Ambrosia Frozen Custard - Vanilla with Chunky Fudge

Lady Luck is firmly on my side recently! Not only did I finally find the Covent Garden Mulitgrain Risotto I've been after completely by accident, but on Saturday the lovely Nibs tweeted that Ambrosia were releasing a frozen custard, initially in Morrisons and on Ocado. My interest was certainly piqued but my Morrisons may as well be Hell on Earth and I wasn't planning on an Ocado order any time soon. I was rummaging the freezer in Sainsbury's for the Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough 'Wich when what should I find but the frozen custards! Funny how things work out.. 

I got to Googling, as from what I remember the recipe for ice cream is basically a custard but it seems there are a few differences. According to U.S FDA Guidelines (I'm assuming a similar sort of standard goes for the U.K), for a frozen dessert to be considered a frozen custard it has to have a higher (1.4%) percentage of egg yolk solids - a smaller percentage means it's ice cream. Wikipedia informs me "true" frozen custard is a lot denser than ice cream, up to 100% overrun - half of the finished product can be air in soft serve ice cream but in frozen custard it is around 15-30%, similar to gelato. 

I couldn't really care about the minor specifics as long as it tastes good and I love me some Ambrosia custard! 

Things had started well even buying the things - 

- look at the size of these bad boys! 850ml compared to a standard 500ml Ben & Jerry's and quite a bit cheaper at £3.25. Though if you're still paying full price for B&J more fool you, seeing as they're always on offer somewhere! 

I got carried away and bought myself both flavours, Vanilla and Vanilla with Chunky Fudge but I decided to kick things off with the latter. 

Vanilla flavour custard ice cream with fudge flavour sauce and fudge chunks. 

So, after all that its not even technically a pure frozen custard and it shows in the consistency. It couldn't have been any softer straight from the freezer without being a melted mess! It was a lot closer to soft scoop ice cream than any other big brand ice cream being sold in the supermarkets with the exception of Walls Big Bite - if you've tried that, this is how soft it is, although to be fair it does have a much thicker and fuller mouth feel. 

 The flavour is vanilla, still I expected some kind of similarity to custard but the yellow was about as far as that went. There was no distinctive custard taste and not too much vanilla if I'm honest. There tend to be two types of vanilla: proper, delicious vanilla bean style flavour and the vanilla which is more of a plain base flavour, which sadly this is. It's OK but a bit boring. 

Confession time, the tubs are huge but I was hungry. I ate the lot, good job really as the top section only had the fudge chunks you can see and a tiny sauce swirl. The fudge pieces were interesting, some were soft and more caramel-y in nature and seemed to melt away and some were a lot firmer and stickier with a chewy fudge like texture. I wouldn't have been happy if I'd bought a bag of fudge and they tasted like these, quite bland and sticking along the plain and boring theme but the texture at least gave me some satisfaction. 

And this is where my greediness comes into play. 

The bottom two thirds had a lot less fudge chunks but a whole lot more sauce and thankfully, its delicious. The flavour alternates between fudge and caramel though I find them to be quite similar anyway, and it's lovely and strong. It's sweet and rich yet was perfectly manageable amongst the duller vanilla and fudge chunks. 

It wasn't just mine, Mr.1T had exactly the same problem with his (yes, we're both pigs but we're doing you a favour) in that all the sauce was mainly in the middle and bottom of the tub. 

The sauce has a thick gooey consistency and the texture of that combined with the creamy soft custard/ice cream hybrid and the chewy sticky fudge was a winner. It's an easy eat, lighter than a heavier ice cream and reasonably priced but there are a few issues with the distribution of the fudge and sauce (not quite as bad as the Cadbury ice cream mind you) but if you want my advice, find some way to eat from the bottom up! 

Rating:

A disappointing start, I'd have liked a lot more sauce and a better base flavour. 

6/10 

Marks & Spencer Hot Cross Buns

Hot Cross Buns are one of the few cakes (buns to be specific) I enjoy. The word enjoy doesn't do justice to my love of the sweet, sticky balls of dough - adore, covet, obsess - these are all more appropriate words. Of course they're sold all year round unlike other Easter treats but the special ones are saved for the few months between Christmas and whenever Easter falls. 

You can't beat a normal Hot Cross Bun, I don't think there is a bad way to eat one - plain, with butter, toasted, untoasted, for breakfast, lunch or a snack they are pretty much a perfect food! 

Last year I tried (though I dont think I reviewed) the Tesco fresh bakery Double Chocolate Hot Cross Buns but I had vouchers to use up this year and so Marks & Sparks it was! I picked up two different flavours as a 2 for £2.50 promotion and got 8 decent sized buns for my troubles. 

Toffee Fudge & Belgian Chocolate

First up had to be these. If I had to pick 5 of my favourite confectioneries , toffee, fudge and chocolate would be three of them (that would be purely confectionery - junk food in general I wouldn't know where to start!)

My excitement to eat these only grew once I'd got a look at them out of the wrapper, they're quite large and had that glistening sticky look which meant I knew before I'd even tried that these weren't going to be a stodgy dry bun. 

They mainly smelt of normal Hot Cross Buns, though once I'd actually got up close and personal I could smell some deliciously chocolate undertones. 

 Sometimes appearances aren't deceiving and you should judge a book by its cover.. It was just as moist (shudder) as I expected, with a thick, quite dense mouth feel but it was far from stodgy. My first bun didn't have that many additional pieces to be fair, so around half of it was just a plain hot cross bun - the toffee, chocolate and fudge are in chips and pieces - and to be truthful, I'd have been perfectly satisfied with just this! It's sweet with the usual spices that aren't so strong to be overwhelming but enough to have that unmistakable Easter taste. 

I'll be straight, in the first I was seriously lacking on the toffee front to the point I didn't taste it at all, but I didn't miss it in the slightest. The first and stronger flavour was the Belgian chocolate, dark and rich with a delicious flavour it complimented the spices of the bun and the sweetness of the fudge perfectly. The fudge pieces were an odd one, they provided the sweetness to wrap the overall flavour up neatly and while I could taste a milkiness to them that the Belgian chocolate chips didn't have, I'm not sure I'd have known they were Fudge had that not been in the name, I'd have probably guessed a milk chocolate. They were very tasty either way! Mr.1T's buns and the second one I had were chocked full of Toffee though, so I think its luck of the draw.

Speaking of the second bun, my God I should have tried it this way first!! I toasted it literally for seconds, just so it was warm but still soft and squidgy and it was even better. The extra toffee and fudge pieces were delicious, sweet and both had the appropriate flavour but the dark Belgian chocolate stole the show. It melted immediately into pools of gooey rich chocolate, its going to be a pain in the backside to clean my toaster but it was oh so worth it. Amazing. 

Rating:

Delicious!! I have another M&S gift card left, would it be wrong to spend it all on chocolate buns??

8/10 

Berries & Cherries 

We'd have both been quite happy with just the chocolate buns but pushed the boat out as we weren't paying and decided to take M&S up on their 2 for £2.50 offer. There were a few other choices, but the idea of apple or orange in my Hot Cross Buns didn't seem to appealing and we went with the fairly safe Berries & Cherries option - raspberries, cranberries, blackberries and cherries. 

They don't look as tempting as the previous pack, but stick some chocolate on top of nearly anything and I'll want to eat it! That said, the actual bun looked drier and I pinched the juiciest looking ones for myself before Mr.1T noticed. The berries and cherries stood out, except for the blackberries which looked a lot like raisins, and a lot of the dough had been stained various shades of red. 

They were the complete opposite to the Toffee, Fudge & Chocolate flavour - whereas that smelt like a Hot Cross Bun with a little chocolate this had a much fruitier scent and the spices of the bun seemed like an afterthought. 

As before I tried each flavour twice, the first was un-toasted and I was a little surprised. Considering these should be the same base bun just with different ingredients (the chocolate/fruits) it had a completely different feel. I did eat the chocolatey bun the day before the fruity but there are still 4 days before the use by date. Where the bun was beautifully moist before it had a stodgier, chewier feel in the berries and cherries. It seemed a lot more work eating it if that makes sense, it probably wouldn't have seemed inferior if I'd eaten these first but the quality seemed poorer and I'm not sure 24 hours would make that much difference - and I picked the juiciest looking! 

Texture aside, it seemed to have less of a Hot Cross Bun flavour to it too, the traditional spices were a lot duller and the dough tasted less sweet too. 

The fruits were good though, very vibrant, juicy and fresh tasting. Happily there were four clear individual flavours and it didn't all mesh into one big vaguely 'red berry' flavour - they are the star of the show for sure. 

Unlike the previous buns, the Berries & Cherries didn't taste very different toasted, the only real change was in the texture. Toasting it seemed to make it feel less doughy or stodgy so it was a slight improvement but not enough that if there were any more left I'd move my lazy arse off the sofa to the toaster! 

Rating:

It sounds like I'm really slating these but they weren't that bad, sadly they'd just suffered the fate of being eaten after the delicious Toffee, Fudge & Belgian Chocolate Buns! 

7/10

Flipz White Fudge Covered Pretzels

 Flipz White Fudge Covered Pretzels have been reviewed to death but Christmas caused my foreign food hunts to be a bit forgotten about.. 

These used to be sold in the UK normally but I had the imported

version. 

Truth be told, they didn't smell that great - sugar, sugar and a bit more sugar. I'm unsure if it's the US version or just my bag but I expected a bit more of a white fudge coating on my pretzels.

I wondered beforehand what the difference with white fudge and white chocolate is but maybe it's one of those weird rules again about what can and can't be labelled as chocolate. It tasted like white chocolate to me anyway, albeit a lot less sweet than it smelt and I expected. I've tried American white chocolate a few times and although white chocolate is always very sweet, American stuff manages to reach another level of sickly sweetness. The white fudge here was pleasantly surprising, I noticed mainly the flavour - of course it is sweet but it does have a creamy, richer than expected taste too. 

I enjoyed the pretzels themselves, they had a nice crunchy consistency but I found they weren't salty enough for me. They were slightly salty while I was eating them but the sweet fudge would have benefited from a super salty pretzel to really get that addictive contrast. 

Interstingly even though the flavour was mainly the fudge/chocolate at the time, while I'm here writing my review up an hour later, all I can taste is salty pretzel! I'd have liked that saltiness all throughout rather than an aftertaste. 

Flipz White Fudge Covered Pretzels are ok, a bit moreish and tasty enough but not worth the price they want for them. I'll save my money in future and carry on making my own.

6/10 

Lidl Christmas Treats Part One

Today's reviews are the first two products I picked up from Lidls Christmas range. As Lidl are a German company and lots of my favourite Christmas treats are traditionally German, they seem a little more authentic and a lot cheaper too! 

Favorina Gingerbread Assortment 

It's only been recently I've developed a real taste for Gingerbread and I couldn't resist this big assorted bag. 

There were a few different types in the bag but they all had a soft, chewy biscuit base with a delicious warm gingerbread flavour. The small ones with sprinkles had a lovely little sweet crunch added that played off against the spiced gingerbread nicely, the plainer ones with a chocolate drizzle on top had a solid, slightly dark thin chocolate bottom - the gingerbread was strongest but there was just enough to differentiate it from a plain biscuit. The coloured ones didn't have any difference in flavour, the sugary icing was good, very sweet but balanced against the chocolate bottom and biscuit centre made for a sweet, spiced, warm, rich delicious mouthful mash up! It sounds like there's a lot going on but they all really blend well together. 

These were amazing, so addictive and moreish and the bags gone already! I've read they tend to sell out quickly so I hope there's some left when I get a chance to get back into Lidl. 

8/10

Lidl Deluxe Butter Fudge with Christmas Spices  

I'm a sucker for fudge, I've tried the original Lidl Deluxe Butter Fudge and really enjoyed it so this was always going to end up in my basket. 

This is a spiced butter fudge with raisins, glacé cherries and brandy. The spices are ground cinnamon and nutmeg and suprisingly this was what I could smell - especially the cinnamon. 

The fudge was the same as in the plain version. Firm, crumbly, buttery, rich and creamy. This is authentic traditional fudge, if you're used to Lonka/Candy King style fudge - plastic feeling, hard and chewy (don't get me wrong I like Lonka fudge but it's definitely low end stuff), then don't expect anything resembling that at all. A very tasty fudge base but it was pushing my limits for sweetness. The spices are certainly very Christmassy tasting especially with the slight brandy flavour thrown in the mix. There were a few chewy raisins but not many and not enough to make a dent in the Christmas/butter fudge flavours. The glacé cherries were a different story altogether. My box was seriously lacking on both the raisin/cherry front, but in the whole box I had ONE glacé cherry. The one you can see in the photo. The one that wasn't even inside any fudge, just sitting on top. Thankfully the other flavours were good enough to make up for it but I was very dissapointed! 

Overall there was a very festive flavour to the fudge - it tasted like Christmas for sure - and the quality was good and extremely buttery but it ended up sickeningly sweet. If I'd stopped at one or two (and had cherries and raisins as promised) this would be a 7/10 but the pure amount of sugar (ingredients; sugar, butter, sweetened condensed milk, glucose syrup, partially inverted sugar syrup, raisins, brandy, glacé cherries, flavouring) was too much. I know fudge is just sugar, butter and milk but come on! 

6/10 

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 

Thorntons Little Temptations - Dark Chocolate

Tempting bites bursting with crispy flakes and fudge pieces

Thorntons are really going for it lately! Three new fairground flavours, a whole new range of biscuit and mini cake bites and "sharing sized" bags of Little Temptations in milk and dark chocolate. 

I tried the three new flavours myself and Lucy tried the biscuits, the fairground flavours seem to divide opinion and the biscuits went down like a lead balloon so I can't say I was overly excited to try these. 

The picture on the front is a bit misleading, I thought the crispy flake pieces and the fudge would be separate but they're not - they're a bit like a posher version of one of my pick'n'mix favourites the Crispy Bite. 

I quite like Thorntons dark chocolate, it's never what I'd go for if I fancied a truely dark chocolate - it's a bit too sweet for that but it's still quite tasty and I do like Thorntons vanilla fudge it has a nice flavour and a slightly crumblier texture but is still quite chewy. 

I started with the smaller clusters, sadly they didn't have any fudge in but they to be fair they were just parts that had fallen off the larger ones but they did have a very crisp, crunchy texture with a nice  flavour. The chocolate is 55% so does have a deeper, richer flavour but (for me) is still quite sweet and as each cluster is made up of mainly cornflakes I could quite clearly taste those too. 

Getting onto the larger pieces I finally found some fudge, they add a little more sweetness to each cluster but the normal vanilla fudge flavour I was expecting was overwhelmed by the chocolate and cornflakes. Some clusters had quite a few fudge cubes and they ended up being quite sweet which balanced out against the darker chocolate really well, they also added some chewiness to each crunchy bite - I didn't notice each individual piece of fudge but I could feel the difference in clusters with more. They ended up being an addictive mouthful of rich smooth chocolate, crunchy cornflake pieces and chewy sweet fudge. Separately each part might not be amazing but together they made for a very moreish mix, Mr.1T took the milk chocolate version but I don't mind, I think the contrast of the dark chocolate against the sweet fudge is what made these so moreish to me. 

7/10 

Cadbury Desserts

I'm back reviewing snacks available in England, I still have one foreign goody to try but I'll get to that later in the week. For today I have two new desserts out of a range of three from Cadbury. Don't look for these in the chilled aisle if you want to buy them though, they're in with the custards, jellies and Angel Delights strangely! 

The desserts are made with Cadbury milk chocolate (note the lack of the word Dairy before the milk!) and are in a split pot/corner yoghurt style. 

The first of the two I tried was toffee clusters. "A milk chocolate dessert with a side of toffee crunch clusters". I tried both sides separately before mixing them together and going by the chocolate I'm even more confused! It's not Dairy Milk that's for sure, either the older recipe or the new but it tastes exactly how I'd imagine the generic milk chocolate Cadbury use, melted down and eaten with a spoon would taste. I took one look at the ingredients and put it down again pretty sharpish as the more I think about it the more I don't really want to know how they keep it that consistency!! 

I tried the toffee cluster next, at first they were very crunchy but gave way to a nice chewy texture which I did enjoy. The taste was exactly the same (to me) as a sugar free Werthers original (never ever eat a whole bag of those!!) they were slightly mild to begin but did get stronger as I chewed. 

Once I'd given them a stir together I was suprised to find the toffee flavour actually got stronger once it was mixed in with the chocolate, probably due to more per mouthful but it did stand out against the chocolate and the crunchy, chewy pieces really went well with the super smooth dessert. Coming to the end of the pot though, I ran out of toffee clusters and this dessert became too rich and sweet even for a sugar fiend like me. There is a plain version of this available that I have in a cupboard (why not the fridge? I don't like it!) that I'm pretty put off of trying due to how quickly this became sickly. 

Next up was Fudge pieces, the chocolate is identical so I'll save going through all that again! 

The side of fudge pieces are tiny little squares that reminded me of the type Dr Oetker and the likes make for cake decorating. They are a very soft, more traditional style type of fudge but the similarities ended there sadly. The fudge I tried alone was pretty much flavourless, the texture was there - lovely and chewy and I did get a faint fudge taste but to be completely honest I think it's because I was looking for it. 

Once mixed in with the dessert, any fudge flavour that may have existed disappeared. It was completely overpowered by that sickly sweet taste and where I originally liked the texture it let it down here. Long after the chocolate slid down (that's the only way to describe it - it's that smooth) I was left, with every spoonful, chewing a mouthful of bland fudge. I really love fudge but I did not like it at all here. 

The toffee clusters bump the first up to a 6/10 but the fudge is given a generous 5/10 - that chocolate is just too much for me and they creep me out that they aren't refrigerated but are still in date for another 6 months... 

The start of my Christmas Chocolates (and a few I forgot about!)

Wow I was supposed to blog about these weeks ago, I've noticed a lot of blogs slowing down recently so I suppose the madness that's Christmas has taken over everyone!

First up was Maynards Sour Tricks.

Apologies for the slightly blurry stolen from Google images picture but I completely forgot I had said I would blog about these and by the time I remembered, they were gone. Oops.

This is a seasonal Halloween bag from Maynards so unless any shops have some leftover I don't think you'll be able to get this again until next year. I'll probably buy these again it was nice to have a fizzy sour version, normally I buy the plain jellies but these were good. There's no point going into too much detail as they're off the shelves now… Must try harder!

Rating 6/10

Rowntree's Randoms sweet n sour.

The packet says new, are they new? I don't know how new by my late standards but I do know I haven't tried them before.

The packet has some nice pastel coloured, sugar coated squishy sweets. I can work out a snowman, a rocket, an icecream, milk shakes, a lock and possibly a tortoise? So far so random.

It also contains some typical fizzy jelly sweets. I can't lie I didn't really try too hard to work out what these are, I think there are some crowns, roller skates, a car and chess pieces in there though.

There isn't too much to say on this bag, it's an enjoyable bag of Rowntrees who usually manage to do sweets well and this is no different. I had a feeling I wouldn't get round to blogging about these straight away and so I usually make notes on my phone about something I plan to review. All these say is good - yellow ones not sour but too tart for me. I do remember that being the only sweet I wasn't keen on but the rest of the bag gets a thumbs up from me.

Rating 6/10

 Lidl Deluxe Butter Fudge

I loooove fudge. Any kind of fudge - chocolate covered fudge, harder chewy fudge, soft smooth fudge and the crumbly grainy fudge.

I think you can tell from the photo this is a lovely crumbly, melt in the mouth, grainy fudge. It's very buttery without being too rich. The texture and flavour are spot on and being from Lidl is a bargain too. I will be buying this again.

Rating 8/10

Waitrose Christmas Cracker Selection

I'm a sucker for gimmicks and when I saw this miniature 100g box of chocolates I wouldn't normally bother, however give me the same miniature chocolates in a box that looks and opens like a cracker and I'll buy it in a heartbeat!

The box was supposed to contain 9 chocolates - I got lucky and had 10 and my extra was milk chocolate fudge, not that I got to eat it as someone else in this house is rather partial or fudge too!

Dark chocolate orange crème

Milk chocolate strawberry crème

Milk chocolate coffee truffle

Milk chocolate caramel barrel

Milk chocolate biscuit in caramel

Milk chocolate Hazlenut in caramel

I didn't bother with pictures of the plain chocolate, or the toffee or fudge, they look the same in all boxes (I did notice the toffee is the same as the big 200g bags of toffee they sell) but as you can see from the pictures they are all nicely packed out chocolates with a good ratio of filling to shell. The flavours are good and I did enjoy this little box, the caramel is deliciously gooey and unlike the next product the coffee chocolate was the one that really stood out. It has a lovely strong coffee taste and smell and is easily my favourite in this box, however once Id noticed that the toffee included is the same as the cheaper,larger bags they sell in store (and that I already have sitting in my cupboard!) I was a little disappointed. I thought they'd at least put some special christmas chocolates in. Anyway they still tasted good.

Rating  7/10

Rittersport Kaffee + Nuss

My bar came back with a friend from Germany so I don't have any English info available but I think the name is pretty easy to work out.

I love rittersport bars. The milk chocolate is always of a good quality, they're nice and thick and the fillings are normally tasty and substantial.

I enjoyed the chewiness the nuts bring to the bar, but the coffee flavour was just underwhelming for me. I do however drink my coffee black and always put an extra scoop in the machine when it's just for me so other people may well find the coffee perfectly strong enough. It was just more of an aftertaste to me and being that it's the first word in the name of the bar I thought it would have more of a presence. I'm really dissapointed as I was so looking forward to this. It is another nice bar from rittersport though, it just didn't meet my coffee expectations sadly.

Rating 6/10 

Cookies, Thorntons and Angel Delight

Chips Ahoy Crispy Choco Caramel

These have been out for a while, at first in Asda I think but they're everywhere now and I finally picked some up. I do enjoy biscuits but cookies aren't at the top of my list, I'm quite partial to chocolate digestives (preferably dark chocolate), cookies I can take or leave. After trying the Cadbury Chips Ahoy bar and reading all the hype about the original cookie in America I wanted to try them and while we for some reason don't have the original cookie we do have this Crispy Choco Caramel version as well as a popcorn one.

The packs quite big and there are 12 cookies in each pack, while they're not that wide these are thick chunky cookies.

Chocolate is definitely the main flavour in this cookie but the caramel shines through too. This is a rich, sweet, moist cookie, sometimes I find cookies a bit dry which is why I tend to avoid them but this isn't at all and the crispy pieces add a bit of extra texture. These are incredibly moreish, I really hope Chips Ahoy bring out the original version!

Rating 8/10 

Thorntons Fabulous Fudge

This is one of two new(ish) bar from Thorntons, the other being milk chocolate with toffee pieces. As far as I'm aware they're only sold in W H Smiths at the moment and have been for a while, it's taken me this long to find a W H Smiths where they don't keep the chocolate bars only at the tills -  why do they do that? Sometimes I just want to buy chocolate and I'm not queuing up incase there's none I like!

This is a standard 100g bar, separated into even blocks of 3 apart from 1 larger block at the end which could be a little annoying if you're portioning this out but I ate it all in one go so…  

This isn't advertised on the Thorntons website and my lovely fiancée managed to throw the wrapper away before I'd even finished this so I don't have the specifics on this but I'm pretty sure it's a fudge flavoured milk chocolate with extra fudge pieces inside. The chocolate is nice and sweet and the fudge pieces are a lovely add in. Once the chocolate has melted in your mouth you're left with chewy fudge, a nice change from the usual crunch that's added to bars. I really like the flavours and textures of this, and the fact it only cost me £1 made it even better.

Rating 7/10

Thorntons Special Toffee Milk Choclolate.

I do like toffee but if it came head to head with fudge it would lose every time. Normally.

This is the other Thorntons sharing block, the basics are the same as the as the fudge bar -  once again my OCD fiancée had thrown the packet away before I'd even finished the bar so I can't give you the finer details.

There are toffee pieces dotted throughout, I had a generous and evenly spaced amount - sometimes, like ice cream, I find some parts have more and others none but that wasn't the case here. The toffee flavour is good, I enjoy Thorntons fudge and toffee anyway and I think this is the same recipe used in the bar. As with the fudge bar the chocolate melts away to leave crunchy chewy toffee pieces and for the first time this beats fudge for me!

Rating 8/10

Angel Delight Bubblegum Flavour

I absolutely loved Angel Delight as a kid, my mum used to make it for me and my sister and we had special fancy glass bowls she used to dish it up in, looking back now they were just ordinary glass bowls but I remember feeling very grown up! I still eat Angel Delight from time to time now, I'll write online it's nostalgic but really I think it's still quite nice ;-).

I picked this up in Tesco about a week and a half ago and I put it off for a while because after I'd thought about it I didn't really fancy the idea of a bubblegum flavour, it's strange to me.

Anyway I opened this up and they've got the smell spot on, it's very strong, very overpowering and very bubblegum. Infact it's so bubblegum-y that it actually put me off a bit. It smells just like Hubba Buuba, artificial and I swear you can just smell the sugar and I couldn't really see how that would be nice in a mousse/dessert/whatever Angel Delight is classed as nowadays.

Fortunately (unfortunately?)  after I made this and was leaving it for the five minutes to set someone came round so I popped it in the fridge and didn't get back to it for 2 hours. When I opened the fridge everything smelt of bubblegum, the smell had just overtaken everything and despite really not wanting this I got stuck in.

I'm not sure if it's because I left it a lot longer to set than you're supposed to or if it's because I put it in the fridge or maybe it's just like this, but the taste was extremely muted compared to the smell. This was a good thing for me! I could taste the bubblegum but it was very dull, I wonder if this is the same base as the strawberry version just with added flavour because every now and then it tasted very similar.

This was Ok but it's not something I'd buy again, if anyone has tried it and has a different experience to me please let me know as I really think the two hour gap affected it.

Rating 6/10