It smelt a lot like Cookie Dough Ice Cream and that's nothing to scoff at - it might be an oldie but its definitely a goodie! B&J know better than to mess with the classics. 

As you may be aware, I don't rate Oreos so I've never had the Oreo Ice Cream Sandwich and I can't remember eating any before so I wasn't sure what to expect with the cookies themselves. Happily they were pretty much perfect. Not only were they absolutely delicious but they had a normal cookie texture - no frozen feel and no defrosted sogginess. The only acceptable time for a soggy biscuit is after dunking! 

The ice cream is as good as ever, B&J's usual quality with a wonderful vanilla flavour and large chewy cookie dough chunks - the same, I'm guessing, that are used in the Cookie Dough Ice Cream. 

One slight difference on the tubs is the consistency of the ice cream. I don't think I'd be able to physically chew the normal stuff straight out of the freezer but it was soft enough to in the 'Wich, it was just right actually, firm enough to stay nice and sturdy in the cookies right down to the last bite and no melting mess everywhere. I shouldn't be surprised really, Ben & Jerry's normally think everything through! 

Rating:

Very, very nice. Sadly as there isn't too much ice cream Mr.1T and his lactose intolerance managed it just fine and he's fighting me over the last one! I really hope they go on offer somewhere in the very near future. 

9/10

Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough S'Wich Up

I know I claim to have a lot of favourite foods, but when it comes down to it I have two great loves: Ice Cream and Pizza. In fact the whole reason this blog even exists is because of a very successful mission to eat my way through every flavour of Ben & Jerry's. 

I'm not exaggerating when I say we eat pizza three times a week and we always get Pizza Hut on a Sunday. I'm loyal to Pizza Hut, there is an authentic Italian pizza place near me but they don't deliver and due to a large Italian community it's impossible to inside the place to get a take-away or a table. The last time we went we counted 30 people queueing outside just to get in the door! Domino's we usually avoid like the plague, its too expensive and the pizzas are too small so I usually throw the untold amounts of leaflets we get straight in the bin. This week a strange photo of a tub of Ben & Jerry's caught my eye!

Cookie Dough S'Wich Up

Vanilla Ice Cream with a Chocolatey Cookie Swirl, Chocolatey Cookie Sandwiches & Cookie Dough Chunks. 

Cookie Dough S'Wich Up is a Domino's exclusive, limited edition flavour. It's only being sold until February so if you're after one you'd better make it quick, however the ingredients are in a few different European languages and it doesn't say anywhere exclusively made for Domino's. I'm waiting for a reply from Ben & Jerry's but hopefully its having a limited run in Domino's then being rolled out across the country. 

Look:

It looks a lot like Clever Cookies due to darker biscuits being used, the usual cookie dough chunks are still included in abundance and the light brown, creamy dough pops out against the grey mix of black biscuit and vanilla ice cream. 

Smell: 

It smells like Bourbon biscuits. And that's me sold. Bourbons smash Oreos, I don't care. An Oreo is fine when I'm in the mood, but for a chocolate cream biscuit it's all about the Bourbon. Why are we all so hung up on Oreos anyway, they're just a branded Romany/Gypsy Cream with a less racist name..

Taste:

There are 4 individual parts to this flavour, the first is one of the least used, most under-appreciated and actually faintest tasting in this particular pint - vanilla ice cream. There isn't too much I can say that I've not said in every other B&J review, its thick and creamy with a delicious flavour that would still be as delicious without any additional extras in the pint. I'm mainly going by previous experience though as it was totally overwhelmed by everything else. Vanilla was the perfect choice for Cookie Dough S'wich Up as a stronger flavoured base would be pointless. 

In the standard Cookie Dough flavour its all about the chunks of actual cookie dough, in S'wich Up they're lagging at the bottom of the ingredients list - this pint only includes 3%. They are exactly the same as the original; a delicious cookie flavour with a wonderful gritty and perfect doughy texture. 

A chocolatey cookie swirl takes up another 5% and this is where the Bourbon Biscuit scent came from. It's nothing like the core in the What-A-Lotta-Chocolate Cookie Core, that was more of a chocolate core with bits of cookie included whereas this is pure chocolate biscuit ground up and swirled throughout the ice cream. It's gritty and crunchy and tastes like actual chocolate biscuit not chocolate with little bits of biscuit included. 

Last but definitely not least, are the chocolatey sandwich cookies. I know Ben & Jerry's have a very well earned reputation for not scrimping on the ingredients but this is ridiculous, I had four or five full sized Oreo style biscuits! I don't think they're actual Oreo as I'm sure it'd be printed all over the tubs and stamped on the biscuit itself but the taste was pretty much the same. I don't know how they manage it but the consistency stayed spot on, I'd expect a biscuit from a packet to go soggy if I left it to sit in some rapidly melting ice cream but it retained a perfectly crunchy bite and I could even distinguish between the firm biscuits, soft ice cream and creamy 'sandwich cookie' filling. 

This is a biscuit lovers dream. The mixture of 3 different types of biscuit or cookie seems like it should be too much but I couldn't get enough, all three have delicious individual flavours and contrasting textures. I'd buy ice cream flavoured with any of the three alone but one with all Bourbon biscuits, cookie dough and Oreos together? I'm in heaven!! 

This was the last one in my local Domino's so I'm off to find another store!

9/10 

Bisca Danish Cookies

It's December! Which means it's nearly Christmas and that means my favourite biscuit of all time is readily available everywhere. Danish Cookies remind me of two things; Christmas and my Irish Nan. I was one of the lucky ones - my nan actually had biscuits in her tin, no sewing crap in here.

I thought I'd use my world food review as an excuse to try a different brand from my usual and I got this quite large box from Bisca (they're by Royal Appointment to The Royal Danish Court dontcha know!) in one of the cheaper shops. 

I'm used to them coming in a hard tin rather than a flimsy cardboard box so into an air tight jar they went, they were never going to last long when I could see them! 

I didn't even bother trying to be sensible with my portions. I took at least 2 of each, 3 of my favourites. 

I'm sure that, with the exception of the cookie in the immediate top centre, they are all the same flavour but some just have a sugar coating. It must be my brain playing tricks but I'm sure the shape affects the taste, the pretzel shaped obviously tastes the best, then the small square, the swirled next and lastly the small roundish one. 

I don't think I've ever eaten a bad Danish Cookie, they're just butter, vanilla and sugar after all so a bit hard to mess up and these were just as tasty as I expected. Crispy and crunchy but still feeling somehow soft with a delicious buttery, delicate vanilla flavour. Of course the sugar coated are sweeter than the others but the hard crunchy sugar granules are very pleasing to bite. 

The cookie in the top centre is the black sheep of the box. A lot of the time this cookie is actually coconut flavoured but in Bisca I could only taste the same buttery vanilla. It did have large chewy raisins/currants for a little twist and the flavour and texture were spot on. 

Bisca Danish Cookies were never going to get a bad review from me but I can't help but compare them to the undisputed King of Danish Cookies, Royal Dansk. 

While Royal Dansk are a solid 9/10 (10/10 on a particularly festive day!) these will have to be 

8/10 

Klik Party Mix

Today's world food Wednesday review is a strange one. It's a Kosher product made by Unilever Isreal in Isreal but distributed by an American company from Brooklyn, New York. All the packaging and labels are in English with no other languages at all so make of that what you will. 

Klik are a brand I've noticed before in Asda, I'd seen a couple of bags mainly a Malteaser like chocolate and I think a fudge too. This is party mix 'a mix of Klik vanilla & fudge, cookie and Kariot ("pillows"). 

I was a bit confused by the description as to wether one was vanilla and fudge or if there were seperate vanilla balls and fudge balls. There were four different types in my bag. 

I started with the small round milk chocolate balls. Although the description says vanilla and fudge, cookies and Kariot the ingredients have only two different types listed: Kariot and biscuit snacks. I'm not sure if these were supposed to have a fudge flavour but there wasn't any. The milk chocolate was Ok - not bad, nothing great but I didn't really enjoy the biscuit centre. The texture was crunchy but it had more of a stale crunch feel rather than a crispy biscuit. 

The little white balls were noticeably sweeter than the milk chocolate ones. I'm guessing these were supposed to be the vanilla but again I didn't really notice any. The chocolate coating was quite thin so as before the stale feeling biscuit was the main thing I noticed with these. 

With both the milk and the white  balls the centres seemed a lot more like cereal or wafer than biscuit, I can see cereal listed but they seem to be for the other one. I think this may be a case of lost in translation! Both eaten together are an improvement on individually, there is more of a chocolate flavour which is very sweet but still quite milky and ended up being very enjoyable. 

The larger rounder chocolates had the biscuit centre I was waiting for, so I'm guessing these are cookie. It's quite soft more like a shortbread and I think it must be as it has a lovely buttery flavour too. I think I tasted a hint of vanilla but it wasn't strong enough to notice too much. 

The biggest square ones were definitely the Kariot or nougat filled pillows. They had the same stale wafer/cereal texture (but cereal is listed as an ingredient for these) but instead of making up the whole centre there was a quite thick layer just underneath the chocolate surrounding the nougat. The nougat tastes mainly of chocolate but does have a slight nutty aftertaste. 

Overall (despite how it sounds) I quite liked these. For a bag that only weighed 75g, it had loads in it -  easily over 50 pieces. Eaten individually none are that great but they do make a decent mix all together. The two larger chocolates are the tastiest by far with the shortbread slightly beating the nougat but I would like to see a more varied mix of flavours in a 'Party Mix' 

Still they were tasty enough! 

7/10 

Maryland Mix'ems - toffee popcorn, caramel & candy shells

Today's review is of the awfully familiar looking Maryland Mix'ems, there are two different versions one being a double chocolate chip cookie with raspberry jellies and candy shells and the packet I've got which are chocolate chip cookies with toffee popcorn pieces, caramel and candy shells. 

These have been about for a while, and to be blunt I avoided them as they seemed a bit of a Chips Ahoy copy but we ran out of biscuits and these were on special offer in Morrisons (£1 at the moment) and so I found myself trying one Friday night. 

They're fairly large cookies with nine in a pack and even though they're chock full of other flavours the distinctive Maryland cookie scent is all I could smell opening them up. 

The biscuit itself feels quite hard to touch but it gives an easy chew and is actually quite soft. It's sweet and buttery as normal Maryland cookies are - not an 'artisan', pretentious cookie but a nice enough, tasty choice for your biscuit tin! 

The first flavour that I noticed was the caramel, it's not a flavoured biscuit base there are actual pieces of caramel dotted about. The cookies aren't uniform in additions at all, some have far more popcorn others candy etc, and this particular cookie didn't seem to have many caramel pieces but the ones it did have had a strong flavour that managed to be dominant without drowning out the others. 

The chocolate chips are massive, and tasted to me the same as the ones used in the original cookie - just larger and as always chocolate and caramel are a delicious combination. The crunchy candy pieces are sugar coated chocolate shells - so basically smarties and don't add too much flavour wise alongside the big chocolate chips but do give a lovely crunch when combined with the soft(ish) cookie, chewy caramel and popcorn pieces. 

I can't say I noticed the popcorn pieces being toffee flavoured too much, caramel and toffe are quite similar, so while they do go together well and taste good, maybe they could have used a completely different popcorn flavour if they really wanted to go the crazy/strange mix route. The pieces of popcorn were very chewy and quite strange added in, it wasn't necessarily bad just different. I was picking pieces out of my teeth for a while after though! 

I think I judged these too harshly based on the comparisons to Chips Ahoy, alone they are a perfectly nice, tasty, fairly priced cookie. So for the rating I'll pretend the two Chips Ahoy I reviewed a while ago don't exist and rate it 

7/10 

But I would like to see completely different ingredients than the ones Chips Ahoy are using too. 

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 

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 

Ben & Jerry's Speculoos? Specu-Love. Cookie Core

With our wedding in the near future, and payment deadlines in the very near future, my weekends have become totally rock and roll and I certainly perked up when my fiancé appeared with all 3 new Ben and Jerry's flavours he found in Sainsburys today. 

The new flavours are Core varieties but with a slight difference, instead of the chocolate/caramel core they have a cookie core. 

The first one I had to try was Speculoos? Specu-Love? Which is a caramel ice cream with caramelised cookies and a crumbled caramelised core. If you're wondering what Speculoos is, you'd probably recognise it as the biscuit used in the Lotus spread - Ben and Jerry's say on the tub "a caramelised biscuit that's often served with coffee, a little bit gingery & cinnamon spicy with a sweet caramel edge". 

 Surprisingly the caramel ice cream flavour is quite muted, ordinarily the ice cream is very flavourful in it's own right but here it's a 'quieter' caramel. Still a good caramel base though and the texture is as all Ben & Jerry's are thick and creamy.

The top layer didn't give much away but a couple of scoops soon showed the core and cookie pieces. The cookies are good, very different to the usual cookie dough in regular flavours, they manage to stay crunchy as well as chewy whereas I find the others have a chewier texture. The added crunch is a welcome addition in terms of texture in the pint.

The standout feature for me is the core, both the cookies and core have the same flavours. The ginger and cinnamon are there with some mouthfuls having a subtle taste and others much more pronounced - they are slightly unevenly distributed throughout but that's not necessarily a bad thing as it allows the sugary caramel flavours to stand out. 

The best part of the new cookie core for me though is the texture, it's gritty. I'm not sure in my mind how smooth and gritty can even make sense but it does in my memory! It's thick, delicious and I'd like to try some of the other flavours with this core added I imagine Half Baked would be delicious! It is similar to Lotus spread, obviously there are differences as this isn't the named brand in collaboration. 

This is another good ice cream from Ben & Jerry's and I can't wait to try the other two new ones, also happily I can't see a limited edition label on this so hopefully it's here to stay! 

Rating 8/10 

Maryland Soft Baked Cookies

It seems Maryland Cookies are upping their game since Chips Ahoy entered the UK market! First (and before Chips Ahoy were released I believe) came Gooeys and now we have Soft Baked. Both packets promise "Because we're baked so soft and scrummy, we may stick together but we're just as yummy!" Each pack contains 8 biscuits and I did have a couple that were stuck together but they were pulled apart easily enough. 

Double Choc Chunk Cookies and Caramel & Choc Chunk Cookies 

I'll start the review with exactly as the packet describes them the first being soft baked cookies containing chocolate chunks, looking at the ingredients the chunks make up 10% of the cookie. The other is Soft baked cookies containing chocolate chunks and caramel pieces, these cookies have 9% chocolate chunks and 5% caramel pieces. 

These are pretty big cookies (please ignore the white dots on the double chocolate cookie, they're crumbs from my shortbread, whoops!) and as promised they're very soft, they feel like when you take freshly baked cookies out of they oven a little bit too early and can't wait for them to cool down! The double chocolate certainly smelt very chocolatey and I could smell caramel faintly once I'd got the cookies out of the pack. I've included two pictures of the double chocolate so you can see they do have quite a few chunks but with flash on the cookie looked a bit white, it didn't in reality though. 

The cookies taste good, the caramel flavour compliments the chocolate well and you really can't go wrong with double chocolate, but the texture was a little off for me. It felt like a freshly baked cookie but it felt weird being cold so I had a brainwave and stuck the second halves in the microwave for 20 seconds. Wow wow wow!! 20 seconds in a microwave and these cookies jumped from a 6 (very tasty but not memorable) to a solid 8! They taste like I'd just taken them from the oven, warm soft cookies with dripping gooey caramel and melted runny chocolate. The cookie itself stayed soft and moist and the chocolate and caramel chunks melted nicely and the flavour intensified if anything. I'll buy these again for sure. 

Rating 8/10 

Various Christmas, forgotten and a new(ish) treats

I really let blogging slack over the Christmas period, I had lots of lovely chocolates thanks to family members travelling well this year but sadly none made it to Boxing Day! Here are a few bits I've eaten and remembered to photograph! 

Lidl J D Gross Dark mousse au chocolat bars

   

I picked these up a while ago under the mistaken idea that it was one big bar of dark chocolate and I wasn't too impressed when I opened it up and found 15 tiny ones! However the makers  clearly know what they're doing as this would be far too much in an ordinary or sharing sized block. 

The bars are pretty long, narrow but still quite deep and have a nice thick shell of dark chocolate. Inside however is the good stuff, a lovely whipped chocolate mousse which goes perfectly with the outside casing. 

These really are delicious little bites, they are extremely rich though which is why the size is perfect. They were just right with my afternoon coffee, the richness gives a lovely chocolate hit without wanting more and I can keep telling myself they're so little I don't have to feel bad about eating them all! 

Rating 8/10

Chips Ahoy Popcorn Candy Chip 

I've previously reviewed the other cookie in the 2 we in the UK are provided by Chips Ahoy and really enjoyed it, about time I got round to this one. 

I wasn't really too excited to try this cookie, it seems a bit strange - a chocolate chip cookie with smartie like pieces and popcorn in it? But I bought them anyway in the name of blogging (yeah OK!) and 'forced' myself to have one. 

They are pretty much identical in size and shape to the other cookie, albeit with more bits sticking out, quite small in diameter but nice and thick and I did notice my cookie seemed to be lacking in the pieces department! 

Then I turned it upside down.. 

The cookie itself is good - as usual, the chocolate chips are good, the crunchy candy pieces are fine as is the popcorn and they make for an interesting mouth feel. But I really can't say I'm too impressed by these, don't get me wrong I didn't dislike them it's just maybe a bit too much in one cookie for me, I prefer the stronger flavours in the other version. I'll eat these again because they really aren't bad but I won't moan if my fiancée manages to eat all of them. Again. 

Rating 6/10 

Toffee Penguin 

I'm not sure how new these toffee penguins are but I certainly haven't tried them and toffee is a favourite of mine so I grabbed these as soon as I saw them. 

There's probably not much point in describing the basic penguin bar, I'm sure everyone's tried one - and both the packaging and the actual bar look like your basic penguin bar, although the wrapper is orange (a colour I normally associate with toffee for some reason). 

The outer chocolate is the same, a pretty tasty thick chocolate shell, the texture is the same as well but the creamy filling inside is where all the flavour is. As promised its definitely toffee - and a good toffee at that. To me this is actually nicer than a standard penguin and asking as its on sale I'll be buying! For such a simple change it makes a big difference, good stuff! 

Rating 8/10 

Hershey's Cookies 'n' Creme Holiday Bar 

I've tried the Hershey's cookie and Creme bar before but looking back I can't seem to find my review! I don't mind it to be honest, I find it the only enjoyable bar Hershey sell the rest seem a bit off to be honest! 

I only bought this because the front promised that the same creepy picture that is printed on the wrapper would be printed on the bar but as you can see it didn't really turn out that way! 

I forgot to photo the back of the chocolate and you can't really see from the front just how many chocolate chips are in this. The 99g bar was actually nicer to me as it is a much thicker bar than the single serving version, which is longer and thinner. The extra thickness added a nice crunch and chew and I did enjoy this. That said I bought this in the reduced section, I wouldn't pay the extortionate import prices for this, there are much nicer home grown cookie filled or flavoured bars available. 

Rating 6/10